Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

I get that weird isn't something Home and Away does on a regular basis but there's a long tradition of normally straight dramas like Bergerac or Casualty having the occasional weird plotline.(I still have very fond memories of Holby City's It's a Wonderful Life episode.Only seen it once but still brings tears to the eyes thinking about it.)

Personally speaking, I already liked Billie.Her actions here just confirmed what I already believed, that she's essentially a good person.I don't condone what she did to Nate, but I think the good she's done outweighs the bad.She's the one that ran into a burning building and saved three near-strangers while Leah, Maddy, Evelyn and VJ stood around faffing (and Hunter planted evidence in her bag and ran off).And she's the one that supported and helped Ricky through her grief after Brax "died".

I think Leah was right to suggest Irene look for her child, now it's up to Irene whether that's a road she wants to go down.Pierced is right, she did make a big deal about no alcohol in the house when Chris moved in and read him the riot act when he and Indi left a champagne bottle lying around.

Aaaand today!

Well, Kat's on the right track, although she's picked the wrong King with regards the Diner theft.The police seem to be dragging their heels: Emerson predicts an ID on the body by the next day, but the following night they're still waiting.Charlotte's slowly unravelling, and while Kat couldn't resist rattling her cage she has at least learned the art of subtext rather than just flinging accusations.I liked Alf's reaction although I'm a bit bemused that he's still going "You don't expect to see this around here." Has he forgotten that he's the one that keeps finding bodies?(I'm also wondering where they've got a sample of Denny's DNA from to do a comparison?)Another episode that doesn't seem to know where to end, two good end scenes (Josh telling Andy he wishes he was dead and Kat confronting Charlotte) and they plump for Kat telling Ash something that's a surprise to him but not to anyone watching.

Ash and Phoebe broke up.At least she didn't fling her phone off the wharf like I was expecting.Liked Alf's chat to Ash about Billie.I'm guessing she's out on bail, although that would mean regular check-ins so possibly we're back to her having absconded and the local plods not having noticed.

Josh was back to being annoying in the first part of the episode.And I was also annoyed at Hannah coming in and working miracles on him again, not that they lasted long.(Might have been an idea for Andy and Hannah to at least stay close by and keep an eye on him, rather than wandering on ahead.)So Hannah reappears after being missing throughout Oscar's storyline and goes "Oh, I'm so glad Oscar's been found".Nice to see Kyle delivering some home truths as well even if the character is seeming a bit directionless wandering about in this storyline.And I actually really liked Josh and Andy's last scene.Josh's pronouncement, if written and delivered wrong, could have come across as a melodramatic tantrum.But the quietness of the moment turned it into a believable and poignant look at a teenager's depression, looking ahead at his future and not seeing anything to look forward to.

[Slade]

1 hour ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

Personally speaking, I already liked Billie.Her actions here just confirmed what I already believed, that she's essentially a good person.I don't condone what she did to Nate, but I think the good she's done outweighs the bad.She's the one that ran into a burning building and saved three near-strangers while Leah, Maddy, Evelyn and VJ stood around faffing (and Hunter planted evidence in her bag and ran off).And she's the one that supported and helped Ricky through her grief after Brax "died".

Yes anyone reading your previous post can tell that you already liked Billie.  It's obvious.  I was just giving an opinion about the writers trying to force us to like characters which is what I feel they are trying to do with her character (an argument you yourself have used on numerous occasions - Andy, Hunter et al).  With regards to your point about the good outweighing the bad perhaps but I'm under no obligation to like her.  TBH don't think there's much point trying to discuss this with you as I came to realise a long time ago your opinions are often based on how much you like the characters.  So if I dislike a character you like and say something negative about them (regardless of what they've done) you will often deliberately find reasons to disagree with what I've said even if I'm just posting an opinion just to defend them (re the character discussion threads Chris, Maddy, Kyle, Oscar etc.).  So for instance when I pointed out exactly why Kyle should be in a prison cell right now you disagreed with virtually all my points because you like him.  But when it comes to Brax, Hunter and Olivia (someone who was sexually abused as a child and at the worst has dumped garbage in somebody's flat/borrowed somebody's car) they're disciples of Satan. 

