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Everything posted by adam436
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What things never made sense to you on Home and Away?
adam436 replied to cymbaline's topic in The Bayside Diner
1. That seemed silly, but I guess it was done for the drama. The Adam fallout, Morag's return, Fisher's and Sam's grief. But I agree, the Marshalls could have left as a family unit, since I doubt anyone would care if Sam stayed or not at that point. I've no doubt Nicolle would have become a recurring guest in the 2000s like Carly, Steven and Pippa were had she not been killed. 2. He was actually removed from the credits before his death too. I remember reading about the accident in TV Week a few weeks earlier and noticing him missing in the credits and put two and two together and knew he would die. Edward Dunglass didn't appear in the opening credits for very long in 2000 either before he was written out. 3. I never got that either, especially when characters like Matt Wilson and Mariyln were added to the opening credits, then removed a few weeks later. They both returned later, but they were removed from the credits shortly after. Stacey Macklin was my favourite character, so I'm a little biased on that one though. And Irene for that matter. Her own kids were taken from her and she had a history of alcoholism and abuse, yet she was allowed to foster so many other teens over the years. The H&A Early Years Instagram page makes fun of it all the time, but Ailsa popping in and out of the diner during really busy periods and her staff just putting up with it -
Do we think Pippa was as "sacred" once Debra Lawrence took over the role? Debra is definitely more iconic to the average H&A viewer (I personally prefer Vanessa, but generally speaking she's longer-running and more recognisable to the average viewer), but when we talk about long-running original characters, I really only consider Alf, Ailsa, Don and Sally. It's hard to imagine Pippa being axed, because she was very much the show's linchpin in those early days, but would there have been a huge controversy had she been axed in 1996 along with Michael or in 1998 instead of Debra leaving of her own accord or in 2000 when the Sutherlands took over the caravan park? I feel like it definitely would have been moreso had we had the same actress playing the part from day one, but given we know Lynne McGranger was almost axed after 10 years as Irene, who's to say that Debra might have stayed too long as Pippa.
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I never knew that? Do you remember where that was? Did something change behind the scenes in 2004? They'd married off Rhys and Beth, with what I assume was a long-term plan to keep Rhys and have the Hunters replace the departing Sutherland family members, then Rhys was written out a few months later and presumably the pregnancy was dropped at that point too. You have to wonder why they didn't write out Beth and most of the remaining Hunters at that point too. Matilda and Henry were not popular in her first year, Kit was already dropped from the regular cast and Scott wasn't living in the family home.
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Hayley moved out to "The Palace" with Noah, Dani and Josh around that time and Nick just would have been palmed off onto Sally and Flynn, Leah, Alf or whichever household needed topping up at the time. Back to the original question, I don't think Pippa would have been axed and it's more likely Irene would have lasted so long. Irene has clearly lasted longer now, but at the time Pippa had a stronger history and ties in the show. Given Irene stepped up into both Pippa's job at the school and as the role as the primary foster mum, one of them would have eventually had to give. The Nash family came in to replace Pippa, so maybe it would have happened then, or maybe it would have happened in 2000 when the show had a bit of an overhaul. Sh
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I recall reading somewhere that Lynn was considered too young for the teen's older storylines and too young for Sally's storyline, which I find odd as I thought she was the same age as Steven? I agree - I'd say Lance, Floss and Neville were very one-dimensional and were weaker than her.
