adam436

In many ways, Celia is such a sad character. She lost her fiance at a young age and threw herself into religion and community work. Had Les survived, she would have a large family and as a mother, would have been a completely a different person. Instead, she's often a source of a ridicule for the younger characters and often the butt of many pranks/jokes. I'm currently watching the episodes in which Craig Barnett comes to stay with her which I think sums it all up. Celia is excited and enthusiastic about having him him stay and wants to cook him a full breakfast and had plans of all the fun things she wanted to do with him, which probably how she imagined her own life panning out with children, but instead he and Steven are scheming to get Craig kicked out.

The writers became too reliant on each other from a story perspective. Even when Marilyn was introduced, they became a trio rather than trying to develop Martin and Lance as individual characters. That would have been the perfect opportunity for both characters to develop and "grow up" - Lance in a long-term relationship and Martin perhaps with some more serious storylines. I'd rather have had him over Adam as the hapless larrikin always looking for the next big get-rich-quick scheme. Both characters showed promise - Lance had a great "big brother" relationship with Sally and definitely had more of a conscience, whereas Martin was smarter and easier into integrate into the younger cast at the time (i.e. living with Frank and Narelle, working at the Macklins). The scene in which Martin tries to "break up" for Lance because he thinks just brings Lance down shows the depth of Martin's character.

I think it's fine for soaps to evolve - they have to to stay relevant. I know that H&A will never go 100% back to its roots, however it's a shame that that legacy has been lost entirely. It honestly wouldn't hurt to replace 2 or 3 of the twentysomethings with teenagers (there are so many right now, you'd barely notice!) to provide some balance, even though it will never return to a full-on teenage soap again. Whether I enjoy the current show or not, it is still chugging along, which it probably wouldn't be otherwise. I've not watched any of the UK soaps except Hollyoaks, but I understand Emmerdale has changed it's premise too, and Hollyoaks, which was originally about a group of teenagers in college, has evolved into being about an entire village of characters of all ages.

We've definitely had the fostering element in the show since 2011. Obviously John and Marilyn/Gina have had their share (all guests, except for Raffy and Jett!), Roo and Harvey had Maddie and Spencer, and Leah and Zac had Matt, Evie and Oscar (the latter two being his niece and nephew), and Irene had Bella. I can't remember how many of them were official fostering though. Fostering has been a slow decline since 2000, with the introduction of a nuclear family into Summer Bay House over maintaining a foster family. It was all but done by 2019/2020 though.

Did she perhaps stay long that she had become synonymous with Bobby? We hadn't really had long-running soaps in Australia at that point, so Bobby's stint would have been considered long-running by Australian standards in that time. We had dramas A Country Practice as a drama that ran for 10+ years, but other successful soaps such as Sons and Daughters, The Sullivans, The Young Doctors tended to last about 6-7 years. Weirdly, pretty much all of the younger original cast didn't really stay in the industry after leaving H&A. Justine Clarke has become a household name, and Alex Papps has had a long run on Play School, but otherwise all the other original younger cast appear to have left the industry entirely. Many have obviously returned for brief stints and Adam Willits for a regular stint, but none of them have have stayed in the industry in the same way that many of the Neighbours cohort of the same era have.

Funnily enough, Emily Symons requested that Marilyn be killed off when she left in 1999, but the producers said no. I'd be curious to know the reasoning there - maybe the producers didn't want Fisher as a single father of a baby or maybe after Bobby, they didn't want to close the door completely. Either way, it worked out well for Emily that the producers didn't go with her request. If Bobby had not killed off, she definitely would have returned at some point. She would have been back for the big events like Sally's weddings, Sally's departure, Steven's wedding (which Carly returned for), the 2002 reunion episodes, episode 4000 and some of the big Ailsa and Fisher related moments too like his wedding to Marilyn, his 2003 exit, Seb being Alan's son and Ailsa's accident in 1999. I also would have expected her to be considered for a full-time replacement for Pippa or Sally too, since the producers at the time seemed to care for the show's past.

It really is. When we think of the "Early Years" of H&A, fans tend to genralise 1988-2000 in one heap. Cast changes aside, the early years can almost be broken down into three separate eras with John Holmes, Andrew Howie and Russell Webb all making their eras very much distinguishable: 1988 to mid/late 1989: the original format (Holmes) late 1989 through to early 1995 - the Andrew Howie years (described above) 1995 - 2000: the highstakes drama era (Webb) If we wanted to, it could almost be broken down further if we wanted to include transition periods (i.e. late 1989 - early 1991) and periods of change due to cast departures (i.e. Pippa vs Post Pippa, and the different teen gangs in 1995-1999).

