80-99
The Home and Away Most Popular Character countdown continues. Next up, those on 9-13 points!
80. Jade Sutherland (13 points)
Played by Kate Garven
One of the Sutherland girls, who pioneered the swapped-at-birth storyline that every single soap seemed to be attempting a variation of at one point. Starting off as shy and socially awkward, she ended up serving a brief turn as school captain and somehow following her well-received romance with Nick by abruptly deciding she was in love with Seb.
80= Jett Palmer (13 points)
Played by Will McDonald
John and Marilyn seem to namedrop Jett a lot, if only because he provides a useful excuse for why they’re not in an episode. Taken in by John and Gina, he became best friends with VJ before eventually leaving to join the army, ending up in a wheelchair and getting married off-screen.
80= Phoebe Nicholson (13 points)
Played by Isabella Giovinazzo
It’s hard to believe there was a time when Phoebe nearly married Justin, before heading off for that singing career that she seemed to have been threatening to have for about three years. She just about managed to stick to the brief of what a normal person would be like if they got mixed up with the Braxtons.
83. Carly Morris/Lucini (12 points)
Played by Sharyn Hodgson
Another original character, Carly seems to be holding quite steady in the polls. After starting out as a bit of a wild child, she ended up marrying Ben in a whirlwind romance and getting caught up in his increasingly inane schemes which, for some reason, her family expected her to put up with without complaining.
83= Jack Holden (12 points)
Played by Paul O’Brien
Jack’s taken a considerable fall since the days when he was one half of the show’s golden couple, taking up residence in the top ten. He is, however, still the most popular Holden! He and Martha had not one but two short-lived marriages, the second ending because of him taking a bullet, the first because of…nothing at all really.
83= Seb Miller (12 points)
Played by Mitch Firth
Quickly revealed to be the grandson of Donald Fisher, a fact that came as a surprise to both of them, Seb was part of those slightly younger teenagers hanging around in the early 00s. He survived Don’s exit to move in with Alf and was both another character bouncing between the Sutherland twins and another character to exit in a wheelchair.
86. Chloe Richards (11 points)
Played by Kristy Wright
Is it worth crowing about the fact that Chloe’s finished way above her daughter, and is probably still the “Chloe from Home and Away” that most people think of? She was part of the classic mid-90s teen group, which she arrived late for, sticking around after most of them had left and marrying her daughter’s uncle, before returning just to be killed off.
86= Logan Bennett (11 points)
Played by Harley Bonner
A strong showing for a short-lived recent regular. Logan was brought in as a daredevil doctor who got on Tori’s nerves and romanced Mackenzie, only to abruptly leave without saying goodbye to anyone when he and Mackenzie broke up.
86= Martin Ashford (11 points)
Played by George Mason
Having survived the unfortunate double blow of being named after an iconic Casualty character and being blamed for Brax going to jail (like he needed help), Ash hung around as one of the show’s sort-of-reformed bad boys. He was presumably looking after Luc while VJ was in town last year, although no-one thought to mention it.
86= Roman Harris (11 points)
Played by Conrad Coleby
Well, Roman’s finished above his daughter and had a pretty decent showing given he was in the show for less than two years and got used as a plot device to cause trouble between Jack and Martha. He was one of those characters who got a really weird exit of being jailed ahead of far more deserving candidates.
86= Sid Walker (11 points)
Played by Robert Mammone
After achieving the impressive feat of splitting up with his wife in his first episode, Sid managed to settle down to being a fairly decent single parent and resident doctor. He’s also the only person to have dated both Marilyn and Roo.
91. Dan Baker (10 points)
Played by Tim Campbell
One of Leah’s husbands, which is less of a special insurance category than it used to be but still. He and Leah had a few difficulties in their early months of marriage and once those were sorted he didn’t really do anything at all and eventually died off screen.
91= Flynn Saunders (10 points)
Played by Martin Dingle Wall & Joel McIlroy
Only husband of Sally, despite all those near misses. He went from being a rather bohemian social worker to a rather straight-laced doctor, and quickly accepted that being married to a Sally morphing into Pippa means becoming a foster parent and then dying.
91= Maggie Astoni (10 points)
Played by Kestie Morassi
Another Astoni pops up, mother Maggie this time. Maggie seemed to embarrass her children just as much as Ben did at first but managed to settle into a good cop role rather quickly and had one of the best cancer stories a soap has ever seen, enough to make people forget some of the rather odd things they did with her.
91= Tasha Andrews (10 points)
Played by Isabel Lucas
Tasha started out as this feral wild child who didn’t really speak English. She ended up as, um, a pretty normal conventional character with a teen marriage and pregnancy and stock “You’ve been like a mother to me” farewell to Irene.
95. Bianca Scott (9 points)
Played by Lisa Gormley
Bianca started out as something of a liability to level-headed younger sister April, who kept having to clean up her messes. They seemed to swap roles somewhere along the way, with Bianca turning into a responsible school principal who even managed to make marrying a Braxton seem like a sensible thing to do.
95= Kane Phillips (9 points)
Played by Sam Atwell
Kane is a character who’s perhaps aged a bit poorly, with people having to ignore his whole “I raped you, get over it” attitude towards Dani to make him seem even halfway acceptable. Surprisingly, he was accepted by everyone in Summer Bay, Dani included, although even that wasn’t enough for him and Kirsty to last!
95= Rachel Armstrong (9 points)
Played by Amy Mathews
Three points below her stepson who was the same age as her, Doctor Rachel, one of Leah’s many best friends, was the golden couple with Kim until Chris Hemsworth quit for Hollywood, after which she remarried to older man Tony and had his third son.
95= Robbie Hunter (9 points)
Played by Jason Smith
One point below wife Tasha, Robbie was the middle Hunter child who took up residence at the caravan park right at the end of 2003. He stuck around for a few years before being one of those characters who took on the child conceived when his soul mate was raped. It happens rather a lot around here, just ask VJ and Ari.
95= Sasha Bezmel (9 points)
Played by Demi Harman
Two points below her father, Sasha was parachuted into the Walker family as the daughter Sid didn’t know he had and proceeded to work her way through several of the boys in her age group. She ended up living with Irene for a bit for some reason before getting a rather perfunctory exit going off to college.
Incidentally, the highest rated character from the last poll not to feature in this one was Fin at No 98. Will all this lot survive to next time?
As we keep counting down, find out who made it to positions 61-79.