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Agreed. But I think she's spanned across multiple eras, so she's someone that fans of the current show and fans of the late 90s/early 2000s era, when she was at her peak, can vote for. I think Alf will win for that reason. Dean and Ziggy are popular, but only fans watching post 2017 will know them. There are many exclusively Early Years fans who would have voted. I am curious to know how close the points will be though
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I definitely wouldn't call Duncan a popular character by any stretch of the imagination. Even when he was a regular in 1998-2001, he wasn't really popular. Most of the "bad boys" had at least some redeeming qualities, but I really can't find any with the Duncan. He was definitely redeemed in his 2016 stint, but that appearance is so short-lived that I doubt many people would even remember that. It's definitely Brendan McKensy that defined the role. We just got our answer, and from some of the other displacements, I am really not surprised. That's pretty much my predictions too. The genuine surprise for me is Cash! I would not have thought him to be more popular than some of the current regulars like Mackenzie or Justin, but there you have it. I still think this year's winner will be Alf, but with some of the displacements this time, we can't even be certain of that anymore. Leah's popularity seems to go up and down, Irene hasn't really done anything significant in years and I imagine Marilyn will have probably lost a few votes after the Heather story. It has been some years since Brax was on the show, so I can't see him winning. I'm genuinely surprised he will (most likely!) be the only past character to secure a top 10 spot. If a character was to win that wasn't one of the "Big Four", my money would be on Dean. He seems more popular than Ziggy (though I guess this poll will prove or disprove that!) and Cash, Felicity and Tane appear seem quite divisive, at least on this forum anyway.
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I think that's it. Usually new characters like Bree, Eden, Remi, Kirby, Xander and Rose would appear in the lower ends of the poll due to how new they are and the fact they've not exactly set the world on fire, so to see them in the same update as the legends, and some characters like Felicity, Cash, Tane and Nikau poll higher than them, is quite the shock. In the past, the top 20 have generally been a mix of the "poster boy/girl" for the day (for lack of a better word, and that's no disrespect to what they brought/bring to the show) and mainstay characters both past and present. The current cast always get at least some points in these polls, it's just never really been so many. With the exception of three former characters (I could name my predictions, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone), the remaining 17 are all current characters or last appeared within six months. Having said that, it would seem all the original regular cast except for Neville McPhee and Lynn Davenport appeared in the poll. Unless they somehow randomly make the top 20 or the other original character not seen yet (other than Alf!) does not make the cut, both of which seem unlikely.
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I have worked out who the top 20 are based on the fact that every regular from the 2022 season appears on the list. 15 of the 20 characters are current characters, and of the remaining 5, 2 of them last appeared in 2022. This must be the first time that current characters have dominated the top 10-15 and icons/legends like Pippa, Morag, Bobby and Fisher have been pushed out.
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With nearly all the current regular cast appearing in the top 40, I really can't see Don appearing in the top ten this year. I will gladly be proved wrong though. If it's the character I suspect, I am going to say somewhere close to the 1000 mark. We had over 2000 votes and I could see over a quarter ranking this character somewhere in their list. The number of points will escalate quick the closer we get to the top too. Donald is an incredibly complex character and Norman played the role with such honesty and emotion. I loved the many facets of his character - the vulnerable side when three of his children died or when he was rejected by Pippa and Judith, the lighter side during his marriage to Marilyn, the authoritarian side in his role as principal and finally his warmth in his relationships with Bobby, Angel and Sam. Donald's departure in 2003 left a huge hole in H&A both at the school (when you consider some of his successors as principal!) and the wider cast, as I don't think we have had such a complex character, or even a greater actor as Norman, since.
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I'm not really. He was definitely the least memorable of the teens in that mid-90s peak and it has been many years since he last appeared either in real time or via the Early Years reruns, so has probably faded from people's memories in comparison to the others. When you factor in the number of new characters who must have stolen votes from other characters. I guess the fact it is open to the public I agree! Especially when you consider most of the newcomers from 2021 and 2022 have not been overly well-recieved on this forum. At best, there is certainly divided opinion to the extent I would have expected to have seen many of them already. Of my choices - 3 of 5 votes have appeared (Stacey Macklin, Edward Dunglass, Joey Rainbow) have already appeared and generally always sit in the lower ends of these polls anyway, and the other two have legendary status (Donald Fisher and Morag Bellingham), so I don't expect to see them until we get to the top end of the poll.