It definitely happened with Phillip Matheson back in the eighties. I feel like some of the younger characters are killed off because they are "expendable" for the sake of drama (i.e. Stephanie Mboto, Charlotte Adams, Denny Miller, Mason Morgan, Hannah Wilson, Oscar Maguire), but I can understand the actors of some of the more popular characters like Bobby and Neighbours Todd Landers and Kate Ramsay requesting to be killed off.

Agreed. Adding a few more from the later nineties the Robert Perez story, Ailsa's car accident and it's aftermath in which she thought Alf was trying to kill her, Pippa's brain injury, Justine on trial for killing a baby, Chloe's rape, Byron Fisher's death, Kylie Burton's death, Jesse's downward spiral and exit, Dodge's return. It's still remembered with nostalgia though, probably moreso than 2001 onwards when the drama felt more melodramatic and heightened rather than just dramatic and more grounded, with a few exceptions (if that makes sense!).

Do we know if that was Debra's choice? I'm not sure what parental leave laws were in 1992, but I'm curious as to whether they didn't want Pippa off-screen for too long so that was all she could take. Debra said in the podcast interview that she offered to leave and the producers said they would find a way around it so she didn't have to. Ada Nicodemou and Emily Symons had longer absences, but obviously parental leave have changed since then and they also weren't lynchpins of the show in the same way Pippa was.

I've also noticed that Tom and Pippa shifted to becoming supporting characters towards the end of 1988 too, with Bobby, Frank, Carly and Roo taking centre stage. I guess Tom and Pippa's role became somewhat reduced when they went from six foster kids to four (Lynn left, Frank moved out), and the producers clearly realised how popular their breakout stars were so those mentioned above started getting more screen time. Given Bobby also moved out in early 1989 and Carly became an adult, I wonder why the producers didn't introduce more regular foster kids at that point to bolster the Fletcher family. Instead, the Stewarts and Fisher picked up Emma and Viv respectively.

I agree. Either of those situations could have worked though from the sound of it, it sounds like she deserved better than a happy ending with Greg, and she never would have left Sam. I guess they could have reversed it and had Greg die and Bobby and Sam move away, but fewer characters would have cared about the fallout from his death. Given how long the characters closest to her - Fisher, Sally, Ailsa, Pippa and Sam - remained in the show after she died, she could have returned several times over the years too.

For me, it's Chloe's rape. I started watching in mid 1996 when I was 7 years old, so that was quite confronting to me at the time.

I'm going to say no, given how very little happened in the early nineties as a whole. I've not seen much of H&A from mid 1990 through to late 1994, but from what I gather, the big stories were few and far between. Other than the two you mentioned, which were both influenced by external events, the only big ones I am aware of are David's death and Sophie's subsequent pregnancy and Meg's death. The later half of the nineties felt very more high-stakes drama with Saul's cult, Justine accused of killing a baby, Steven and Selina's relationship, the Robert Perez stuff, Chloe's rape, the earthquake, the cyclone, the fire in which Fisher lost his home and Nelson was injured, Sally going missing in the river, the deaths of Stephanie, Michael and Shane, plus iconic weddings like Shane and Angel, Don and Marilyn. As I've mentioned, I've not seen too much of the early nineties, so my memory may be biased because I've seen these episodes.

I listened to that Debra Lawrence interview mentioned earlier and she said she was told about 7 months into her real-life pregnancy. She also said the producers didn't want to or couldn't keep the baby in the show, which is why they went down the SIDS route. I guess the only other option would have been a stillbirth. Knowing the baby wouldn't be around, the producers must have known much earlier otherwise it would have made sense to not write the pregnancy into the script at all and just strategically hide it like they did with Marilyn and Leah. Debra Lawrence was the first actress to get pregnant while working on the show though, so maybe they didn't fully think it through.

Did H&A ever have any big affair storylines in the early years? Other than Roo/Frank once he'd married Bobby (which was used to facilitate Frank and Roo's exits), I can't really recall any. I think Lucinda cheated on Nick with Ryan, but they weren't really a core couple of the show. There was also Joel and Natalie in 2000, but again, that was just used for Natalie's exit.

I assumed most, if not all of them were axed but I don't know for sure. It would make sense that one or two of them would have had to be sacrificed to make way for the Nash family kids. It seems unfair, since their predecessors were so popular that it was always going to be an uphill battle. Looking at it in the wider H&A timeline, the 1996-97 teen group feels very much like an unintentional stopgap teen group, between the hugely popular predecessors and their successors (see below). The group that followed them seemed to be much more successful IIRC, which perhaps might have attributed to them being more successful: Justine, Tom, Tiegan and Joey. Tom rounded out the group of "survivors" of the clearout. Gypsy and Will Mitch, Hayley and a now-teenage Sam. There was also Peta and Edward (I can't really remember where they fitted in, but I suspect it was Gypsy and Will's year?), and the recently-recast Duncan in the junior years of high school, who didn't get his own teen group until most of those had departed or graduated school.

