adam436

I don't know who was responsible for the hiring decisions at Macklins (was it Tom or head office/Gordon?), but given Roo's history with both the Macklins and the Fletchers, it's an achievement to get a job there after failing the HSC as well

To be honest, I think Alf and Ailsa's personality shift that you described was a result of actually giving them storylines. Alf and Ailsa had a big 1988 and 1989 (the reveal of Ailsa's past, the early years of their relationship and Roo's interference, Ailsa's pregnancy and post-natal depression), then they slipped into the background for most of the early 1990s. With the 1995 revamp, they were pushed to the forefront again for the next few years - we learned they both had a secret child, Ailsa had a few mental health issues, Alf had a few health issues (his heart mostly, I think?), Ailsa was terrorised by her estranged brother, the car accident which lead to Ailsa's paranoia that Alf was trying to kill her, Duncan was SORASed into a terror teenage, and I feel like Curtis was more of a wild child than most of their previous intakes (Emma, Blake, Simon, Sarah) so he didn't give them much to smile about either. I also remember they had a marriage separation/breakdown at one stage too - I can't remember what caused them to separate, but I remember Alf was staying in a caravan and met a blind lady played by Belinda Giblin. Other than the brain tumour story, Alf didn't do a great deal in those years though. All his family were gone and he lived in a flat above the diner on his own for the most part - Seb and Martha lived with him briefly, but he felt very much a supporting character again. It wasn't until they moved him into Summer Bay House with Sally and her family hat he really embraced the grandfatherly role, and he's pretty much stayed there since.

I guess it wasn't too much of an issue because most younger characters were generally either leaving whilst still at school, or pretty soon after. Chloe, Selina, Shannon, Sally, Carly, Shane and Angel, Bobby and later Will, Hayley, Dani, Gypsy stuck around for a long time with mixed outcomes. Bobby owned the diner (as opposed to just working there), Selina became a trainee nurse, Sally went to uni and eventually a teacher, who at least did something different. I honestly can't remember if the others did anything different to working at the diner. Most of the other teens either left whilst still at school, or moving away for university straight after school was their exit story (Steven, Justine, Damien).

Would Matt have just morphed into the emotionally abusive husband that Ben was for the sake of the story though? Maybe the producers thought there was just too much history with Carly and Matt they wanted her to have a "fresh start" with someone new.

I think there are several factors as to why it was dropped. The show was also trying to pivot to a "sexier" image by 1989/1990, so the Macklin Corporation didn't really fit in with that. Also, the corporate world seemed like a very 80s thing for soaps, so maybe they were trying to move with or ahead of the times by dropping it when they did. All the characters initially involved in it - Tom, Frank, Roo, Stacey - were all gone, so it made sense in a way to phase out that aspect too. Would the Macklin Corporation have been kept in the show had Roger Oakley not been written out? Maybe - even we didn't really see it onscreen or only saw it when Tom had a work-based story. Another factor is that storylines were pretty much exhausted. You've listed everything the Macklin Corporation were involved in, so what else could they do? I've suggested before that Gordon Macklin could have been a full-time villain in the series (a JR Ewing/Mr Burns kind of figure), but now you've highlighted what they actually did, it would have got old pretty quickly.

I am in two minds here. Alf was often written as hot-headed and an authoritarian father figure when it came to Roo and his family, plus we had the story with Roo's boyfriend where he came across as racist. But on the other hand, he was always Mr Reliable, on hand to help out the Fletchers where there was a crisis or they needed an extra pair of hands, and we saw his softer side with Ailsa in the early days of their romance. Weirdly, I actually 80s/90s Alf more likeable than the current character. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because he had Ailsa to compliment him. He currently feels like a watered-down version of early years Alf. Once Ailsa died, Alf kind of transitioned into more of a grandfatherly role, especially once he moved into Summer Bay House and we had all the young waifs and strays come through under the care of Sally, Miles, Roo and Leah and Zac. It was a natural progression for the character, but he's certainly lost that "edge" that he had in the early years. I can't really comment on anything between mid 1990 and late 1994, as I've not watched most of that, but I think by 1995 when it became obvious he was going to be one of the long-term characters they had started to iron out the kinks in his character without him losing his "edge".