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I'm not sure if it had been officially confirmed, but I was always under the impression Sharyn's contract was not renewed. It's been mentioned in this thread that Carly had sort of run her course and didn't really fit into the post Tom/Pippa#1 era, so had she stayed and it's really hard to see where the character had gone had she stayed without Ben. The options would have been: recast Ben, which would have been too soon after Pippa (though at least Ben was a relatively supporting character in comparison!). Given the writers did very little with them after they married, it's hard to imagine that changing much had Ben and Carly stayed with a new actor as Ben. split up Ben and Carly, which would have been a second short-lived failed "young marriage" in the same family after Frank and Bobby. or kill Ben off, which having Carly a widow so soon after Pippa might have felt too much for 1991 H&A. Pippa and Angel did become widows in the space of a few weeks in 1996, but that was a darker period for the show compared to five years earlier. The show struggled to write for characters in their twenties back then (a far cry from 2022!) and we already Bobby and Marilyn well-established in that age bracket and I suspect more popular than Carly by that point. I guess she probably would not have had Lucinda Croft and Carly would have taken on those storylines, but I can't imagine something like the Nick/Ryan love triangle would have done Carly any favours.
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That's a shame that he made you switch off. He definitely didn't have the complexity that Donald had, but he was far more rounded and likable than the patriarch figures than Michael (in my opinion, anyway!) and the ones that came after him like Rhys Sutherland and Tony Holden. Rhys felt like a caricature of an overprotective dad and I just found Tony to be so dull as a character. I often wonder where things went wrong with the Nash family - they were introduced as a central new family following Pippa's exit with the aim of instilling them in Summer Bay House. The latter took well over a year and the decision was even made to recast Natalie rather than write her out, which implies there was definitely a long-term plan for them that didn't come to fruition.
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I couldn't stand Matt to be honest. I am not sure if it was because Greg Benson seemed like a weak actor or the fact Matt had zero personality and pretty much did nothing for three years. Maybe marrying Carly and therefore becoming part of the extended Fletcher family was just what he needed. From a writers perspective, I wonder why it was so rushed. Did they have any major storylines after they married or did they just sit in the background with no development? 1990 was a very transitional year with the change of Pippa, the number of cast exits in the first half of the year and what felt like a "sexier tone" (for lack of a better word), so maybe Carly just got lost in all that. From what I understand, Julian McMahon didn't want to stay longer than a year, so if the producers knew that, a wedding/exit combo (in a similar vein to Tori and Christian) would have made more sense to me.
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Nathan Roberts and his wife (I think she was a nurse?) have also been away long enough to be head of a central new family unit too if they needed one. I disagree about John and Marilyn. They need to reunite. But it would need to be a slowburn/subtle reunion. If they suddenly reunited in the next episode, it would seem forced.
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I'd agree with that. There was very much a "changing of the guard" in early 1990 with Tom, Pippa #1 and a number of supporting characters and Michael and Pippa#2 now leading the show. Carly and Steven didn't transition well into that new era, in the same way that Bobby and Sally did. Perhaps because Bobby had Fisher and the Diner, whereas Steven and Carly were very much tied to Tom and Pippa. Sally was still young enough that the transition was seamless. Part of me does wonder if the initial long-term plan for Carly was for her and Ben to become foster parents in much the same way Bobby and Sally eventually did, but the problem was that Julian McMahon quit sooner than expected.
