5. Eastenders Dirty Den Returns
Dirty Den Watts was one of routinely depressing soap opera Eastenders most popular characters, securing an enormous 30 million viewers for the 1986 Christmas episode in a scene where he gives his wife Angie a set of divorce papers. But nothing lasts forever and Dirty Den was written out in an episode in 1989 where he was shot and pushed into a canal. Then in 2003, Dirty Den returned despite having been pushed into a canal while suffering from a bullet wound, and that a body identified as his was recovered from the canal and buried in 1990. His survival was explained by him escaping the canal and fleeing to Spain, and the body that was recovered was a member of the same gang he had been involved with. Because it makes perfect sense that a gang would pick one spot to routinely dump bodies. After his return, Den became involved with a series of feuds and affairs much like every other Eastenders character until his wife Chrissie beat him to death with a doorstop and buried him in the cellar of the pub with the help of two other women he had scorned, and concreted over it. Soap operas are nowhere near realistic but usually stay relatively grounded. And the return of a character who had been established as having died fourteen years previously was just ridiculous and a poor attempt to win the eternal ratings war with ITVs Coronation Street. Now were just waiting for him to walk into the Queen Vic next year and explain that Chrissie actually murdered his hitherto unseen twin brother.