Over to Soapland’s fabulous feast of festive blockbusters. Here they are, those powerhouse Christmas plotlines we’ve all been waiting for. EastEnders… weird liar Lee tells more lies to his stupid wife. Corrie… two grown men brawl in the street for no apparent reason. Emmerdale… some country bumpkin poacher’s ludicrous love life gets complicated. Er… that’s it.

Whatever happened to those brilliant December 25 episodes when the big stories sensationally exploded and everything that could possibly go wrong, did? They were invariably the best episodes of the year… and the season’s top telly by a mile. Now it’s hardly worth tuning in. Why don’t they bother anymore? I think we should be told.

In the fantasy world they call Albert Square the main attraction was ludicrous Lee’s continuing bizarre inability to tell the truth about anything. The morose former soldier confessed to Whitney that he may have spilled the beans to his workmates that the Queen Vic was full of cash gagging to be robbed. But after she informed her horrible husband that he disgusted her, dim Whit immediately dismissed the situation from her tiny mind and it was straight back to banal business as usual for the crap couple without a prayer.

Confirming the BBC’s apparent belief that call centres are evil hellholes packed with desperate losers and nasty crooks, Lee and his dodgy associates spent Christmas at the police station as the cops closed in on the great pub heist conspirators. Can the plods crack the case of the century? Who gives a toss?

And if that wasn’t thrilling enough… the inevitable liver donor we’ve all been dreading came along just in time to save uncouth oaf Phil Mitchell from a thoroughly well-deserved death. Damn! Plus – drum roll - Roxy’s incredible decision to not move to Ongar. And – gasp – Max Branning’s uneventful return after being wrongfully convicted of Lucy’s murder. Wow.

Meanwhile, on the cobblestones of doom, occasionally brain-damaged Nick was fiercely protecting the latest of his many romances with former prostitute Leanne. So he punched oceangoing dipstick and renowned deadbeat dad Peter Barlow in the face. Casual law-breaking is a way of life in Weatherfield. As is perpetual violence fuelled by constant drinking.

In other non-news, mad Mary the sudden rape victim is off to South Africa to live with her long-lost son who will doubtless turn out to be a conman. And boring Billy’s hitting the vicar trail again following his religious realisation that he was born to drink tea with his handful of remaining ancient parishioners. Good God!

But let’s not forget Emmerdale. Or rather, let’s. Can someone please tell the deluded scriptwriters that no one cares about flat cap Zak and those two tedious old women he’s torn between? In scenes of no drama, dreary Joanie kicked Poacher Boy into touch and the lovely Lisa refused to take him back. So he bunked down in psychotically unpredictable Cain’s caravan.

Now, you’ll never guess, Kelly’s all set to set said caravan alight. Yet another blaze in the village of the damned. OMG, whatever next! The problem with Emmerdale is it’s always on fire. Unless otherwise informed, assume the most combustible place on Earth is in the process of being consumed by flames. You’ll usually be right.

So when the complacent channels serve up mundane mediocrity for Christmas what do they get? Risible ratings. Corrie topped the charts with just over six million with EastEnders’ hour long special pulling in a puny audience of 5.9million. These are figures that would look bad in any normal week. At this time of year, they look tragic.