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Andrew Foley - Peter Bensley
adam436 replied to Dibble Investments Inc's topic in Character/Actor Discussion
I didn't enjoy him watching the show the first time around (I was about 9 or 10), but the second time around (when I was in my late twenties), I found him more likable. I am not sure why though, as there wasn't an awful lot to like about the character. I didn't like his relationship with Stacey, his backstory (the alcoholism and his rich family!) or the way he constantly challenged Donald Fisher. He wasn't my favourite character by any stretch, but I didn't dislike him in the same way I disliked other characters in the late 80s/early 90s period. -
No thanks. He would just fill the main cast with heaps of irrelevant past characters and not have any long-term plan for them. That's not going to salvage this mess either. We don't need Justine Wells entering a thruple with Cash and Theo, nor Carly Morris marrying Justin because Leah has been killed off to save money and he's now at a loose end. As much as I would love a "back to basics" revamp, it's not going to happen. Having said that, H&A can maintain it's current dark tone whilst still having the well round characters and balanced cast it currently lacks. The show could easily dump half a dozen of the cookie-cutter twentysomethings and replace them with a new central family and some teens to prop up John and Marilyn (I've still not given up on them yet!).
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Alf, Irene and Mairlyn have all suffered from terrible retcons in recent years - Irene with Mick, Alf with Martha and Marilyn with Heather. The Alf one is insulting because he and Ailsa were such a long-term couple. There was also no long-term gain from the Irene and Marilyn ones either. At least when Ailsa had a long-lost child, she was a regular and became part of the Stewart family, it was just unfortunate timing that Judy Nunn left soon after. I've no doubt that Heather will be wheeled out every year or so to terrorise Marilyn/Summer Bay whenever she needs a storyline, but Marilyn's yearning for a child has always been such an integral part of her character. I'd say it's not the same Alf either, as he suffered greatly suffered from the Martha story too. If we look at the four mainstays, I'd say Leah is probably the one that has suffered the least under Lucy Addario. Irene lacks purpose these days other than running the Diner and Marilyn and Alf have been ruined by unforgivable retcons. Leah has been neglected by producers, but at least (so far!) hasn't had to endure a retcon and she still serves some purpose as a mother figure to Theo. 11 years is a long time to be EP of a soap opera. I feel like all EPs on soaps should be given a limited run from the outset to stop shows getting too stale. H&A was kept fresh in the first 20-25 years because there was a constant change in producers. There were definitely times when the show got a little lost in the nineties (mid 1990 through to mid/late 1991, most of 1994) and then again in 2008-2010 as it tried to adapt to losing to Sally, but ultimately it didn't become stale for an extended period of time like it has in the last 6-7 years. There have definitely been some highlights in that time in terms of characters and storylines in that time - Ben's depression, Maggie's cancer, the 2019 finale - but I'd say ultimately things started to go downhill when there was the mass exodus in 2016/early 2017 and it never really bounced back. Neighbours also suffered toward the end because the EP had been there too long and had a very one-track mind of what the show should be.
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This seems to be a pretty divisive subject - you have many fans (and some former cast!) claiming that the show has lost its way and no longer about the foster kids and teenagers that it once was. It's also argued that Lucy Addario has been EP for too long, so maybe it's time for a fresh perspective on the show. Even if the show did stick with the current "adult" format, I'd still like to see the show's history respected (the Martha and Marilyn retcons would never happened if it was!) and "natural" returnees. On the other hand, H&A is still chugging along and still rates quite well and it's also been argued that H&A is shifting with it's audience. The once-teenage audience are now the same age as the core cast, so it makes sense to cater for them rather than go through "cycles of teenager audiences" (if that makes sense!), who are probably not even watching free-to-air TV. I like the darker and more adult the tone that H&A now has and pretty come to accept that H&A will never return to what it was in its early years heyday, nor would it survive if it did. I think the problem is the lack of respect for its roots, as mentioned above, and interesting characters and unbalanced cast. The youngest character is now Nikau, who is pretty much just a leftover over the last teen gang. The older characters (Alf, Irene, Mariyln, John, Roo) are also leftovers from the time when the cast was more balanced. When they leave, I can't see the producers rushing to introduce a replacement character in that age group. The lack of teens generally make the older characters like Irene, John, Marilyn and Roo a little redundant. The young-adult soap format would work if the characters were interesting too. I find all the 2021/2022 newcomers to be quite two-dimensional and just move from one relationship to the next. There isn't a great deal of development there, so I'd personally love to see most of those characters written out and replaced with a central family (perhaps Nathan Roberts' family to give Irene a purpose!), some well-rounded twenty-something characters and perhaps a foster child for John and Marilyn. It might be a controversial comment, but I'd probably also lose Roo. She doesn't do a great deal, and I'd imagine losing her would free up quite a bit of the cast budget. If we lost Roo, I'd probably bring back Duncan and a slightly SORASed Bryce to provide Alf with some family.
