atrus

On the catchup trail again. Small point, but watching a load of episodes in quick succession does just hammer home how intrusive the some of the 'triumphal' musical choices are these days. It feels like we can't go two scenes without getting a burst of inanity, often threatening to drown out the dialogue. At least in sad scenes they usually choose more sedate songs to accompany, but we don't need a life-affirming anthem blaring out every time a minor spat is resolved. I know the days of proper underscore are long behind us, but we could dial it back a notch, I feel. Very glad that Perri has avoided jail, but was less convinced by the sudden appearance of Dead Mum - of course, we can't have teens in the Bay long-term so we need some silly contrivance to get Perri out of dodge, so that he's no longer an encumbrance to Tane and Harper and they can get on with sucking each other's faces. I found Kaia's choices difficult to get on board with, really. Okay, in the moment Carl made the threat she had no choice to leave, but did she really think that having said such a thing, Carl was going to be lovely and kind to Perri for the rest of his life? I might've taken a few hours to process but then been straight to the police, and wouldn't have rested until Perri was well away from him. Easy to say maybe, but I just find her taking no action back then too hard to believe when she's apparently so pro-having Perri in her life here and now. Regardless, it's a happy-ish ending for Perri after a tumultuous few months and so I'll take it. Pity he didn't get to say goodbye to Theo because he wasn't in it on Friday. Having been perpetually mardy and snarky more or less since she arrived, Abigail has a personality transplant after a session and a half with Counsellor Tim and is suddenly pouring her heart out to Eden about how wonderful she is - purely so we'll feel sorry for her when she inevitably finds out that Eden is bedding the counsellor and is hurt and upset about it. I find it hard to care about any of this, really. Eden had accrued quite a few sympathy points with me following her split from Cash but it seems she's never more than a few months away from a poor life choice; and up until circa last week Abi (Abby? I forget which) hadn't done much to accrue any sympathy points at all. I still find Levi deeply annoying and while it's true that Tim is eminently punchable, the fact that Levi succumbed to doing it nonetheless counts against him. So, Roo returns and finds out she's just missed the 'bashing on Bree' bandwagon, but chases it down the road at full pelt anyway and hops aboard. Bree does seem to be taking some genuine steps to change things now but a lot of it feels like too little, too late, and again I'm struggling to care all that much either way. Not much of any interest going on with anybody else, but I'll take Justin and Leah no longer bickering as a win. Alf being a pain in the bum to everyone around him until he's browbeaten into compliance is a storyline as old as the hills, but at least it features Alf, I guess. Dana continues to be more or less the only consistently likeable/interesting character to have been introduced in the last five years and I quite liked her latest spat with John.

I'll narrow it down: it isn't Channel 5! I might be tempted to tweak the details here and there, but broadly speaking I think this is exactly what needs to happen - what has been crying out to happen. It seems so obvious that it would improve the show enormously to have a wider diversity of character ages again and to put the 'legacy' cast at the centre of families. Then it essentially doesn't matter how many weeks a year the likes of Irene and Alf do on the show in the years to come - but when they are rostered on, they can be guaranteed involvement in something meaningful. To add to the above, we surely need to kill off Martha offscreen at this point, don't we? I've never heard of a married couple of that age living in different towns and commuting to see each other (or rather, Alf commuting to see Martha, because she sure never returns the gesture ). I know currently it provides an excuse for Ray to have a break every now and then, but as far as Alf the character is concerned it feels deeply unsatisfactory. I guess you can argue it works for them, but... apart from anything I'm bored of hearing about the constant to and fro. He has plenty other relatives he could go and see as an excuse for a write-out, or Sally, or Don Fisher.

Yeah, I'm not sure whether Bree was even telling the truth about having taken leave - for all we know they did suspend her and she's just trying to save face in front of Remi. Or perhaps it is possible for her to take leave, but surely that's not the end of it and a suspension if it was otherwise forthcoming will be awaiting her on her return? They really seem to be putting Perri through it, but I guess if there's no other next of kin then the decision would fall to him (would it be the same if he'd already been convicted of murder, I wonder? Not that I think Perri is guilty of murder, but if a court found that, it would seem odd for somebody's killer to be the one to make their funeral arrangements - but I guess you wouldn't get a conviction that quickly anyway).

