We have so much in common and we balance each other out - when she's crazy I'll calm her down and vice-versa. It's worked well, which is why Kelly has been kept on, which is great for me but also for Michelle because she's got somebody to have fun with. Kelly's been one of the slowest developing characters and that's been good for me. I wasn't thrown into it and having Michelle has been great for me." On-screen, the characters moved into a flat together, worked together, and fought over the same boys. In December 2003, EastEnders made headlines in the UK press, after they screened a lesbian kiss between Kelly and Zoe. The storyline was featured in a special New Year's Eve episode that was filmed on-location in Scotland. In the storyline, a group of teenagers had travelled from London to Scotland for New Year's Eve; however, the minibus they were driving crashed, leaving them stranded and injured on the freezing cold Scottish moors. While stranded, Kelly cared for an injured Zoe, they became overemotional, and kissed. Kinsella has explained the reasons behind the kiss: "They're stuck in the hills, thinking they're going to die - it's a way of saying goodbye and also of showing how much they love each other as friends. Which is quite sweet really." She claims that the lesbian kiss was made easier, due to the fact that she was kissing her off-screen best friend: "That made it so much easier. We thought we were just going to be laughing and giggling the whole way through, but we were very professional. It was so cold that we just wanted to get it over with. We were shaking from cold - not from nerves - and it was raining, so we just thought, 'Let's do it and get it done with'. I was really scared but it was fine. Now it just seems like a dream, I can't really remember it. We laugh about it now. When it came down to it, the truth was that it was just like any other screen kiss. The episode featuring the lesbian kiss attracted 9.5 million viewers, and the precise moment that they kissed was watched by 44% of the available viewing audience. The kiss between the characters received criticism. The lesbian news site AfterEllen.com branded it a "gratuitous ratings-stunt…The writers bottled out and the two young women