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Donna Bishop/Rob Storey (1994-1995)
adam436 replied to Homeandawayfan.'s topic in Character/Actor Discussion
Her biggest story involved her ex Andrew who used to beat her. Other than that, her teenage brother came to stay with her Travis for a while. There was also a fun story where her and Irene were competing in a Country Music competition too. The rest of the time she just played school counselor to the teenagers or hung out with Rob and Travis. I wonder why the writers decided not to give Rob a proper exit. It definitely didn't feel like the character left suddenly - he moved out of Irene's, Shane lost his job at the boat shed and he moved on from Donna, all of which eliminated reasons for him to interact with the present characters. Travis seemed also seemed to pick up any stories that might have been potentially planned for Rob too, such as moving in with Donna and his role in the Gus storyline. Having re-watched 1995 episodes just recently, I actually found Rob and Donna more likable than Shane and Angel, but their main character seemed to be that they were nice. I liked them both, and as I said, if I lived in Summer Bay, they are probably people I would choose to be friends with, but didn't really feel like there was much depth to them. -
I have been re-watching 1995 for the first time as an adult (I was 7 when this season original aired), and I must say I have a new-found appreciation for Shannon Reed. She really was one of the most groundbreaking teen characters we have ever had in Home and Away. Shannon was given some of the toughest and challenging storylines of any teen character and Isla Fisher smashed it out of the park every time. Shannon also seemed to have a genuine optimism and energy (compared to say, Selina who I felt was always moaning or complaining) and one of the few teen characters who generally seems to have good rapport with literally every character on the show. The three biggest storylines: The abuse storyline - I've not watched much of mid 1900 through to late 1994, but was she the first character to have a storyline like that? I'm referring to her PTSD from her uncle abusing her as a child. The eating disorder - easily the most realistic and harrowing depiction of an eating disorder in Home and Away, if not soaps in general Her relationship with Mandy - way ahead of its time for 90s primetime television and another first for H&A.
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Donna Bishop/Rob Storey (1994-1995)
adam436 replied to Homeandawayfan.'s topic in Character/Actor Discussion
I actually found Rob quite likable. He was the nice guy and someone I would probably be friends with if I lived in Summer Bay. Maybe that was the problem? The "nice guys" have never exactly been the most memorable or long-running characters in H&A. Matthew Lilley gave a solid performance though. I enjoyed Rob's relationship with Irene though. -
Donna Bishop/Rob Storey (1994-1995)
adam436 replied to Homeandawayfan.'s topic in Character/Actor Discussion
I've just been re-watching 1995 and both characters did get rushed exits. Rob just vanished. Then not too long after, Donna's left rather suddenly too. In the space of one episode, the storyline with her brother was abruptly wrapped up and she told Don she was leaving with unrealistically no notice. Even her getting together with Travis happened only a few episodes before they decide to leave together. She didn't even get a proper farewell scene. I wonder if something went on behind-the-scenes at the time? Especially with how abruptly the Gus story ended too I didn't dislike Donna, but I wouldn't call her one of my favourite characters either. The Andrew story was great though -
Doris Peters - Gwen Plumb
adam436 replied to Benjamin Shatliff's topic in Character/Actor Discussion
I assume Celia was a Doris replacement, since she neither appeared or was mentioned in the pilot and they were both busybody characters. I guess Doris could have always popped up in a guest role as one of Celia's cronies or as a rival though..