cymbaline

I think tying the Matheson sisters to Steven would take away the writers' blank slate for them. It is a nice idea but I think it'd be more trouble than it's worth. For starters, Adam Willits is no longer acting and they'd probably have to recast the character. I don't think that'd make long-term fans happy, and newer viewers wouldn't care one way or the other. Steven and Selina and foster families and Dodge and the school are long gone.

If somebody only saw him in 1991, you could understand why they would think he wasn't a memorable character. He had plenty to do during his first run and there's no reason to think that wouldn't have continued to be the case if Craig hadn't taken that first sabbatical. Ironically, when he was trying to get his music career going in the UK, it was off the back of his old job on Neighbours. H&A, of course, never quite seized the zeitgeist there. You'd wonder what they had originally planned for Alistair MacDougall if they offered him a longer contract. It surely couldn't have been more helpings of that tedious love triangle? Certainly, you can interpret his quote "I would have stayed longer before if the scripts had been good enough." as his way of saying he didn't care for it either.

Grant wasn't nearly as forgettable as Simon. He was a character who fizzled out because of Craig McLachlan trying to launch a music career. When he came back for a while in 1991 he was little more than set decoration. I think the age profile of the current cast has a lot to do with people staying around for longer now. While there will always be people who see H&A as a stepping stone to better things, there are others who value the stability that it brings. That definitely applies to the older cast members (i.e. Alf, John, Irene, Leah) and to several of the younger cast too. Many of them are no spring chickens and have been around the block. Would many of the current cast get regular acting work if they left? Some of them are dead behind the eyes and would vanish back into obscurity if they left.

Andrew Hill left voluntarily because being on Home and Away was interfering with his studies and he planned to go to university. Sure enough, if you check his LinkedIn page you can see that he did. He must've remained on good terms with the producers because they brought him back twice over the next few years and gave him good storylines. I especially liked his 1994 return when he had a gambling problem and fed his old man a **** and bull story about starting up a surf shop. Apart from the cynical way he exploited Michael's guilt over the sort of father he'd been to him, the writers touched on another interesting theme. That of how a parent feels about their biological son or daughter in comparison to their foster kids. It was a satisfying continuation of the Michael/Haydn relationship that we'd seen in 1990 and 1991. In comparison, if they had brought Simon back a year or two later what would they have done with him? He had no interesting traits or backstory. Was Roxy any better when she came along? Aside from when she developed breast cancer, the only thing she ever did was attract good looking men and then trash her relationships with them.

Fin benefitted from them, as they brought in her more interesting mother and brothers. If that hadn't happened, I can't see how she'd have lasted as long as she did. Strip away the crazy clothes and there isn't much there. Haydn wasn't around for a long time either but he is much more memorable. Maybe it's because he had more to do, or that Andrew Hill had more presence. Or perhaps Simon and Fin being brought in half way through the teen gang lifecycle points to a flaw in the formula? Usually you'd see raw teens who gradually have the edges smoothed off them, before they depart for pastures new as better people. By the time Simon came along, Blake had grown up quite a bit. Simon matched him in temperament and maturity (I use that word advisedly) but it didn't make for thrilling TV. We then had Blake falling for Meg and all that that entailed. It took over for a while, as did Sophie realising she was pregnant. In hindsight they would've survived just fine without replacing Karen or Haydn.

One of the early years Home and Away channels posted a video about Blake and Simon the other day and it got me thinking about this short-lived character. He only lasted 9 months and that includes the Christmas break. Richard Norton had been on Neighbours before this and I remember seeing him on posters in teen magazines at the time. I'm pretty sure he was poached from Ramsay Street, yet they underused him when they got their man. As an actor, Richard Norton was no better or worse than anybody else at the time yet Simon is quite unmemorable as a character. Would they have been better off not replacing Haydn (Simon was a like for like swap for Haydn who'd just left)? Did he get swamped by Blake and Sophie and their dramas?