The Justin and Leah story is really treading water now. They agreed to try and resolve things at the end of last episode but then Justin continues to make a song and dance out of nothing today, leaving me wishing he'd get over himself for most of the episode. Now they agree to go away to resolve things, but ominously they're going home to discuss it first. Will that lead to another pointless spat at the start of tomorrow's episode and them not going away at all? Let's hope not. Also nominated for membership of the 'get over yourself' club is Abigail. Otherwise, not much of interest going on.

I was pleased to see Rose being introduced to the concept of discretion and applying it almost immediately in Theo's case. In reality I don't imagine that the backstory with his dad would have gotten him off the hook, but I'll go with it because he really doesn't deserve to be charged with anything. Nor does Perri, and if his stint ends with a bleak murder conviction I will be very displeased. Glad the whole sorry scenario put Justin and Leah's bickering in perspective, anyway, and encouraged them to start moving past it.

I know this isn't Rose's call, particularly, and she's just doing what is expected of her as a police officer, but I dislike all the discussion about where Perri was, who knew about it etc before he came forward. They're only accessories to murder if it was actually murder, and I don't think they should be assuming it was simply because he legged it afterwards. I feel like the important thing is that he's come forward now, and as someone who had a restraining order out against his father I also sort of feel like there should be a presumption that the law is on his side. Yes, he shouldn't have gone into hiding but he's been through an incredibly traumatic ordeal and I think that should be taken into account by default. And again, maybe it wasn't the best idea in the event to shower etc after what had happened, but I also sort of think that if it was really self-defence, he shouldn't have to justify himself over things like that because he wouldn't be thinking like a murderer would. I don't know, maybe that doesn't make sense legally and I get deaths have to be investigated and that we as viewers have seen more of the altercation than the police have. But it's just my gut feeling about it - I find myself feeling it's deeply unfair on him. The very fact the dad was floating in the pool is evidence that he was somewhere that, for Perri's safety, he shouldn't have been in the first place. Abigail is being super annoying with her ridiculous hangup about Kirby. I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume there's more to it, but it doesn't seem so from what we've seen so far.

Enjoyed me some no-nonsense Mac today, chucking snotty Bree out of Salt. I can forgive Bree for having issues, but she seems to have had a wholesale personality transplant along with it, which is more difficult to get on board with. Justin's possibly milking it a bit now with Leah. Time to kiss and make up and move on, I think.

Some wrong on both sides with Justin and Leah today. She should have been more receptive to explanations other than Justin being unfaithful, particularly initially and regardless of what Claudia's husband said; but on the other hand Justin has been lying to her for weeks about his ferrying Claudia around without (as far as I can see) any particularly good reason, and trust has to be earned. If he'd been transparent about what he was up to then she'd have far less reason to be suspicious. It seemed inevitable that either Cash or Michelle would become over-invested in their friendship and so it's proved. Not only that but he's in denial about it, and yet again taking his issues out on Eden the second it becomes clear Michelle doesn't want to spend every waking moment with him. Everyone involved in the Perri storyline - Tane, Harper, Rose - is annoying me, but that might just be because they're intrinsically annoying.

Happy New Year, everyone! Not a great deal to say on today's - predictably, Perri does a runner rather than standing up to be counted, which is understandable as he's surely incredibly traumatised by what happened; but it's a shame as it seems like an obvious case of self-defence and would probably be over relatively quickly if he hadn't gone into hiding. Leah really ought to have given Justin a chance to explain, especially given the number of kidnappings and other dramatic events that Bay citizens are often subject to; for all she knew he was calling from another abandoned factory/cult HQ. To be honest, I'm with Maz being snarky at Bree for as long as she continues to pretend there isn't a problem. Nearly killing Alf is not okay.

