Hollyoaks fans have expressed their anger towards the Channel 4 soap after a huge error surrounding a premature birth.
In the latest streaming episode, Zoe Anderson (Garcia Brown) gave birth. When her waters broke, the character was shocked and mentioned that she wasn’t actually due for another three months.
But that wasn’t true.
In May of this year, Zoe reunited with her former lover Hunter McQueen (Theo Graham) at the village Pride event. Things then took a shocking turn, as Zoe then slept with Hunter’s twin brother Prince (Malique Thompson-Dwyer), with the pair subsequently riddled with guilt over what they did.
In June, after finding out she’s pregnant, Zoe confirmed that Prince is the father of her baby, not Hunter.
With the baby being conceived in May, Zoe wasn’t actually due to give birth until around February next year.
It’s basic birds and bees knowledge guys, come on.
For fans of the Channel 4 soap who watched Zoe give birth this week – it didn’t take long for them to realise the baby is six months early, not three.
Over on X, this audience member said: ‘I haven’t watched Oaks regularly but no way is Zoe that far gone already! #Hollyoaks’, while another wrote: ‘Zoe is 6 months premature not 3. God sake this show. #Hollyoaks’.
There was also a large discussion surrounding this on forum platform Reddit.
‘So Zoe gave birth tonight Zoe and Prince slept together at the beginning of May 😂 no one gives birth after 3 months into pregnancy, they miscarry by that stage’, a fan pointed out.
Within this thread, a user wrote: ‘I expect them to play a little lose with time before and after the time jump so that dramatic events like a premature birth happen on screen’, which is something important to acknowledge.
The Channel 4 show is adopting a new scheduling pattern after research indicated that this is the optimum amount of episodes for audiences.
Fans were left heartbroken by the prospect of less outings of their favourite show – but more sad news followed, with a number of major cast members confirmed to be exiting in order to facilitate the changes.
Hollyoaks will see in the new era with a stunt week kicking things off on Monday, September 9, with the following week (Monday, September 16) seeing the soap skip forward a year.
So, it’s very possible Zoe’s pregnancy storyline has been rushed to accommodate the structure change in a few weeks time. However, while this could be the reason, the Channel 4 soap still aired scenes that showed a baby surviving a six month premature birth.
This storyline error comes just days after another controversial moment which saw Sienna Blake (Anna Passey) learn Jeremy is her father, not Patrick.