Or maybe Pippa also got a new heart in 1990 with her new head I'd imagine given that the writers didn't plan the pregnancy (it was written in when Debra fell pregnant), they wanted it to have minimum disruption already-planned stories as possible. Plus, the drama all came afterwards with Dale's death.

To be fair, most of those characters were written out after a year or so, so didn't really have a chance to gain a fan following. Many characters, particularly teen ones, take time to make an impact and I think some of these would have done given a chance (particularly Tiegan, who I loved!). To make a comparison with other teen characters, if the likes of Blake Dean, Curtis Reed, Kirsty and Jade Sutherland or Matilda Hunter were written out after a year or so, I doubt they would be well-remembered either because they didn't really make an impact straight away. Joey Rainbow was also part of that teen group, as was Justine Wells towards the tail end, and they stuck around for a decent time and are fondly remembered. I first started watching H&A in "real-time" in mid 1996 (I have seen most episodes prior to that during reruns), so I have some nostalgia about that teen group because of that, perhaps moreso than the characters themselves.

And do what with him? Other than power games with Donald (which would have got old quickly), I can't really see what him being a regular character would have really added to things.

Yes, that is moreso what makes it uncomfortable. And the fact that his age is constantly referred to and as the line "he's a child" or words to that effect. And most of the adults didn't seem that phased about it. With Roo and Frank/Brett, Roo is 17 and I don't think it is ever really stated that either of them took advantage of Roo. Frank also felt more immature because he was still living in the family home at the time. It felt like all Tom and Pippa did in 1989/1990 was fight - firstly when Tom became a workaholic which lasted a while until Tom went missing at sea, then the Zac stuff and then their final fight leading up to his death. It was a far cry from 1988, where aside from the Danny stuff, they don't seem to have any big arguments at all.

I have just watched the episode in which Pippa gives birth to Christopher. I've not seen many episodes of 1992/1993, but did they make a big deal about Pippa's heart issues with her second pregnancy? That pregnancy was due to Debra's real-life pregnancy, and the big drama obviously came afterwards with Dale's death, so I am just curious whether continuity still kicked in or whether it was conveniently forgotten under those circumstances?

Re-watching the 1988 season on 7Plus, I am going to add the Steven and Narelle storyline, especially with the amount of onscreen kissing between them. Steven is 15 and Narelle is 19. There was an age gap between Roo and Brett and Roo and Frank, but she is 17 and Frank seemed younger at the beginning because he was still one of the foster kids.

Times have changed so Fisher and Bertram aren't neccesarily stereotypical principals now, but I'd someone like Bianca would be hard to take seriously as a school principal in small-town due to her messed up personal life - married into a criminal family, running out on her wedding etc. And Sophie Taylor and Sally Fletcher seemed far too young.

I'd add Josephine Mitchell and Kate Raison to that list too, who had just come off successful runs on A Country Practice, the #1 drama at the time. They also picked up Neighbours star Richard Norton, though I am not sure how popular he was on Neighbours that it could have been considered a coup in the say that Craig McLachlan was. Paula Duncan was also hugely popular from her role in Cop Shop, and had a brief stint as Ailsa's sister/Emma's mother. Yes, I'd say 1989 was very much a transition year for the show. There was a big clearout in late 89/early 90 (Lance, Martin, Stacey, Andrew, Morag, Tom, Celia and eventually Pippa #1) and then the new direction was under way. The comedy was mostly lost with Lance, Martin and Celia too - Celia and Alf's dynamic was often played for laughs, and Lance and Martin were always up to something. They even had some some cringy comedy stories as a trio (the hotdog stand, the mouse funeral) which perhaps was due to the writers just pairing them up because they knew all three were leaving, I'd say the fostering element continued for a few years after Pippa left - Irene still had Joey, Will and eventually Hayley and Nick, though it looked like they were moving away from the fostering dynamic to a stepfamily one, but Ken was written out before it came to fruition. Travis and Rebecca had inherited Pippa's remaining foster children, Justine and Tegan. Sam moved in with Don and Marilyn, but I can't remember if that was straight away when Pippa left or later down the line. Then Joel and Natalie inherited Justine when Travis and Rebecca left, and also fostered Peta. Alf and Ailsa had Aaron Wells and Mitch McColl during this period too. If we look at Irene as the stepmother rather than a foster mother like I mentioned above, then it was pretty much done by 2000 (along with other early years elements like the original Diner and Stewart house, the classic opening credits and long-term characters like Sam and Ailsa). The Sutherlands fostered Brodie Hanson and Irene fostered Tasha, but otherwise there were weren't really any foster kids in 2000-2004 until Sally was returned to Summer Bay House.