A very enjoyable rundown as ever! I'll make no comment on Tane and Cash being voted the second and third best characters of all time, but Alf's victory is deserved even if it's only by a whisker this time. And anyway, the fun is in the journey and the ever-entertaining writeups. Thanks to all those involved and for the hard work behind the scenes.

Wow, Irene's dropped to 10. That blows my theory out of the water about her storyline keeping her high, then... I suppose it's good to see John on the rise. I still think his character's completely wasted and could have a far more significant role, but he's done well considering that. Alf and Maz assured decent results, at least. Given the remaining pool of characters we're inevitably talking about, Dana deserves to be higher than she is. I do think Eden has been deserving of some sympathy and even praise for how she's dealt with the Cash situation. But not a Number 8 slot, frankly. Though, she deserves it more than Cash deserves a Top 5 slot!

If Alf and Maz are usurped by bland twenty/thirtysomethings this year then the show itself is at least as much to blame as the voters, to be fair, thanks to putting them at the centre of such memorable storylines as 'sitting in the Diner' and 'serving in the Diner'. At least Irene has had some material, which might just prove her saving grace.

I'm sort of agnostic on the question of whether it would be better to restrict to forum members, as I understand that's going to severely limit the voter turnout, which in itself brings severe limitations to what can be gleaned from any results. But I also imagine we'd probably mostly agree that if it was just forum members we wouldn't be seeing this degree of recency bias. I suppose it partly depends what question is being asked, or what people think they're being asked, too - I guess for some people who might not read the rules/small print carefully, 'Most Popular Character 2024' might imply 'most popular character of this year', and so if they're filling it in hurriedly/casually that might be exactly what they provide. And those who understand you can vote for past characters might well choose not to anyway, not necessarily because they think the 2024 contingent is particularly stellar but just because they don't want to scroll down a list or think about it for too long, and the current characters are freshest in their heads. But whatever you do, you can't eliminate recency bias in a poll like this - it's just a question of how much of a part it's playing. To mitigate it you could also look at weighting results in all kinds of ways, or even augmenting the results for 2024 with aggregated results from previous years in some kind of 'accumulator' system. But whichever way you did it you'd be open to accusations of bias and wouldn't please everybody. Arguably the poll name is perfect for the results we're getting - it's 'most popular characters' but through a 2024 lens, comprising viewers since 1988, those who started watching yesterday, and everyone in between, each with their own take on how memorable/relevant Sally, Bobby and Morag are, if they even know who they are. As someone who's of the view that very few if any of the current non-veteran characters will be memorable/receiving many votes at all in ten years' time if the show is still going and BTTB is still polling, I think @SandsResort had it right - that essentially the most useful way of interpreting the results is to look at them as two separate datasets: one for past characters and one for current (or at least very recent) characters. The only difficulty with that (apart from where you draw the line between current/recent and past, because... how long is a piece of string?) is with the veterans who are still on the show, because they're drawing a lot of their popularity from their longevity/past glory but also are still much liked in the present, including I'm sure by many new and casual viewers, and non-forum members.

I'm amazed that Levi is so high. I'd be amazed even if it was just a poll of this year's characters (which, by this point, it more or less is). If Tane, Cash, Eden or Felicity have beaten Alf I won't be impressed.

That being the case, with 20 now left to reveal, I guess we're looking at (tagging my prediction as I feel it's highly likely to come true) It hurts my heart to see Sally so low at 26, and then Don and Pippa each with a third of the points she accrued even lower. But I guess it demonstrates that the people engaged with the show now simply aren't, for the most part, the people who were engaged with it back in the 80s and 90s. Or at least that's my take, but maybe that's because I find so many of the current characters so uninteresting and don't really get why long-term viewers would vote for them. (Although obviously a good proportion will probably have gone for Alf, Leah, Irene, Marilyn, John in some configuration or other.) But on the plus side, Colleen, Morag and Bobby are still inside the Top 40, and I think pretty much all of those who aren't current but have taken the other places here are earned - Ziggy, Heath and Casey, Belle, Tori, Colby and even Jasmine have all deservedly outlasted their tenures in the fandom's memory, I'd say.

