SOAP WATCH

Why are soaps so obsessed with splitting couples up only to get them back together again? Most characters marry multiple times, and they often get spliced to the same person twice.

It took hit-and-run accidents for Coronation Street’s Gary and Sarah and Emmerdale’s Moira and Cain to realise they still hold candles for one another. Viewers must have lost track of how many times Corrie’s Nick and Leanne have split up and fallen back in love. And it’s the same on/off story for Carla and Peter. Phil had chucked his wife Sharon out when Eastenders finished its run, but when it resumes they’ll undoubtedly get back together for what will be the fourth time.

It’s all the more puzzling, then, that Emmerdale’s David was using a dating app last week. Doesn’t he know it’s soap law that he’s only allowed to get romantically involved with his neighbours? Priya will be back on the market soon, I suspect, so she and David can pick up where they left off. Who knows, maybe they won’t even need to get run over first.

Jaci Stephen is away

■ SINEAD’S SAUCY STAND-IN

Daniel is desperate for another creepy date with prostitute and Sinead-lookalike Nicky. This time he invites her to his flat (pictured) where he cooks her dinner and hands her one of Sinead’s (inset) old cardigans to put on. Nicky suggests Daniel might be better off talking to his family, but when your siblings are Tracy and Peter Barlow you can understand why a call-girl seems a safer bet.

Abi is thrilled when social services agree to let her say goodbye to the twins before they start a new life in Australia. But disaster strikes at the garage when her arm gets

trapped in a car and she’s taken to hospital, missing the meeting. Does that mean it’s Abi’s turn to wear the nose tube they insert in every patient at Weatherfield General?

With Eileen away in Thailand, Sean and Mary open her post to discover a letter from Todd demanding £1,000. Sean texts Todd to tell him they’ll leave the money in Victoria Gardens, then plants a bag of fake notes while he, Billy and Mary keep watch. Will Todd turn up or is it a scam? And has anyone told him the rather grand-sounding Victoria Gardens is actually just a 6ft-square plot of wasteland in front of the Co-op?