I liked Andrew as a character, but her never seemed suited to Carly or Stacey

I can see both sides of the argument there. A shorter hiatus can actually help a return be more successful, such as with Marilyn and Steven in 1995, or Kirsty in 2008. Whereas Steven or Kirsty have become so irrelevant as characters now I think their return would make no sense storyline-wise because they have no strong ties to the current characters. And I assume that the core demographic of H&A has changed so much that most viewers would have no idea who they are, so the buzz and excitement generated from the news would be much less. I was a little apprehensive about Marilyn's 2010 return for that reason. Thankfully she close to the two remaining characters from her previous stint (though from memory, she didn't even share that many scenes with Irene early in her return!), but otherwise there had been a complete turnover from cast in absence, so I was a bit worried the writers would have to shoehorn her into a cast and she'd be written out after a year because her return was a flop, Luckily it paid off, and she's still around 15 years later. Many of the early 2000s returnees like Celia, Sophie, Frank, Martin and Lance had been absent for 10 or more years when they returned, so I think there was a certain buzz about them coming back.

The Ferals was one of my favourite TV shows as a child She also was the voice of the tortoise in Magic Mountain, another 90s Australian children's classic. Cornelia had some really fun roles in the 90s and early 2000s when her career had a bit of a resurgence (perhaps in part to the H&A reruns). As well as the Weakest Link, she played the Madame of a brothel in the Ned Kelly parody film Ned and a cynical book publisher in Always Greener.

For me, 2000 was the final year of the "Early Years", so the fact that Leah was introduced the same year and stuck around really does feel like a fitting way to kick off the new era. Another perhaps incidental similarity in their journeys is that they both married Marilyn too

When you consider that only 3 of the 10 longest running characters are men, it's not surprising that many of our lists have more women on them. Whilst all of our lists prove that long-running and iconic are not exclusive by omitting some stalwarts and including other shorter-lived characters, a number of them will naturally appear in both. For reference, the 10 longest-running characters (I think in order!) are Alf, Irene, Leah, Marilyn, Sally, John, Don, Roo, Ailsa and Colleen.

In no particular order: Fisher, Sally Alf, Ailsa, Sally, Marilyn, Irene, Bobby, Brax and Gypsy. My list is skewed toward the early years because they were my core viewing years and I've dipped in and out since 2005, rather than watch it consistently. The first 7 characters are long-running characters who have survived many eras of the show and loved by most fans. There are long-running characters like John, Roo, Leah and Colleen, but I wouldn't call them iconic in the same way. Again, maybe it's bias towards the early years because I do really like John as a character, or maybe it's the way the writers don't seem as invested in the older/stalwart cast in the same way early years writers were. Gypsy, Brax and Bobby were all relatively short-lived in comparison to my other 7, but they well and truly defined the eras they were in.

It's discussed briefly on page 32 of this thread. I did a quick google and couldn't find any reference to the original article though, so I only know what was mentioned there.

