About every 50 episodes a main character leaves Home and Away. Some years they drop like flies, such as 2000 when there seemed to be a weekly exodus from the bay, whereas some years, like 2002 the cast was stable and seemingly no one left. However, sometimes the writers excel themselves and write a top notch show, other times they just seem like they can't be bother and write out a character out with seemingly no effort at all. Other just simply found they were still there, but their name stopped appearing in the script. Here we look at 20 Naff Departures.
1. Rob Storey - Episode 1690
OK, he wasn't a very good character, but this was mesmering in just how awful it actually was. Curtis and Travis are sitting having a conversation - Travis actually looks as if he might be in the nude and Rob walks in and asks how Curtis is getting on. Curtis is getting on fine and so leaves. Rob and Travis smile at each other in a rather freaky way. Rob is never seen, though he is heard of again owning the boatshed. However, by 2003 he must have sold it to Scott or moved on and whilst I can't say I'm remotely interested in what did actually happen to Rob, his final episode did suck.
2. Matt Wilson - Episode 909
Having appeared in the Pilot Episode and still appearing in the show, doing very little towards the end of 1991, the producers had a brainwave and decided that they made their cast up of people that were interesting. So, they decided to create Luke Cunningam instead! So, what do you do. Do you have Matt die rescuing a child from the sea as a storm hits, ran out of town from the mafia or marry the woman of his dreams. Em, no, he walks into a cupboard and ends up in some parallel universe before reappearing in 2002. Misses out on top spot for two things. I've actually never seen any of this so can't confirm it happened and palindromic numbers can confuse writers.
3. Ailsa Stewart - Episode 2960
OK, the other two characters above have been really naff and it was probably a waste of effort to give them any decent leaving storyline. However, Ailsa had been on the show 12 years and strangely enough never had any heart problems. Then her newly-found daughter collapses with a dodgy ticker and Ailsa is booked in for an appointment to check it out, as is Duncan. But wait, instead of taking the test, Ailsa decides to go to Don's book launch and, after lifting some boxes she collapsed and died. Worse than that, the next we see her is at her funeral, which no one bothered to turn up for.
4. Pippa Fletcher - Episode 2343
Pippa had been, if the not the centre, one of the centres of the show for ten years. So, how do you have her leave. Stick her and land rover and have her drive off. They did give her the send-off that she deserved in 2000, but the damage was done and the show went into freefall. Or perhaps it was because the stories weren't that hot in 1999.;
5. Josie Russell - Episide 3993
OK, perhaps she wasn't going to get balloons, tissue paper and cake as a leaving do, despite saving the town and apart from a mistake with Marc Edwards did almost everything to distance herself from her cousin Angie, Josie was another of these that just left Summer Bay with no fanfare. For goodness sake people, if it weren't for Josie you'd be up to your neck in excrement. Show some gratitude!
6. Henry Hunter - Episode 3984
"Henry Hunter demoted to recurring guest" screamed Back to the Bay at the time. Almost two and half years later, Henry has made the grand total of 0 guest appearances. Not that it's been any great loss. Henry sort of disappeared off to dancing school whilst everyone else was looking for Matilda. It just kind of summed everything up about Henry. However, since nobody quite cared for Tobi Atkins portrayal, they could bring him back played by someone different if they wanted.
7. Max Sutherland - Episode 3808
I think it's fair to say Max's departure was overshadowed by Hayley wandering around with Noah's ghost. Max leaving actually seemed more of an incovenience in this episode. People said goodbye and then he was quickly sent off to boarding school to be forgotten and never seen again.
8. Lucinda Croft - Episode 1093
After spending a year flitting between whether it was Nick Parrish or Ryan Lee she wanted, to end her time on Home and Away, Lucinda decided that she didn't want either of them. Unsatisfying, it probably was. Ask someone like Dan though, as I haven't seen this.
