the episode in which he left following the aftermath of the baby swap storyline attracted 10 million viewers according to digital spy. his two episode return saw on 19 april, 10.31 million people watch and 8.43 million on 21 april. christopher hooton from the "metro" newspaper negatively reviewed charlie's exit scenes, saying, "unfortunately the long-time cast member's exit felt a little rushed. [...] as "eastenders" characters' last hurrahs go, charlie slater's will not be going down in tv history." stuart heritage from "the guardian" criticised kirkwood's axings saying, by rights, this should be a national day of mourning. "eastenders" has got a new executive producer – bryan kirkwood – and, as executive producers so often do, he's decided to spend his first few days hiding in a bush, taking out several characters with a poisoned blowpipe. this weekend it emerged that six eastenders characters are to get the chop. some of them are long-standing and beloved, like charlie slater and minty. he said that it was 'a tremendously bad idea'. phil daniels who played kevin wicks in the soap, criticised the axing of charlie along with five other axings, as they were "good characters". a reporter writing for the "inside soap yearbook 2017" (released in november 2016) described charlie's death as "tragic".