jldraw

I totally agree, I understand they had to tone down her character a little bit over time to make her more likable but seriously one of the most appealing part's of Charlie's character was how passionate she was about things she believed in whether she was right or wrong. It seems that in the past year or so she's become a lot more mopey. One of her initial confrontations with Morgan where she called her a dried up old spinster I say is still one of my favorite LOL moments of the show.

I'm leaning towards the cards being legitimate. The only issue I can tell is on Lyn Collingwood's card there appears to be a little bit of blue ink (I think it's blue ink) on her neck. It could just be residue from when the card was hand-signed, I don't know. I tell you this much ES, I can easily make compact disc booklets that are glossy and look identical to what come with the cd's you buy in the store. With a high-quality printer and quality paper you can do almost anything.

Hi Jldraw, I bought the 15 handsigned fancards, they are perfect, real signatures, they are real fancards, i bought the 22 lot and they are real, but i agree it seems very strange, ridicolous price! I got my hand-signed Esther Anderson fancard in the mail the other day from this same lot. It looks real but I can't tell, I guess I'll just believe it's real LOL. Interested in hearing how you determined your lot was real Guru.

COMING November 24, 2010 - RED DAWN (The most violent episode of H&A ever) Robbie: Hey Tash, it's a lovely day for a picnic on the beach. Tasha: Yeah Rob, this was a great idea Kim: Hey what was that Tasha (turns around - eyes become wide): AHHH RUSSIANS! Kim: Oh no Rob just got his face knocked in... (Various Credits...Isabel...Jason...Chris) Close up on Alf Alf: We Need To Stop These Flamin' Commie Coots! (Fade to black)

Yeah I'd be careful. Unfortunately, I just purchased an Esther Anderson hand-signed card (hasn't arrived yet) from this seller and I'm fretting that it might not be hand-signed after all but a cheap scan. I guess there is no way of knowing for sure unless there are some obvious defects on the card. I agree it is bizarre that this one individual is selling the same hand-signed cards in bulk time after time. Either he has an inside track as far as getting autographs from the H&A cast or these are flat out forgeries. Also even if he does have an inside track to the H&A cast, it doesn't explain how he keeps coming up with signed Tim Campbell fancards for example unless he's been rationing them.

You never know, maybe someone from the set on H and A fancies a bit of extra cash and is nabbing a bunch of everyone's fan cards to sell online. Well that would explain how they are able to auction off these fancards in bulk at a regular clip. It doesn't explain however how they seem to have an endless supply of hand-signed Sharni Vinson and Tim Campbell fancards unless some of the actors are asked to sign a bunch of fancards before they leave the show which is possible. Either way I'm really considering buying one of those packages as of late (looking for a Jessica Tovey fancard) but I'm probably going to pass because I have some real doubts as to their authenticity. You do bring up a good point ES, someone at Seven could be stockpiling a lot of these fancards and then doing a brisk business. There seems to be one seller in particular who only deals in soap fancards whether it be H&A, Neighbours, EastEnders etc. Hmmm.

Just some food for thought: I assume we've all seen eBay sellers selling these fancards in bulk for expensive prices right? With modern technology is it possible for these sellers to simply reproduce these cards using a top of the line printer and high quality paper? The reason I ask is because it seems certain sellers keep re-listing the same collection of fancards over and over again including a collection of hand-signed cards which always contain the autographs of the same fifteen cast members. I find this to be somewhat suspicious as a number of the cards in the hand-signed collection that keeps showing up at a regular clip contain autographs from several actors who have already left the show. Has anyone ever bought fancards off of eBay and found that they are not authentic and are in fact reproductions?

I agree that Ruby Buckton is a flawed character but so are most of the current residents in Summer Bay to one degree or another. You can blame shoddy writing but the fact is the writers probably are not writing for a group of fans who dissect character's motives on an internet message board and instead are just trying to create a by the numbers soap/drama that will continue to draw in viewers. Coming up with stock characters like a "spoiled princess" or a "bad boy with a difficult homelife" will continue to ensure that H&A finds an audience as these formulas have worked for years. I mean the formula for most of the teenagers who come to Summer Bay remains the same to this day anyway. They arrive with some sort of issue or perhaps an undesirable trait and then gradually work through their drama in Summer Bay before ultimately departing. Some characters become more popular than others over time but they all basically start and end the same way. As for Ruby Buckton specifically, I think much like a lot of the other young characters on the show right now she just isn't very well written. Rebecca Breeds has proven she can handle dramatic situations with the Ruby/Charlie storyline last year but Ruby much like the other characters just seems to float along at whim without any real sense of purpose or direction. I do disagree about Ruby's desire to locate Grant though. While it would've been kind of her to sympathize with Charlie's issues with Grant, I would've found it to be more unrealistic if she didn't try to track her father down. I see Ruby's situation as being similar to a friend of mine whose parents got divorced when he was fairly young and it was because his father was an abusive alcoholic. Despite growing up with the knowledge that his father wasn't exactly the greatest guy on the face of the earth, he still decided to track him down years later.

I take your point but there's only so many times you can bang your head against a brick wall.I think Ruby knows that Charlie's there for her when she needs her, the ball's pretty much in her court.But I agree the writers do need to let us see this relationship rather than just having us assume that it's still there, otherwise it does look as though they don't care about each other. This is really the bottom line. It is ridiculous to blame a character for what is obviously a flaw in the writing. Charlie and Ruby are only as good as the writing makes them out to be and right now there seems to be a major gap from a writing perspective as far as their relationship goes. I fear it might be this whole "Bay Of Love" campaign coming to the forefront though where they are going to have most of the storylines revolve around couplings and less around family relationships that sort of thing. . I don't have a problem with that but at times it does seem like they could be doing so much more with Esther's character than what is happening onscreen right now.

Me too. The whole mother-daughter/Grant story-line, imo, has turned Ruby into a deeply unlikeable character and I've never really warmed to Charlie. I wouldn't mind but the storyline was just not worth it !! They have ruined her character for a couple of weeks of sensationalism imo I'm starting to think that too. I loved the Charlie/Ruby storyline from last year but it seems like they rushed it and now they have no idea where they want to go with it. So it seems that instead of having them interact on a more consistent basis like they did in 2009, they are spinning both characters off into their separate storylines where they won't have to interact as much. That is the vibe I'm getting anyhow from the first two weeks of programming. If Ruby doesn't move back in with Charlie I'm going to scream. She isn't a foster child. Charlie is her guardian.

As someone else pointed out, sometimes characters are brought in just to advance storylines. That is their only purpose in the show to drive that particular storyline and then they are sent on their way. But if you want my opinion they need to bring Samara Weaving (Indigo) back, she was actually starting to catch on with a lot of fans in a way that quite frankly can't be said for a few members of the show's current young cast.