CELEBRATIONS always bring out the worst in soaps. I don't mean the traditional Queen Vic Christmas dinner in which the turkey isn't the only bird that gets carved up or the wedding reception that ends with the bride walking out on the man she's just married. No, the matter under discussion is the need producers feel to mark soap anniversaries with extra special events that too often end up looking remarkably unspecial.

Coronation Street celebrated its 40th anniversary with a string of specials, from the ludicruous Freshco siege to the hour-long live episode in which Ken saved the street's cobbles from being torn up but couldn't save the programme from being a load of old cobblers. The guest appearance by Prince Charles only emphasised the unreality of the enterprise.

Well, the season of goodwill to all soap men and women is over. So will someone at Brookside please put Mad Max Farnham - and us - out of our misery and finish the Who Killed Susannah? storyline. She died after falling down the stairs (with a little bit of help from ex-hubby Max) in November in a week of episodes marking the Channel 4 soap's 16th birthday back in November and they've only just got around to the funeral. Susannah's body has been lying in a coffin in the front room for weeks on end. I want to know which brand of air freshener Max uses as no one has even complained about the smell. Why couldn't he just bury her under the patio like the Jordaches did with murdered Trevor? That was so much tidier. Like Susannah's corpse, rejected lesbian Shelley has been hanging around too long. Five minutes doesn't pass without her popping round the Corkhill house to tell Jackie she loves her and Jackie's daughter Lindsey that their affair is over. We've got the message, Shelley, now go away. These repetitive scenes are like watching a re-run of Groundhog Days but without the laughs.

Back in Corrie, irritating Anthony should be given the boot by unlucky-in-love Rita. He's married to a woman suffering from Alzheimer's whom he had consigned to a home until his daughter, who disapproves of her father's new ladyfriend, insisted on bringing her round for the dinner party Anthony and Rita were hosting. As the guests were Emily and Norris there wasn't much likelihood of partner-swapping for afters but the appearance of Mrs Anthony put a damper on the proceedings. Not so much because she was a jibbering, dribbling wreck but because she was played by Dilys Laye, an actress who dribbled very well but was wasting her talents in such a small role.

As for Ken Barlow, centrepiece of the 40th celebrations, and his increasingly tedious problems - that good old soap standby the Unexpected Re-appearance has been employed quite shamelessly. First long-lost son David turned up on the doorstep. Now equally long-lost daughter Susan is back to unlock old skeletons from the Barlow cupboard. Who cares? Couldn't Ken and dreary Deirdre be pensioned off to live somewhere sunny.

That would certainly rule out a transfer to Walford where the Christmas-time gloom was the usual mix of wife-beating, mental breakdown, marital strife, attempted murder, imprisonment and underage pregnancy. There is no sign of the dark cloud lifting and, although the panto season is over, nobody has told John Altman whose Nick Cotton becomes more like Abanazar every week. He's in a wheelchair after falling off the viaduct, having been given a little encouragement by Mark Fowler - a man who previously wouldn't have said boo to a goose but has turned into Charles Bronson in Death Wish since his brother Martin was fed dodgy drugs by nasty Nick.

Martin managed to father a child and now his mum, St Pauline Of The Cardigans, wants custody of the baby which schoolgirl Sonia (Give Us A Smile) Jackson has handed over for adoption. And what are we to make of Phil Mitchell? Phil punched live-in lover Lisa in the face, in one of the rare moments when that area wasn't shielded by her rapidly emptying wine glass. At least he showed some concern about her drinking. "There's only room for one alcoholic in this house and that's me," he told her. Who said he didn't have feelings?