Why does Emmerdale keep splitting up its power couples?

If an actor decides to quit and their character is in an established relationship, as is the case with Giles and Bernice, it can’t be helped that the partnership will have to be ditched if their other half is staying put.

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And no one stays together forever (unless you’re Karl and Susan Kennedy in Neighbours, and even they’ve had their time apart), so we expect even happy couples to split for plot reasons.

But Emmerdale appear to have got trigger happy by calling time on many of their most popular double acts in recent months, and while some have been sadly necessary due to actor exits, others have felt baffling and pointless – the village has become Splitsville.

It was sadly inevitable that Robron, one of the soap’s most popular couples of all time, would call it a day when Ryan Hawley announced his plans to move on after five years as Robert Sugden, leaving co-star Danny Miller behind to mop up Aaron Dingle’s tears for his husband.

Following that literally days later with the sudden split of Charity Dingle and Vanessa Woodfield, another beloved combination of two characters with unexpected and brilliant chemistry, was too much to cope with – with Robron gone, did Vanity really need to end?

And what about ‘Coira’? (Emmerdale fans love to ship.)

Cain and Moira Dingle’s compelling journey from forbidden extra-marital roll-in-the-hay to one of the most dynamic, rooted-for marriages in the show has been tossed away for the sake of a contrived twist.

Moira’s explanation to Cain about why she cheated on him was “because I wanted to!”, but it’s clear she was manoeuvred into an unconvincing fling with hunky farm hand Nate Robinson to fortify the reveal he is her husband’s long-lost love child – a storyline which has suddenly been put on the backburner after all that build up and subsequent collateral damage.

Then there’s Pete Barton and Rhona Goskirk, Bob Hope and Brenda Hope, Marlon and Jessie Dingle… The next singles night at the Woolpack is going to be rammed. Thank goodness for Paddy and Chas for giving us old romantics something to cling onto.

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