So I guess Irene's forgotten about evicting Charlotte given the stuff she's having to deal with at the moment.  Charlotte's doing well to try and act pretty non-reactionary to Kat's hunch that she killed Denny.  Although I doubt she'll be able to sustain this for any period of time.  I think Kat's portrayal is very believable given that she and Denny were friends and they lived together.  I'm not sure how determined Kat would have been about this case if she was still going out with Nate and her brother was alive.  It will be interesting to see Ash's reaction given that he used to date Denny and was in love with her at one point.

I've now come to the conclusion that Ash deserves better than Phoebe.  All she does is whine, whinge and get on her high horse.  So she finished with him because her ego couldn't handle him actually wanting to support a mate.  She and Kyle seemed to be getting on.  Perhaps she can get back with a waster like him.  They deserve each other.

Whilst I'm still finding Josh annoying, the acting and writing are both sound and realistic.  It makes sense for him to be lashing out at Andy but tolerating everyone else because Andy is the closest person to him.  He would probably be doing the same to Evelyn if she was still obsessed with saving him.  Whilst what Kyle said made sense had to shake my head.  When things are going badly for Josh, he apparently lashes out at people or perhaps cheats on his girlfriend.  When things are going bad for Kyle he kidnaps someone, beats them leaves them in a desert to rot and when he's not doing that he decides to be a little nicer and simply beat them and leave them for dead (at least to be found). .

[Red Ranger 1]

1 hour ago, Slade said:

Yes anyone reading your previous post can tell that you already liked Billie.  It's obvious.  I was just giving an opinion about the writers trying to force us to like characters which is what I feel they are trying to do with her character (an argument you yourself have used on numerous occasions - Andy, Hunter et al).  With regards to your point about the good outweighing the bad perhaps but I'm under no obligation to like her.  TBH don't think there's much point trying to discuss this with you as I came to realise a long time ago your opinions are often based on how much you like the characters.  So if I dislike a character you like and say something negative about them (regardless of what they've done) you will often deliberately find reasons to disagree with what I've said even if I'm just posting an opinion just to defend them (re the character discussion threads Chris, Maddy, Kyle, Oscar etc.).  So for instance when I pointed out exactly why Kyle should be in a prison cell right now you disagreed with virtually all my points because you like him.  But when it comes to Brax, Hunter and Olivia (someone who was sexually abused as a child and at the worst has dumped garbage in somebody's flat/borrowed somebody's car) they're disciples of Satan. 

I thought long and hard about that comment, trying not to be personal. Apparently I failed.I tried my best to merely present it as a personal opinion but what I actually think is that the writers expect us to already like Billie, that they have been writing her in a way that they perceive as sympathetic for some time.You're not buying it, that's fair enough, but judging from other comments elsewhere on the forum I suspect that you're in the minority, in the same way that I suspect I'm in the minority with regards Hunter, Olivia and others.(I will say I was surprised by your reaction to Billie, since my memory is that you were sympathetic towards her after her lies were exposed.)

And I realise that I'm basically proving you right by replying like this (although I would point out that I mostly agreed with you in the Oscar discussion thread and basically said so). Regarding your point about Olivia, I'd say it applies equally to Billie, someone who has been through a similar amount of trauma and been physically and mentally abused by her partner and whose worst sin isn't all that bad comparatively speaking, although I accept it's worse than anything Olivia's done so far.(Conversely, it's hard to find anything "good" that Olivia's done, beyond be a bit worried about Irene.)Despite evidence to the contrary, I am interested in your opinion.I'm sorry that you've come to find mine so objectionable.

[DialMforMorag]

22 hours ago, Little bean said:

Worlds greatest speech therapist lives in Summer Bay? Uppermost in my mind.....why is he still wearing his watch?

