List of EastEnders characters (1985)
Michelle Fowler (also Holloway), played by Susan Tully from 1985 to 1995 and Jenna Russell since 2016, is the daughter of Arthur Fowler (Bill Treacher) and Pauline Fowler (Wendy Richard). Although she is one of the brighter people in Walford, that does not stop Michelle making some huge mistakes during her time in Albert Square. Michelle has a habit of choosing the wrong men and her stubborn nature means that she rarely accepts anyone's help or listens to good advice. She is tough, feisty, determined, outspoken and never afraid to defend herself or her beliefs. Early on in the series, the character of Michelle becomes central to the programme and is the focus of a controversial storyline involving her teenage pregnancy. Press interest in the show escalated to "record levels" as journalists continuously tried to predict who had fathered Michelle's baby. In whodunnit fashion, the audience had been kept in the dark as to the real identity of the father and were given teasers implicating several residents on The Square. The audience finally discovered the culprit in episode 66 of the programme, October 1985. The episode was written by series co-creator/script editor Tony Holland and directed by co-creator/producer Julia Smith, and was considered to be a landmark episode in the show's history. Four possible suspects are seen leaving the Square in the early half of the episode: Tony Carpenter (Oscar James), Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson) and Den Watts (Leslie Grantham). As Michelle waits by their rendezvous point a car pulls up and finally the fluffy white legs of Roly the poodle bound out of the car, and give it all away: Den Watts is the man meeting Michelle and it was he who had fathered her baby. The rest of the episode consists of just one long scene, where Den and Michelle discuss whether or not to keep the baby. Up to that time it was the longest scene ever done in a soap-opera, lasting fifteen minutes.
Dot Cotton
An enduring friendship featured in "EastEnders" was the one shared between the characters Dot Cotton and Ethel Skinner (played by Gretchen Franklin), first shown on-screen in 1985 and ending with Ethel's death in 2000, though the characters shared a backstory set prior to 1985 and were scripted as neighbours who grew old together in East London, along with Lou Beale (Anna Wing). "BBC News" has described Dot and Ethel as an "incomparable double-act [...] Occasionally spiky and often hilarious". Dot and Ethel shared few similarities in personality. During an episode that aired in 2008, just under 8 years after Ethel died in the serial, Dot discussed the differences between them: "Ethel was a free spirit, not like me. All bottled up. I remember sitting on the step of the Vic, waiting for me mother. I caught a glimpse of her through the door. Sitting on top of the piano, her legs spread, showing next week's washing and bawling out "Roll Out the Barrel". Just like a navvy. She didn't seem to have a care in the world. I had enough for both of us. I loved Ethel." Critic for "The Guardian", Nancy Banks-Smith, discussed the characters' relationship in 2008, comparing them to the girls written about by Dylan Thomas: "There was always one pretty and pert [Ethel], and always one in glasses [Dot]." Banks-Smith adds that theirs was "a symbiotic relationship in which the pretty one looks even prettier by contrast and the plain one is popular by proxy. Which is not to say it is not a real and enduring friendship."