Yahoo News 9 soap 'Who's the Daddy?' reveals that truly shocked us
Along with the never-ending menu of murders, catfights and punch-ups, one of the classic soap staples is the 'Who's the Daddy?' storyline. After a forbidden fling or one-night stand they'd rather forget, there's been no shortage of ladies who've found themselves up the duff and unsure of who the father actually is.
Here, we're taking a look back at the times that the big reveals in these storylines provided a genuinely jaw-dropping moment.
1. Den Watts (EastEnders, 1985)
This one was the daddy of all paternity reveals – pun intended. When Michelle Fowler, teenage heroine of the BBC's brand new soap, fell pregnant during its first year, the identity of the father became one of the earliest soap whodunits in the UK.
'Chelle refused to say who her babydaddy was, but viewers had their answer in an October 1985 episode which featured several suspects. We saw nurse Andy O'Brien, cafe owner Ali Osman, carpenter Tony Carpenter (!) and publican Den Watts all separately get into their cars and furtively drive off – just as Michelle was on her way to the canal to meet the father.
When a car eventually pulled up at the canal, it was the shot of its passenger – Roly the poodle – which told us that Dirty Den had done the deed. Genius.
Their secret remained so even after baby Vicki's birth, but Christmas 1986 saw the classic soap moment when Pauline Fowler realised that Den was the father of baby Vicki…
2. Ste Hay (Hollyoaks, 2014)
When Sinead O'Connor discovered that she was pregnant, she panicked. The fact that she was having an icky affair with her stepfather Tony may have had something to do with it.
Luckily (?) for Sinead, baby Hannah's father turned out to be Ste, her gay best friend who she'd had a one-night stand with. Ste wouldn't get to play the doting daddy for long, though, as Sinead stropped off out of the village when she learned he'd slept with Harry.
Honestly, that lot could have kept Jeremy Kyle going for a whole week…
3. Steve McDonald (Coronation Street, 2016)
"You weren't exactly my finest hour, either." This brilliant putdown from Leanne Battersby to Steve McDonald helped take some of the "huh?" out of the reveal that these two had had a not-shown-on-screen one-night stand.
The fact that Steve's wife Michelle was also pregnant meant that we were soon treated to even more of Steve's trademark 'bewildered' expression than usual.
But when Michelle's baby Ruari tragically died after she went into labour at just 23 weeks, what had begun as a fairly comical 'Who's The Daddy?' storyline soon morphed into something much more complex and emotional.
4. Phil Mitchell (EastEnders, 2016)
When Denise Fox went to the doctor's after a one-night stand with Kush, she assumed she was two weeks gone. The news that her pregnancy was actually far more advanced – she was at least 18 weeks into her gestation – was a shock. The reason why soon became very apparent: the father was Phil, who Denise had drunkenly slept with months earlier.
Yikes. No kid deserves a dad like Phil Mitchell.
What was even more disappointing was that she'd originally thought that her babydaddy was Kush. Only in Soapland would a character end up pregnant by a raddled, dying alcoholic rather than the much younger, more virile and sweeter guy she'd also slept with.
5. Louis Loveday (Hollyoaks, 2016)
When your boyfriend is a jealous serial killer, it's not the wisest move to give birth to another man's baby. When you and your boyfriend are white and the baby emerges as mixed race, it's a little bit of a giveaway, too.
Hollyoaks viewers were none the wiser that Leela Lomax and Louis Loveday had shared a drunken one-night stand. But all was revealed after the early Christmas arrival of baby Daniel.
Before being carted off to prison, crazy Cameron assumed that the bub belonged to Louis's son Zack, and there are still ramifications among the Loveday family playing out to this day. But we're sure that their new surrogacy scheme will all go to plan…
6. Darren Miller (EastEnders, 2009)
In the big league of EastEnders icons, Heather Trott doesn't rate a mention. Her defining character traits were a low IQ, being a convenient punchbag for her supposed best mate Shirley and her obsession with George Michael.
But she is remembered for two other moments. Firstly, her sad exit, which saw her killed by a young picture-frame-wielding Ben Mitchell. And also for the collective intake of breath which occurred when we discovered who had fathered her baby son George.
The show tried to replicate the impact of the reveal of Vicki Fowler's father, with various suspects heading to the hospital where Hev had given birth. But when 18-year-old Darren Miller arrived, we were all left scratching our heads. Just bizarre.
7. Ross Barton (Emmerdale, 2015)
When Charity Dingle went to prison for insurance fraud, there was no indication that she was pregnant. So there was shock among the Dingles when she gave birth to baby Moses after a few months inside.
The identity of the gravely ill baby's father was a mystery, until Ross Barton visited Moses in hospital and viewers learned that Charity and Ross had "one bunk-up in the back of the chop shop". Charming.
Ross's relationship with Charity's daughter Debbie complicated matters, but unless we're mistaken, nobody demanded a paternity test at the time. Instead, the villagers all naively accepted Charity's word for it. So can we expect another plot twist at some point?
Could it be that Charity just wanted to kibosh Ross's romance with her daughter? Is it not more likely that Moses's daddy was Charity's ex-husband, fugitive Declan Macey? That would certainly give his sister Megan another reason to hate Charity.
And as for Emma Barton's reaction if she learned that she wasn't really a granny…. Well, if we were Charity, let's just say we'd avoid standing on any motorway bridges.
8 and 9. David Platt (Coronation Street, 2013) and Mick Carter (EastEnders, 2015)
Oh, brother. Both Kylie Platt and Linda Carter had reason to worry about the paternity of their babies in recent years.
On Corrie, Kylie had slept with her brother-in-law Nick, while in EastEnders, poor Linda was raped by her brother-in-law Dean. Both Kylie's husband David and Linda's husband Mick had violent, near-death altercations with their brothers as a result.
After months of worry, both stories had a happy ending – and in the misery-fest that Soapland often is, that really is a shock outcome! Baby Lily turned out to be David's after all, and baby Ollie was – thankfully – Mick's. Phew.
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