9. Brodie Hanson - Episode 3404
Another one of these weird departures. You know they're leaving the show, but rather than waving them goodbye on a bus or holding a party where a few people turn up and then we know they're gone really. We all knew Brodie was going to be travelling, but she kind of disappeared after talking to Dani or Shelley.
10. Robbie and Tasha Hunter - Episode 4292
Apart from the great Home and Away feature that is the one episode court case in which a week must probably pass in the one episode, tacked onto the end of this episode was Tasha's revelation that she had received mail from fellow crap departee, Josie Russell, asking if she wanted to come to Australia. Since Jason and Isabel's contracts were up, they said yes and sort of tacked their whole departure storyline into two minutes at the end of the episode.
11. Peter Baker - Episode 4427
Maybe I am overly critical of these recent departures. Possibly because I haven't seen, say Nick Parrish's or Fin's leaving scenes I'm leaving out some corkers from the past. However, Peter spent an episode moping around as Amanda got all the plaudits and then at the end, at some hotel in the city, we see Peter walk in and they hugged. It left, a lot of, well is that it? I know in real life not everyone leaves in colours and lights, but this is a TV show and
12. Alex Poulos - Episode 3675
Alex was never a particularly dislikable character. Maybe a bit cocky and he liked to the play the field maybe, but it appears the powers that be were not to happy about Danny Raco not renewing his contract or something. So, they wrote storyline which turned him into a drug-taking two-timing cheat and sent him off with the now similarily villified Brodie.
13. Kit Hunter - Episode 3670
Some may which departure seeing as she returned more often then terrible case of eczema. Well this is her orignal departure. It might even be the only departure where the mother says goodbye to the daughter halfway through the episode and then the daughter continues to appear in scene after scene with her mother for the rest of the episode. Mind you there was a lot going on. Two weddings and a car crash to be precise.
14. Marilyn Chambers - Episode 2715
Whilst the whole storyline was quite good, it was quite saddening to see what was once such a bubbly character reduced to what Marilyn had been, and even if we weren't to guess what would happen to Byron, everything was so low key. Marilyn didn't even get the final scene of her final episodes. To show that naff cliffhangers weren't solely Dan Bennett's forte, Alf was electrocuted at the end of the episode, but survived well enough to buy the caravan park the following day.
15. Beth Hunter - Episode 4401
It was actually a good idea for a departure/death story and one or two episodes were really good, but then the idea fell down like a pack of cards. The last we saw of Clarissa had been 3 months ago, and now Beth was dead.
16. Dani Sutherland - Episode 3860
I'm sort of beginning to wish this was only 1998, I was only 12 and Home and Away was celebrating it's 10th anniversary, as this 20 Crap Departures feature stretches on. You might be wishing the same as well. So, here it is, number 16 and it's Dani's departure in the middle of the night. Actually, this was a medioce departure, I guess I'm running out of really bad ones.
17. Viv Newton - Episode 545
You know that the writers don't really care about you when your never heard of before mother appears in one episode and then you're packed off with minimal fuss in the episode, possibly never to be mentioned again. Never more than Emma's sidekick, Emma even upstaged her departure by making it all about her, plus it appeared that she was leaving for a life on a laveder farm. Well maybe they weer big in the eighties.
18. Sam Marshall - Episode 2830
This really was a crap departure, not so much in what happened in the actual departure which was trumped up as little Sam, all grown up, leaving for the surfing circuit, as the fact that he sort of reappeared 40 episodes later, then 40 episodes after that. In fact, he didn't really leave the bay till a year later when he kinda just disappeared with Sandy.
19. Seb Miller - Episode 3728
If someone's just been paralysed what do you do, you throw them a party showing how great the world is and how he's got his new life ahead of him wherever he goes, stuck in a wheelchair, unable to move, oh and you invite Kane. Probably the worst person to throw a party for when they were leaving, Seb looked like he wanted to throw himself back over the cliff during this leaving do.
20. Floss and Neville McPhee - Episode 260
Every list should include Floss and Neville somewhere, even if it last place.