The departure of Ric and Matilda effectively spends the end of a teenage group whose roots can be traced back to January 2002 and which started in earnest in January of 2004. We look back at the different itterations of this teenage group that had as many different line-ups and styles as Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship/Starship featuring Mickey Thomas/
Max, Matilda and Henry
The problem had been for the past two years Max had had no one remotely near his age, pretty similar to Sally in the early years. So, it was decided that he would spend most of the time getting caught in ridiculous storylines with Colleen and occasionally have a girlfriend in which ridiculous things would often happen. With Beth buying the caravan park, her kids could no longer go to boarding school and so they were brought into the extended Sutherland-Hunter family which equalled almost half of the cast. Max was never that popular, resigned to picking up the occasional cute vote in our most popular polls and initial audience reaction wasn't good to Matilda and Henry. The fact that they were spoilt brats didn't help. Max had unrequainted love for Matilda, Matilda acted like a princess and Henry generally did nothing of interest. Mmm, not a great beginning then. They were perhaps still a bit too young at that time, but there was one way to solve that.
Matilda, Henry, Ric and Cassie
Yes, that's it, employ actors who are 20 to play 15 years old and therefore, even though they are young characters, they'll look older and so we can have them do stuff that we otherwise couldn't. Max was written out, apparently axed during a small cast upheaval in 2004 as the Sutherland's were phased out the show. Matilda and Henry did particularly little for the rest of the year apart from get into the occasional strife at school. Ric had been the school bully the previous year, but it was discovered he was Alf's grandson and Sally and Flynn kindly took him in. Cassie then appeared a few weeks later, Ric fell for her, her gran died and so Sally and Flynn kindly took her in, and now we had four characters, roughly the same age and the fun and games began to begin. However, now when it came to pairing off, there was one problem. Now that Ric was with Cassie, and Henry was not only rubbish, but Matilda's brother something had to be done.
Matilda, Ric, Cassie and Lucas
Yes, Henry was written out, but as BTTB announced at the time he would be returning for many guest appearances and Matilda was paired off with the quiet Lucas Holden creating this relatively simple teen group situation. Cassie and Matilda were best friends, Lucas and Ric were best friends, Ric dated Cassie, Matilda dated Lucas and the ups and downs of the group were explored through their strong friendships with each other and their relationships but with only four characters and a relatively simplistic set of relationships, more was needed to stir things up.
Matilda, Ric, Cassie, Lucas, Belle and Drew
Belle was bought in originally to create friction in the teen group which she did by splitting up both Ric and Cassie (by dating Ric) and Lucas and Matilda (by befriending Lucas). Drew seemed to have been bought in to even out the girl/boy ratio in the group and his pairing up with Belle and Ric's reunion with Cassie spelled several years of mixed up relationships where all three boys became friends, all three girls eventually became friends and all of them took turns at dating each other. It was a fairly typical teen group and general consensus felt that the actors behind the characters grew into the roles and Jess Tovey, a natural as Belle meant that it was a teen group that many thought to be one of the strongest in a long time. It stuck together as a teen group for a lot longer than the majority of teen groups preceding it but this year has spelt the end with all the group leaving one bay one and Belle, the only one left is now in a new dynamic alongside Aden. There's now a new teen group on the block in the shape of Geoff, Annie, Nicole, Jai and Ruby. Whether they have as much staying power and ups and downs as their predecessors though remains to be seen.