That's a fair comment. They were probably always going to get rid of the fostering and the teens eventually. Which brings us back to a version of the original question I asked. Would Pippa have been a casualty of the pivots towards the Braxtons and latterly, the adults-only cast we have now? If you remove Pippa's role as mum to the kids of Summer Bay, she doesn't have a lot going for her really. Is it fair to say that she'd have become increasingly irrelevant and if she was in that group of long-term characters today, she'd be the weakest of them.

I'm not so sure about that. To the best of my knowledge, Pippa never gave any indication that she wanted to return to nursing even though there were times when it looked like a logical solution. I'm thinking especially of 1994 when Haydn nearly put Michael out of business and Pippa resorted to cleaning the toilets in the Surf Club.

Nah, at heart Pippa was a stay at home mum. If she'd stayed on for longer, they'd have continued to send foster kids her way as per usual. Eventually they might've decided it was time for a nice new available man to move into the caravan park.

Even so, he had evolved from the two-dimensional character he had been in early '88. Having him backslide in 95/96 wasn't so bad because he was a better-evolved character by then. I was surprised at how cold and nasty Fisher was until they brought Alan in. I'm glad somebody - probably a combination of Norman and the writers - got a handle on Donald and humanised him. I liked how he could be a strict headmaster and a softie in the one episode. I assume that's a tightrope many head teachers have to tread in real life as well.

Sally's 12th birthday party was in 1991 (Episode 817). You might remember it because she had a hippy-themed party and she kissed a kid called Peter while playing spin the bottle.

I almost laughed when I watched G'Day Summer Bay and saw Tristan Bancks pick up the show's bible. You'd wonder did anybody ever actually do more than briefly leaf through it? From what I can see, nobody's birthday, anniversary or even age ever stayed consistent.

That's a fair point, though I'd put Donald and Marilyn's wedding in a different bracket to the others. They were long-running characters and an unlikely couple. The other two were couples with somebody settling for the wrong person. The non-weddings are much more fun and are probably better remembered for that reason.

I've heard an actor from either H&A or Neighbours joke that they say "Please don't invite me to your wedding" to whoever is getting married on the show. It's a lot of hard work for everyone involved and doesn't seem to be that much fun. Weddings in themselves aren't particularly interesting and there's only so much anybody can do with them to tweak the formula. Also, a wedding in a soap usually isn't the end of a character's story arc but rather, it's a comma. How many weddings have we seen on H&A which didn't end with a divorce or death? I think the weddings which end with the couple splitting up are forgotten more quickly. Would Shane & Angel's wedding be as fondly remembered if their story wasn't a tragic tale? What if Shane had had an affair or Angel got fed up of him and moved away?

I think the casting of Dennis as Michael was another big part of it, because that settled the new Pippa properly into the show. Aside from the chemistry between those two, which even teenage me could spot a mile off, they just looked like a couple who'd been together forever once the wedding was over. It helped that Carly and Ben had left, so things were rebalanced in the house. Would Bobby have worked as a foster mum in the house? I'm not so sure. It's hard to see somebody as young as Bobby being a foster parent in real life. They got away with it because Nicolle and young Ryan worked well together and it looked like there was a real bond there. Having her move into the house and look after Sophie and Sally, and run the caravan park would've sucked the life out of her. She was better off in the diner interacting with more people than being stuck at home. If they'd moved Alf and Ailsa into Summer Bay House they'd have lost their home as a location. By then they were starting to send newcomers to live in different houses in the Bay. Fisher had Viv for a while. Emma and then the Deans moved in with Alf & Ailsa. The Beach House was about to appear as well. For the kids that were coming in, they needed a variety of quasi-parents for them all. When Pippa decided to leave with Ian, Sally wanted to take over the running of the house. What age would she have been then? 20? Pippa was having none of it and stood her ground re. Travis and Rebecca.