I enjoy reading the interviews with actors I used to really enjoy watching who perhaps we don't really too much about or know about their thoughts of working on the shows at the time. You learn lots of little bits of info of actors who have since faded into obscurity, like real-life romances between actors or that they had kids etc. I still recall the TV Week gossip column of one issue of TV Week said Georgie Parker was in talks with Neighbours about a possible role, and they were negotiating a schedule that allowed her to commute between Sydney and Melbourne (I think something similar was offered to fellow H&A alumni Jodi Gordon and Kip Gamblin). It obviously came to nothing and I've never found it again or a trace of it online, but there must be so many behind-the-scenes stories and gossip snippets in those magazines that have since been lost and make interesting trivia now. Me too - the one she had Bobby is probably the prime example of why I didn't like Floss. Her telling Bobby about that caused so many disruptions for Bobby, just as she was becoming settled into a stable life with Tom and Pippa. Floss just wouldn't let it go. I know the show has to think and about keeping the show fresh and not "let's make sure we still have some original cast in 20-30 years time", but the majority of the cast likely didn't leave of their own accord: Lynn, Floss, Neville, Martin and Lance were all definitely axed. Celia, Tom and Pippa #1 - based on Cornelia Frances' comments about her own exit, it sounds like those three were either axed or something went down behind the scenes that led to their departures. Steven and Carly - I suspect they didn't have their contracts renewed, but we don't know for sure. By 1990, the show was moving into the next generation of the Fletcher/Ross family (Michael and new Pippa, Finn, Sophie, Haydn), so they may have it felt it was the natural time for Steven to move on too, especially since Steven had just finished high school and his peers Emma and Viv had left a few months earlier. And Julian McMahon wanted to leave, so it's very possible Carly was written out too, since the character would have become a spare part in the new Ross family, and had pretty much run her course. Roo - Justine Clarke supposed wanted to leave because of the way she was treated by viewers. Justine has had the most successful post-H&A acting career of the original cast, so she would have left sooner rather than later anyway, but we still might have got another year or two out of her. So that just leaves Frank, and longer-running characters Bobby, Fisher, Ailsa and Sally.

They faded into the background pretty quickly too, long before they were written out in the space of 1 or 2 episodes. I vaugely recall reading somewhere the actors learned they were being written out after reading it in TV Week, though I can't find that information now.

She also returned briefly in 2002 and 2004. She returned Summer Bay's bicentenary(?) in 2002 in which she predicted something bad was going to happen, which turned out to be the ferry sinking. She returned in 2004 believing that she was dying and asked Sally and Flynn to help her die. I liked Floss when I watched the early years as a child, but re-watching the 1988 season last year on 7Plus, I really didn't like her. I just found her to be really in-your-face and a bit of a busybody. She was never a gossip like Celia was, but she would always interfere and often make situations worse. The Bobby stuff being the prime example, but also working with Celia on the Mikado production. Her bickering with Neville always felt really forced and OTT too. Having said that, I did really enjoy her relationship with Sally and I did feel for her during the storyline with her grandson.

Hollyoaks do it too, but at least for the most part, they seem to slot back in seamlessly. I can't say the same for many of Neighbours returning characters, and I've never watched Eastenders so I can't comment there. Bringing back former characters is certainly something that should be done sparingly for it to be impactful. Marilyn and Steven were the first big characters to return full-time and look at the impact that had.

I do think it depends what purpose the returning characters serves though - characters like Gypsy, Sally and Don are the best examples recent years of why past characters should never return. If we exclude cameos for weddings, funerals and character exits, I'm struggling to think of a character who returned in a guest capacity that actually benefited from their return. Lance returned sporadically during Colleen's regular stint, but it was largely due to nostalgia. Chloe was brought back to be killed off. Will was thrown under the bus for the Penn murder storyline. Gypsy, Sally and Donald had awful stories in their returns. Even Golden Boy Heath's latest return in which he helped characters he'd never shared a scene with prior served no purpose whatsoever and was clearly just a nostalgia thing. Neighbours generally only bring back characters for nostalgia reasons only and then shoehorn them into a cast they are out of place in, or come up with a contrived story as to why they've returned. H&A did that with Heath's latest return, but I really wouldn't want to see that happen to H&A and would rather just leave iconic characters in the past where they belong so they can retain their iconic status. Nathan also hasn't been seen in nearly 23 years, so he could have children in their early twenties. Both characters would likely be recast if they returned though, so would pretty much be entirely new characters at this point anyway like Roo is.

Can't really blame him there I can't really say I took to most of the 1989 additions either except for Morag and Marilyn. Viv and Matt had zero personality and were pretty forgettable. Emma was okay, but she was saddled with Viv and Adam for much of her stint, which I felt dragged her down. Marilyn and Morag were a great comic pairing, so it's a shame that didn't last longer. For me, that was one of the highlights of the 1989 season.

