Vicki Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Emma Herry from the character's birth in 1986 to 1988, Samantha Leigh Martin from 1988 to 1995, and Scarlett Alice Johnson from 2003 to 2004. She is the daughter of Michelle Fowler (Susan Tully) and Den Watts (Leslie Grantham). The character is born in the serial, conceived in a controversial storyline about teenage pregnancy. Exploiting a whodunnit angle, at the time of the first showing, viewers were not initially told who was the father, and press interest in the fledgling show escalated as journalists attempted to guess. The audience finally discovered his identity in October 1985 in episode 66. Written by series co-creator/script-editor Tony Holland and directed by co-creator/producer Julia Smith, it was considered a landmark episode in the show's history. Early suspects were Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) and Kelvin Carpenter (Paul J. Medford), but then four possible suspects are seen leaving the Square early in the episode: Tony Carpenter (Oscar James), Ali Osman (Nejdet Salih), Andy O'Brien (Ross Davidson), and Den Watts. As Michelle waits by their rendezvous point, a car pulls up and the fluffy white legs of the soap landlord's poodle Roly leap out of a car to give it all away: Den Watts is the father of Michelle's baby. After this storyline the programme started to appear in newspaper cartoons as it moved more and more into the public mainstream. Vicki's character was written out in 1995, after Susan Tully, who played Vicki's mother Michelle, decided to leave the soap. After an eight-year absence, she was reintroduced by Executive Producer Louise Berridge in 2003 as a rebellious teenager. Her reintroduction was part of the soap's attempt to rebuild the Watts clan, a successful family headed by Den, that featured prominently in the 1980s. Johnson quit the role in 2004. The media was generally critical about the character upon her return due to her American accent and its sudden disappearance. During the character's original stint, a storyline featuring Vicki being kidnapped was criticised due to its coincidental airing alongside the real-life abduction and murder of toddler James Bulger.