Was there much more to be said once Pippa gently let Donald down? I think that was always going to happen, whether Vanessa stayed on or not. You could see what way that was going and there was only going to be one conclusion. Unless I'm missing anyone, Donald only had one love interest before Marilyn. That was Patricia the ex-nun who taught in the school for a while. He spent a lot of his time single and over the years, his loneliness was touched on a few times. Would viewers have wanted to see Pippa and Donald getting together anyway? Especially so soon after Tom's death? Obviously, all of that went out the window when they had to recast Pippa. Would you think differently if they'd brought in another blonde actress who was more similar to Vanessa? It doesn't look like finding a similar actress was high on their list of priorities - the two actresses in the frame for the job at the end were Debra and Jackie Woodburne. Recasting Pippa was the least disruptive solution to the quandary they found themselves in. What were the alternatives? Killing Pippa off 2 months after Tom died and then finding a new Mum & Dad behind the sofa doesn't sound like a great solution either. The alternative, which they probably didn't have time for, would've been to create circumstances that forced Pippa to move away and leave the kids behind. They, let's not forget, were the main stars of the show. Not the oldies. Why do you say it was impossible for the original Pippa to work alongside Michael? If Vanessa had stayed on, it's unlikely they'd have introduced a new love interest for Pippa so quickly. It might not have been the same actor either. According to Debra Lawrance, she did chemistry tests with a few actors and they went with Dennis. I can't envisage Vanessa acting opposite Dennis either but they'd simply have given another actor the job.

I was a teenager when Tom died and at that time, many of my schoolfriends were avid Home and Away fans. We used to talk about it in school and amongst ourselves. I don't remember Tom's death making a huge impact. Yes, we were all talking about Tom being dead in school the next day but soon our attention was drawn elsewhere. I think we all liked Tom and would've preferred if he stayed around. But once he was gone, he was gone. We related more to the kids who were our own age or a bit older, not people who were the same age as our parents. Also, most teenagers have thankfully never lost a parent so they can't relate to it, nor do they want to go there. To be honest I see Pippa's head change as a more iconic moment. In the lead-up to that, I'd cringed like nothing on earth at the scenes between VanPip and Flathead. I love both characters but they never ever belonged together . Having to get used to a new Pippa took a bit of work and they were right to bring in Michael to reboot everything

I don't remember that happening (might go check it out now ) but those sort of mishaps were good fun. One that I enjoyed was the time Alf hurt his back and bought a waterbed. He hired Shane and Damian to assemble it and it didn't go well.

We were never told much about the family backgrounds of Tom (or Michael for that matter), were we? They existed in the here and now and were mostly foils for Pippa and the foster kids. In contrast, we learned more about the Stewarts, Ailsa and even Fisher.

I never heard it mentioned either but it wouldn't be the first time they forgot details like that. Or that once one person misremembers something from the pre-internet age, it keeps being replicated and becomes fact.

Searching for a screenshot of anything along that wall certainly gave me an insight into camera angles in that house! I think they were just generic paintings the art department picked up somewhere. I don't know the first thing about set design but I reckon they put those portraits on the wall so that they'd contrast with the landscape painting of Summer Bay that's just beside them. They were also a bit old-fashioned, as was the house. So as you said, a nice touch.

Sharon, I assume? https://youtu.be/mqpxGAlxLZ8?si=_GOMT_HkpaWqq6HF&t=631

Shots of that wall are pretty elusive when you're in search of a screenshot, aren't they? I don't remember anybody ever mentioning them - they just seem to have always been there. It's the photos which seemed to get the attention. Did Pippa or Tom come from families who were wealthy enough to have portraits painted?

I wasn't watching by then. Did they still have the teen gang formula in place then?

They killed Michael off in 1996 which strongly suggests they'd had enough of middle-aged couples in the house. For well over a year after that, Pippa's love life was non-existent. It may have remained that way for quite some time if Debra hadn't handed in her notice and they began working on her exit storyline. While I think Dennis being gone already made it easier for Debra to leave Home and Away, they probably would've moved back to Melbourne anyway. Aside from Debra's mum, their daughter would've been ready to start school. None of these are concrete deadlines as such but are prompts to make you think it's time to make the move. I can't see Christopher coming back for all sorts of reasons but there's always a case to be made for a Duncan return.