The Albert Square soap’s 40th anniversary has been absolutely wild, and now it’s released its best live episode ever – even if the viewer vote on the outcome of a romantic plot wasn’t that thrilling

The 40th anniversary of EastEnders couldn’t have come at a better time. Ratings are in freefall; once the most watched thing on TV, these days the soap is lucky if it cracks the top 20. But an anniversary like this gives EastEnders an opportunity to not only celebrate itself, but to reaffirm its own mission statement. And it has gone about this by going on an absolute tear.

With little else to lose, EastEnders has spent the last few weeks wildly swinging for the fences. Don’t mistake this for hyperbole, either. Just look at last Thursday’s episode where – and I promise I’m not making any of this up – Phil Mitchell embarked on a long monologue about all the different things he’s survived (alcoholism, drug addiction, illness, heart attacks, an actual shooting), then travelled back in time and murdered a younger version of himself, before the ghost of his dead mother arrived and urged him to kill himself. It was utterly bizarre, but it was also incredible. Had a big budget streaming show attempted something this daring, it would be lauded to the heavens. But this is old workday EastEnders, and so the whole thing passed without comment.

EastEnders Live aired on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.