Reception
When Tracy was blackmailed by David, Steven Perkins of Lowculture commented: "It's very incredibly wrong, and yet they're both so vile that it goes right around the loop and goes back to being a thoroughly great idea." Fellow Lowculture contributor Nick Linsdell praised Tracy as "one of the all-time great, completely horrific, self-absorbed soap monsters." He deemed her trial testament to the show's writers, as, even with a character who has been part of Coronation Street since birth: "they've come up with an exit storyline that outdoes all her previous exploits and dragged in half the cast to enjoy the fun." Perkins also praised the trial storyline, commenting: "It makes for quite a nice change to have sat through a soap trial, knowing for once that The Accused was (a) guilty as sin, (b) acting in a deliberate, calculated and premeditated fashion and (c) not trying to frame someone else." Alongside this unusual premise, he noted: "there are probably quite a few people who secretly want to see That Bitch Tracy Barlow finally get hers."
Radio Times included Tracy in their feature profiling 'bunny boilers' of soap opera. Discussing her they stated: "Qualifying as much as a soap villain as a bunny-boiler, grown-up Tracy in her final incarnation displayed enough deranged behaviour to have Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail bounding for the hills." Opining on her temper they added: "Tracy was capable of a rage so hot that, by comparison, the fires of hell were chilly." They also offered their opinion on what could have made her this way, blaming Ken and Dierdre's behaviour.
In February 2011, Ford was nominated for Best Comeback in the Soap Bubble Awards for her portrayal of Tracy. Tracy was nominated in the category of "Villain of the Year" at the 2011 Inside Soap Awards.
On 19 May 2011, Kate Ford revealed that the main thing driving her Coronation Street alter ego Tracy Barlow is the desire to have a family with daughter Amy and ex Steve McDonald. Speaking to TV Times, Ford said that Tracy is feeling as if her meddling is starting to pay off. "She thinks she can see a shift in Steve, and she knows that his and Becky's relationship is not on firm ground. She's excited because she thinks an opportunity might be presenting itself," Ford explained. "All Tracy wants is for her, Amy and Steve to be a family. She sees that as the key to her fulfilment and happiness. She does love Amy and she's really worried about her mystery illness. When it comes down to it, she will put Amy above anything."
Read more about this topic: Tracy Barlow
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)