Definitely getting to the 'wheat' of it now, with most characters being ones that I quite liked rather than was indifferent to or couldn't remember! I guess Jack, Roman and Dan are the exceptions to that; I never quite saw the appeal. Flynn wins the prize for most incongruous recast, but probably a recast for the better nonetheless. Ash was one of those characters that I was comprehensively fed up of seeing because of endless crime-adjacency, but nonetheless I appreciated the performance. I'm amazed Bianca isn't higher given how she's always being vaunted as the doyenne of the River Boys era. Jett's a great example of how the show's longevity can allow coming-of-age stories to be told in quite a deep and affecting way. (Not so thrilled at the 'joining the army and getting blown up' outcome but there we are.) Carly and Chloe are great (I had a total brain lapse over More Recent Chloe and had to resort to Google to get the reference!) and I loved Maggie too. Logan was reasonably decent for a modern character, pity about the vanishing act. Hmm, it's interesting to consider how Kane's story would have played out differently now (because it certainly would). I tend to favour a pro-redemption editorial line, but that's not to say that all characters involved have to feel the same way, and it's difficult to imagine him being wholesale forgiven and smiling away in the opening titles in 2024. (And not just because there aren't any opening titles!)

Wasn't sure if this was the place for it @Dan F @Chris J, but just noticed while comparing with my own records that there are a handful of former regulars missing from your full list on the main site: - Morag Bellingham - Martha MacKenzie - Rebecca Nash - Colleen Smart - Duncan Stewart They're all accessible via the alphabetical pages, but just not on the full listing.

We seem to be down to the top 100 as of the next drop, so hopefully we're now through most of the really random entries. Like Lorraine Jensen. No offence to her but, while I do have the very vaguest memories of her anti-piano antics, I find it incredible that she would be among anyone's Top 5 unless they'd literally only watched the show during an extremely narrow window and have an inexplicably clear memory of it decades later, but... okay. Doubly so for Peter Bedford, who I absolutely do not remember! Not that I'm wanting Peter Baker to be awarded any more points than necessary but... might autocorrect errors have a part to play in some of these entries? I'm taking Buddy as a protest vote due to annoyance over the fact that he's seemingly vanished without explanation. Personally I'm more annoyed that the entirety of Summer Bay High has vanished without explanation, but I suppose you can't vote for the entirety of Summer Bay High. Given Izzy's appearance too, I'm tempted to suggest that babies and animals should be banned (where do we draw the line? Would a vote be accepted for the shark that ate Rory Heywood?) but particularly with children that then becomes a potentially slippery slope I suppose. Quite a few more really unremarkable regulars here - Scarlett, Angelo, Mia, Romeo, Harry, Peter, Geoff and Annie, Angie's twin cousin who I never quite grasped the point of, and the disappearing Matt Wilson - though given there have been upwards of 200 regulars in the show altogether and only 190 characters voted for including quite a lot of guests, it's going to be interesting to see who has missed the boat entirely when the full list is in. Of those guests, Andrew Lawrence was a genuinely interesting one from recent times and one of the few characters introduced in the modern show who really deserves any sort of placement. Likewise Gary Morrow, I can definitely see why he's crept in; and from earlier days, Meg and Rosie. Edward, Raffy, Adam, Nick, Sam, Jack, Floss and Neville would be higher for me, they all had something about them. Probably Will and Jesse would be too if only mostly for the staying power factor.