Mind boggles. And necklace, too? That be least of my worries.

[H&Alover]

17 hours ago, DialMforMorag said:

Mind boggles. And necklace, too? That be least of my worries.

Habit?

[H&Alover]

There have ben quite a few instances of paranormal (for want of a better word) occurrences in H&A, Hayley saw visions of Noah after he died and didn't Irene 'see' Ken after he died and help find her lost engagement ring? Also mothers, it's mostly mothers, 'feel' their children are alive when they are lost/missing.  Even Amanda of all people sensed Belle was alive when she went missing after the plane crash.

I thought the same as you Red when Alf pronounced to Kat about 'those sort of things not happening in the bay', selective memory loss  perhaps, obviously forgetting Penn and Sarah the stalker/siege, bomb, other sundry killings not to mention the odd kidnapping, he even left the bay at one time because he felt things had changed too much and not for the good.  Kat was the true professional there not revealing her own fears about it being Denny, because in truth it hasn't yet been established it is Denny, because in his words if it had been local someone would have reported her missing. It's going to hit him hard because he was very fond of Denny, looking on her as a surrogate granddaughter.  I suppose there may be something at the farm  house for them to take DNA from or there is always Zac. As an aside I find it a bit odd Denny's mum hasn't been in contact with anyone in the bay, especially Zac, Evie or Oscar asking if they have heard anything from her. Seems Kat also took Emerson's advice about not alerting Charlotte, their talk was just like it would have been between local plod and resident, but you could feel the undercurrent between them. Looks like she is looking for a way out, but then she overhears (accidently) a conversation which she bound to use to her advantage, namely someone telling someone else he killed Jake for him

I thought Ash and Billie had sorted out their problems, as in his not initially believing she didn't set the fire, so why hasn't she got in touch with him and he's had to find out through a third party? We haven't heard anything mentioned by Yabby Creek cops but they must have been told she's out of hospital.  If she'd been going to do a runner, she be far away by now. 

I think we all have our 'favourite' characters and don't like anyone saying anything bad about them, the reverse for  'non favourite' characters and don't like/can't understand others saying anything good about them. I like Phoebe but even I find her irritating at times, ditto Chris.  Most of them have their good/bad points, it's what makes them human. I'm guessing Phoebe's hissy fit about Ash putting Billie first is because she hasn't got a family so doesn't understand the feeling.  Different thing with him and Brax, yes he owes Brax, but he's not family.  I always want to ask the person getting their knickers in a twist over something 'what would you do if the position was reversed?' Another couple telling each other they love them but they can't stay together. Anyways I'm sure we can be mature enough, well I hope so, to accept others do have different opinions on people and not let it spoil a very good forum.

I'm sure Hannah and Andy thought they were helping Josh by taking him out, but I feel it was too far for his first day, I mean a busy beach with all those noises, people bustling about, wouldn't a walk round the block been a lot better, Josh did tell Hannah and Andy to go ahead and stop hovering around him.   Hannah did say it was a normal reaction for someone in Josh's position to lash out/feel sorry for themselves, he's 18/19 and had his whole life in front of him, not that he still hasn't, but obviously being an architect is out of the question, unless his sight comes back.

Series finale next week so quite a few loose ends to be tied up!

[atrus]

Binged Thu and Fri episodes, and now feeling pretty bloated. The Josh stuff has been improving (except when he started flinging ungrateful comments at Andy all over again on Friday, purely so Charlotte could overhear) - but regardless, I'd be more invested in it if I had any suspicion that his condition will last more than a few weeks. I guess this is forever going to be my problem with illness/disability stories - there's never a sense that there's even the possibility of permanence, which means I struggle to empathise with the characters. Which is a shame because someone coming to terms with permanent blindness could be a really interesting avenue for the show to explore.

