The thrilling action starts with the world’s worst sea rescue as a tragic mum slips slowly beneath the waves while her indifferent sons and a lousy lifeboat guy watch her drown from a distance of about three feet. Hail the heroes.

But fast forward 21 years and there’s even worse news for the picturesque Irish coastal town of Redwater. Kat and Alfie Moon have come to stay. A lukewarm welcome to Albert Square’s most irritating couple in all their lack of glory. The return we’ve not been waiting for.

Last seen depressing the hell out of millions of bored EastEnders fans with the infernal saga of the boy a bunch of nuns nicked from her after she gave birth in a convent, bed-hopping Kat has arrived in the Emerald Isle to resuscitate the stupefying storyline we’d all happily forgotten.

Anyway, within minutes of taking up residence in a house with a view, Mr and Mrs Moon mosey on down to the beach where the locals all don fancy dress and run to the ocean looking like idiots. Not much of a stretch for ludicrously thick Alfie, who joins in the fun in a lollipop man outfit he borrows from a heavily pregnant policewoman. How handy.

Meanwhile, crazy Kat stares at every bloke in the crowd in the somewhat optimistic belief she’ll bump into her long lost kid straight away. Ooh, there’s some bozo with black hair… surely, it must be him? It isn’t. What a surprise.

But the former Walford lowlife proves she’s no mean detective when she poses a profoundly probing question that should narrow her search down significantly. “Are there a lot of people in their 30s?” she enquires. Eat your heart out, Sherlock Holmes.

Naturally, by the evening of their first day, the Cockney newcomers are best friends with everyone and Kat heads to the pub to listen to a Queen Vic style speech to the regulars by some old geezer called Lance, whose address to the community ends with the stirring words: “Up your hole with a big jam roll.” No one knows why.

Before launching her emotional bid to find her elusive son, Kat agrees with Alfie to keep the reason for their “holiday” a secret. In classic soap fashion, she remains resolutely tight-lipped for all of four hours. After spilling the beans to Lance, he sighs: “Bollocks.” Presumably, a reference to the script.

But, no ordinary pensioner, Lance likes to gallop along the beach on his horse and go swimming in his wetsuit. He’s tormented by orders from his sinister wife Agnes never to reveal that she helped conceal the long-ago baby snatch that Kat only found out about when June Whitfield told her back in Soapland.

But Lance’s conscience has been pricked by Kat’s presence so he nips over to the church to inform Catholic priest Dermot that she’s his mother. Christ! After dwelling on the shock news overnight, the impressively holy Dermot decides to kill Lance. Bummer.

Along the way, there’s a deeply unconvincing clifftop nail-biter involving Alfie and his son Tommy pretending to be in a life or death predicament on a 45-degree slope. Even less exciting than the sea rescue.

As a drama, this nicely produced spin-off is passable tellyfilla. Lovely scenery, a Ballykissangel range of characters and a plot that dragged at first but picked up the pace and concluded intriguingly. It did just enough to persuade the punters to tune in for episode two.

Dynamic duo Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie have been playing their alter egos Kat and Alfie for several centuries so they can phone in their all-too-familiar performances and carry it off effortlessly.

By the time the mad Moons checked out of Albert Square they were way past their sell-by date. Alfie’s brilliant scheme to raise money by setting fire to his own house and burning Kat was the tipping point as they toppled into total implausibility. That, and Alfie’s refusal to seek treatment for his brain tumour, which still seems to be bothering him. Who knew he had a brain?

So far so average, Redwater is nothing to send a postcard home about. But at least it provided the chance for cliché queen Kat to regurgitate EastEnders’ most clapped out catchphrase: “Femlee’s everyfink.” Even when your son’s a homicidal maniac in a dog collar. Good luck Kat. God knows you’re gonna need it.