Reducing to 4 episodes a week would probably suit Channel 7 scheduling to be honest so I'm surprised they haven't pushed for it before now. Hollyoaks, Neighbours and NZ's Shortland Street have all reduced their output in recent years. I can't speak for the other UK soaps, as I don't watch them, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happens when the next Channel 5 contract is due for renewal. For Hollyoaks, I don't think it's been it's that successful storyline-wise. Several characters who survived the cast cull were sidelined because there wasn't enough air time for them, and the initial months were so slow that by the time the next Monday rolled around, I would forget some of what's happened. I think it's a catch 22. Viewing habits/ratings are changing, so therefore the budget (investment from networks/advertising revenue etc.) has reduced. Hollyoaks pivoted to a streaming first model, so maybe that's something H&A could investigate. Their core demographic is now 18-39, who are probably more used to streaming episodes rather than "appointment television". H&A could still remain at 7pm weeknights for the audience who prefer to watch it there or are unable to access 7Plus. I guess given all the scheduling changes at Channel 7, it may become logistically difficult when the broadcast schedule differs from the 7Plus streaming release schedule. I also think Channel 7 would be too scared of losing ratings though, which would happen (though I don't know to what extent) if the episodes were released hours in advance on 7Plus. Unless Channel 7 wanted to use it an argument for moving H&A onto 7Two, so they can free up 7pm for their "premium" programming on Monday-Wednesday, and AFL on Thursdays.

I also remember Channel 7 doing a tribute/retrospect type thing. I don't remember much about it though, other than Nicolle Dickson and Alex Papps turning up to a location shoot to surprise Ray Meagher. I do remember reading somewhere that the Martha story was meant to be considered a 30th anniversary story, just as I recall Sally's forgettable 2013 return was intended to mark the 25th anniversary. I can't find those quotes now though.

Anniversaries don't have to age an TV show. If anything, it just celebrates what the show has done to survive. H&A has had to pivot to the high-octane drama in the 2010s and 2020s, if it hadn't and still relied on similar stories to the simpler Early Years, I don't think it would still be around today. Whilst I'm not a fan of the retcon stories (like Marilyn's and Irene's secret children, Alf's not-dead wife) or the imbalance of age groups in the current cast, I do enjoy the more heightened drama like we had in the Braxton years and the Robbo years. I will always prefer the early years of 1988-2000, but I can appreciate that would never stick with 2025 audiences. That's true. Other than episode 4000, no other milestone episode or anniversary has been celebrated onscreen. I guess it's also harder to have special episodes on the actual date, because often H&A is still on it's Christmas/Summer hiatus at the time. The first few months of 2008 coincided with Sally's exit, so I guess you could argue the returnees for her farewell could be seen as an unofficial 20th anniversary celebration, though that connection was never officially acknowledged.

If the show celebrated Alf's 80th onscreen, the most returnees we would get would be Ryder. Likewise, for Irene. We might see Bella or Olivia if we are lucky, or maybe Heath or Bianca because they are Braxtons, but certainly not anyone earlier. I honestly wouldn't want to see any classic characters return at the moment. The show made a mess of classic characters in recent return stints - Will, Gypsy, Celia, Sally. Iconic 90s and 2000s characters are best left in the past as far as I'm concerned so we have fond memories of them.

I personally think there is too many now - if the producers used them effectively or if we had a greater balance of cast, it wouldn't be an issue. Justin and to a lesser extent Leah overlap with the younger cast, but generally the producers seem to want to segregate the stalwart cast from the newer cast and generally only have the groups interact when it is necessary. If one or more them left, I doubt the producers would rush to bring in a new character in that age group. As thing stands there are too many characters who I suspect that the producers feel obliged to keep because of their stalwart status. I don't think we've really ever had so many stalwart characters at any one time in past eras - some of them overlapped (i.e. Leah was a new character when Ailsa and Fisher were on the show, as was John and Roo#2 with Colleen).