For crying out loud, Kat! This is a murder investigation and she basically made it clear to the person who did it, who wasn't in police custody, that she knew she was responsible! And then she goes and tells Ash everything, when as an ex-boyfriend of Denny's, he'd surely be a suspect in the police's eyes. And then she goes and arrests Charlotte before the body's been identified, endangering the entire process yet again. If I was Emerson, I'd not only be handing her her P45 (or Aussie equivalent) about two weeks ago, but slapping some pretty serious criminal charges on her, too.

HANNAH: Ash would never do that to you, and neither would Kat.
PHOEBE: Well, I did it to Kyle, so...
HANNAH: Seriously. Think about what Kat just copped from Nate. That's exactly what he did to her.
PHOEBE: Yeah, I guess.

Not only does Hannah totally undermine her own spurious point here (i.e. that friends and partners are always 100% trustworthy, as she herself proved fallacious when she cheated on Andy), but this exchange is entirely indicative of what I hate about the current morass of twenty/thirtysomethings. Any interest I might have in their storylines is totally undermined by the way they all act like bed-hopping high-schoolers (that's what the high-school characters are for) - and in the words of a high-schooler, I'm, like, so, so over it now.

HUNTER: And I promise you, if anyone even thinks about hurting you like that again... I'll kill 'em.
(Olivia kisses him passionately as triumphant, uplifting music plays.)

And this is what annoys me about Hunter, and the show's attitude to violence and crime more generally. Since when did promising to murder someone constitute a romantic overture? Seemed to do the trick for Olivia, but it really gets my goat - perhaps if characters in this show didn't immediately resort to blood-spilling in order to right wrongs, they wouldn't spend all their lives up paddling against the current on crap creek.

[Red Ranger 1]

On ‎10‎/‎03‎/‎2016 at 0:07 AM, Little bean said:

Uppermost in my mind.....why is he still wearing his watch?

So he can wave it at people who ask him what the time is?

Alf's episode count this week: Four. Kyle was only in one, although he was credited on Friday for no appearance.

I don't know what Kat was playing at today.No way should she have arrested Charlotte before the body had even been IDed.Has she really not learned by now that trying to rattle Charlotte into a confession doesn't work?This storyline is doing serious damage to her credibility.And it looked like we were going to get another episode that ends with Kat telling someone Denny's dead...until we cut to Charlotte scrabbling around in the dirt.Guess she buried that gun there recently.Might as well not have bothered.Still can't take Hunter's indignation towards Charlotte seriously, it feels like he's caused the mess and then washed his hands of it.

I did quite enjoy Josh's decimation of Saint Andy, although it did feel a bit shoehorned in (the leftover credit leaves me wondering if there was meant to be another scene of Kyle talking him round to explain his later turnaround).Josh's lamentation that art's lost to him for good was affecting.I'm trying to ignore the unlikelihood the show will leave a character blind long-term.Hannah's attempts at doing a Maddy continue to annoy me, spending all her time hanging around someone she knows has feelings for her while lying to her boyfriend about it.Chris really deserves better.

I have something of a problem with Olivia casually blabbing her secret to a boy she's been dating less than a week and known for about six, even though she won't tell James, who she's known all her life and has raised her for ten years and really deserves more than being abruptly cut out of her life the way he has been.It's also feeling as though the abuse storyline is pretty much over, with her doing the "I had a couple of counselling sessions and now I'm fine" thing.I should have said this on Monday, but despite them making a big deal about Hunter touching her scars, I couldn't actually see any.(If she's suddenly stopped self harming, I suppose they would heal eventually but still.)I share atrus' concern about lines like "I'll kill 'em" being given to characters who would probably do that and it being treated as romantic.

[pembie]

I had totally forgotten that Olivia self harmed when she first came into the show.

[Pierced Musie]

If it hadn't been for Hunter stealing that safe then Denny wouldn't be dead, Gunno would have nothing on Charlotte & Charlotte would not be bat**** crazy....

But tis okah cuz Hunter is reformed! He is kind, gentle & sympathetic with a bad Mother...

(Can u tell how I feel about this?)