Ryan

A non-appearance today means that he's now appeared in 8/17 episodes which is now only 47%. I have to say that once the episodes get going we do seem to be making our way through them at a good speed, though I guess the difference between 1 and 20 might be more noticable though than say 3205-3224 or something and it's actually not going by that quickly. Oh, and the consecutive episode stakes, Lynn moves into the lead with 10 Bevan should be tried for crimes to taste after that dreadful montage in the middle of the episode - it does seem to be a style of the early years. We've had the octopus montage, the how to lay a road montage and now Roo and Frank on the beach montage. At least the others had decent music as opposed to what I believe is Alex Papps' dulcet tones.

Excluding the pilot, Steven has appeared in 8 episodes of the first 16, appearing in 30 scenes.

For discussion of the following episodes: 25th - 16 27th - 17 28th - 18 31st - 19 1st - 20 Today's episode felt much more like it - I wondered towards the end of the whether the cliffhanger was Celia's singing, having forgotten the locker stunt at the very end. Week 3 does feel very much an alien week in the scheme of things, focusing mainly on two oddball guest characters and a girl who had this as about her only story. This episode felt like we were back in the community again.

Wooh - quadruple post! First time I've ever seen Episode 15 and convinced me I'm going to enjoy the show more once I gret out of these episodes that I've already seen before. Anyway, episode count - Lynn and Nico appeared in five episodes; Tom, Pippa, Frank and Alf appeared in four episodes. Oh, and the first sighting of Sally's friend?

I never realised Celia played what is almost just a cameo role these first few episodes, just randomly popping up in a scene or two. I knew she didn't have many major stories (in fact, off the top of my head, I struggle to think of major Celia stories), but so far, in 8 episodes since her arrival, she's appeared in 6 scenes! Anyway, onto todays episode. I thought it was better than the previous episode, though this Variety Night seems to have been taking forever to appear. It was mentioned in the Pilot and everyone seems to be preparing for it, so it better be something good!

A few more additions over the weekend, bulking up some of our info from 1988.

I find the search for Lynn surprisingly low-key, I know Lynn runs away a lot and so they're probably just expecting her to come back after a few days, but still.

I think the impression was to try and create the fact that they were in some way alienated from the town with Nico having his mental handicap and Mrs Pappas not knowing a word of English, a problem shown later when Alf tries to communicate with them. I think the problem is not so much in that scene occurs, it's that it goes on for two minutes and for two minutes, we don't have a clue what's going on. Now this might prove some sort of storyline or character points, but it makes for slightly dull TV.

I have to agree with your regarding Milco - a buried memory of her brother as ultimately a good resolution compared to just an imaginary friend and they appear to have researched the continuity as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to be getting the chance to see them and they are lots of things to enjot about them, there's just a couple of things (one being that I've seen some of these episodes before) that's probably making them slow at the moment.

Bevan Lee has alluded to this in interview, after Sons and Daughters which was very much a soap of it's time with huge power-hungry warring families, they tried to do away with the melodrama, but they cut it down too much. They also apparently and I think I read this in Andrew Mercado's book, they tried to make each week self-contained or something and after a few weeks they realise this wasn't working and so they did away with it. I think the show is supposed to really take off about Episode 40.

Look out this week for

type storyline if you will Episode Count: Pippa and Tom appeared in every episode this week, Alf and Eric the Dog appeared in four, though Alf is a fair way down the Scene Count chart which will be on the site within the next few hours.

I have to say that that dog seems a pretty handy actor, from all I know of acting dogs. Unless they tranquilised it.

They are smilies that we once had, but were lost in a server change I believe.

Is it me or does Lynn do the big no-no at the end of today episode and look at the camera? The show does seem to be picking up some pace at this point with episode arcs getting up and running. Some of Lynn's clothes in this episode are real stinkers however. It was like all her tops had shrunk in the wash.

Short summaries have been completed for 1996 and another character from 1988 added today (or yesterday if you're in Oz).

I think that goes back to the pilot and how carefully it was plotted, we weren't overloaded with information - just minimal back stories. Keep on waiting for Carly to not appear and each day she does!

Half-sisters daughter. Debra is a once-mentioned sister, about Episode 70 or so.

Oh, by the way - remember I said there appears to be a continuity error in this episode in the Celia/Roo scene. Of course however, the continuity error as such occurs at a later episode and not here.

I was uploading the Episode summaries for 1996 and Angel appeared in 8 or 9 short summaries in a row. Whether she appears in the episodes themselves is another matter. Hopefully in 7 years that question will be answered. That I know for certain, excluding Alf, is that Seb appears in 13 straight episodes in 2001 around the time where he gets the paternity results and Jude has his accident.

I think whenever I've done random episode counts because it's unusual for me to get full weeks outwith post 2000, I'd say it always seems to have been there in some kind of form, but there was always a lot more malleability that just disappeared and was very noticable around 2006-07. This year (2009) appears to have been better, for instance Nicole getting 5 episodes a week in the week Roman goes to jail.

I'm guessing, but it may have been to do with contracts. I know Ray Meagher has said he originally signed up on a six month contract - I don't know if that was just him or everyone. Certainly Lynn leaves after six months, so maybe she was at well. However, had the show been axed quickly, perhaps to save costly pay-offs, they took Celia, Roo, Matt, Fisher, Lance and Martin on guest contracts. They are all eventually added to the credits in Episode 95 I believe. Carly and Fisher have indeed appeared in every single episode so far, and it goes along with what some of us have said about in the past if someone had a story, that story played through. Sometimes that meant they were in more of the episodes than usual, but so be it. They have been a lot better if Red Ranger's counting is to be trusted this year than previous years. Not to worry though, Lynn actually plays a pretty major part over the next few weeks.

I don't think you'd see 10 minutes in the middle of an episode these days given away to an octopus prank! Complete with quite catchy jaunty music actually. I keep expecting Lynn to show up again and each episode passes by and she doesn't appear.

I got the impression she did the dishes as the Fletcher's had made dinner.