Yes, I'm surprised Stevie is so low. I forgot to place my vote in this and to be clear, she wouldn't have been in it (or anywhere near it), but if it had been a poll of just 2024's characters I'd have expected her to do somewhat well, given she was more interesting than most of the current regulars (not a high bar to clear, but still...) And I'd have expected recency bias to propel her a little way further up the rankings in this vote, too. Less surprised at Valerie and Carl's rankings, though. Much as I like Karen Dean's Mum, I'm glad to see almost-namesake Karen Dean claiming a spot. And also Alan Fisher! Dex, Michael and Olivia probably undeservedly low among a mishmash of otherwise fairly mediocre former regulars and some surprising guest choices. I liked Emma too, but that was a looong time ago. Brad Cooper remains very memorable to me as a pretty terrifying villain (and certainly more memorable than the other Brad on the list), but I think I'd have a hard time choosing him as a favourite. Just quoting the bit in bold for truth because the show can't receive too many kicks up the backside on this point. (I don't know if @Red Ranger 1 was intending it as one, but I certainly am.)

But I think the fact it hasn't been born yet was the whole point Perri was making. What he was nodding towards, without embarking on it directly, was that 'gender reveal' parties can impose a lot of preconceptions and stereotypes on a child before they're even out of the womb - because they're not just about the baby being anatomically male or female, but are often accompanied with all the gendered regalia traditionally associated with each (boys like blue, sports, fighting; girls like pink, dolls, housemaking), which might not be relevant at all to the individual child as they get older.

Yes, sorry, I wasn't intending to suggest that nobody can be a full-time artist. Clearly some talented people make a decent living from doing commissions or whatever, or more broadly graphic design etc, and that makes sense. I was more objecting to the specific situation of some guy who owns a gallery deciding, on the basis of seeing one painting, that he was going to employ Mali full-time to paint lots of paintings to... hang in his gallery? I'm reasonably sure that isn't a career trajectory that many (if anyone at all) have taken. Not that it matters much now as it seems Mali isn't taking it either. Anyway... catching up after losing the thread a little for a few days. And things have turned out reasonably interestingly as we head into the break. Not a lot to say on the Cash/Eden/Michelle situation but so far, is it fair to say that the decision to contact her hasn't necessarily been a bad one for any of them? I'm not sure why there's such a taboo about it medically - I feel like if both parties consent to contact then it's a bit draconian to say it can't happen, although arguably you can imagine situations where the organ recipient feels obliged to meet and then things get murky etc, so maybe. And I'm sure they will get murky as we go on because hey, it's a soap - but just saying that so far, things don't seem all that bad. I didn't really blame Marilyn for going off at Levi, given the confronting situation she'd just found herself in and given Bree had gone AWOL so more difficult to go off at her. Yes, Levi wasn't to blame for what happened to Alf, but I do think he needed to be made acutely aware of what had happened with Bree so that he could take some action. Which, to his credit, he seems to have decided to do, although I can possibly envisage scenarios whereby Remi and/or Bree might try to talk him out of it. I always had in the back of my head that Claudia was probably a few pear drops short of a piñata - just something about her - and alas for Justin and Leah, so it has proved. Despite some really rather tense scenes leading up to it, I can't really see Justin being in physical danger as a result of spending the night in the car - except perhaps from Leah when she tracks him down the next morning and throttles him because she thinks he's cheated on her. I really think he should've started walking, and then at least he might've got a phone signal somewhere along the way before she went to bed assuming the worst. Possums? I bet it was a possum. I nearly fainted when Perri observed that people choose their own gender identity these days - which TV show does he think he's stumbled onto? I momentarily thought he'd opened the way for some enlightened discussion around this but alas, banality quickly resumed, with Tane and Harper deciding that they really ought to find out the sex of the baby so that... they know what colour clothes to buy them and to paint the nursery. Anyway, it seems Perri can't get away with challenging the Home and Away gender orthodoxy like that, because within a short space of time he's traumatised to within an inch of his life into a situation where he's bumped off his own dad, which is just an absolutely horrific way to cut the character down in his prime. I should've known this couldn't all end up with him living happily ever after with Tane, and here we are. Whatever happens I really hope he doesn't end up in the slammer, that would be horrendously unfair.