Corriedale Review

Corriedale is already considered one of the biggest soap events of 2026, which is remarkable considering the year has only just started. The crossover sees ITV’s big soaps come together for the first time.

A massive car accident happens on a stretch of road in the Yorkshire Dales. This event happens due to loads of people from Beckindale and Weatherfield running to different locations, to either get home or stop people from going to other places or do certain actions.

Corriedale has been hyped up for weeks by ITV, and the reception has generally been positive. The crossover averaged 4.2 million viewers. It had been jokingly called the Avengers: Doomsday of British soaps. It was a first for British soaps.

I am a casual viewer of soaps. I watch the occasional episode, and I’m more familiar with Coronation Street than Emmerdale, although Emmerdale’s Amelia Flanagan has been impressive and should have a bright acting future. Corriedale suffered from a paradox since it was an episode made to draw in new viewers, but people needed to be fans of both soaps to fully understand what was going on. New and casual viewers will have little to no investment in the events of Corriedale.

As an episode, Corriedale was a traditional event episode. It was centred on a disaster which had stress, danger, and stakes, and births, deaths and tragedies. Storylines were resolved, such as Carla’s abduction, and new ones emerged, including a tragic diagnosis for the longest-serving character. However, as an event episode, it was disappointing.  The main stunt was lacklustre, and the episode took place at night, so it was hard to tell what was happening, especially when the crossover moved into the woods.

Soaps have suffered from declining viewership, which has resulted in reduced budgets, cutting characters and episode counts, and changing release models. Even though Corriedale was marketed as a big episode, it actually felt limited. Most of the episode took place on the same stretch of road, the woods, and the local hospital, and the car crash felt small compared to what British soaps have achieved in the past. Disaster episodes usually have a sense of scale and spectacle that could draw in all types of viewers.

The big draw of Corriedale was bringing together major soaps and seeing characters interact with each other. However, there was a disadvantage: the cast was too big. A lot of characters didn’t have much to do. The crossover was focused on concluding storylines from soaps that most of the Corrie and Emmerdale characters didn’t have much interaction with each other. There were two different soaps in the same episode instead of a proper crossover where characters from both soaps would have worked together, or have an event like characters from both soaps having a boxing match or something of that nature.

Corriedale was a case of it being made for the fans. Causal viewers will be lost, nor experience much excitement from the unfolding disaster.