Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

Alf's episode count this week:Four.Things went a bit crazy in finale week with Irene, Leah, Marilyn, Sid and Bianca all appearing in four as well.

I don't know.Either I've been in a bad mood for two episodes this week or they've had two dreadful episodes.If that had been the finale for us here, I don't think I'd have been looking forward to it returning.The two main cliffhangers felt completely fake and the promo for next week made it look awful so I hope it's misleading.(Well, except for that bit at the end...)They tried to do too much, throwing in every single cast member except Miles, who I've never missed more, and giving most of them nothing to do.

Okay, positives:Dexter.Who only had about one line and was still one of the best things in it.And John, who was on fine form(love the "man hug" with Xavier)and almost made me forget the nonsense going on around him.(More on that later.)Liam and Bianca's ending was appallingly cliched but just about acceptable.Vittorio seemed to be eyeing up Charlie and even Lily when they walked down the aisle, which probably wasn't the intention.Liam did seem a bit presumptuous in assuming Bianca was running towards him, it looked to me like she was heading for the exit.Romeo punching Vittorio instead of Liam was a good choice, shame he made that self-important comment about protecting women which reminded me of what a windbag he can be.

Other than that...Nicole being pregnant actually does interest me.I think if it had been Trey or Elliot, someone who could come back, it would be a step too far.But the fact Penn's dead means him being the father is actually irrelevant and it's all about Nicole being pregnant and how she'll cope.I do really miss Miles though and hope they bring him back soon, he should be part of this storyline.And Nicole looked fairly awful in that outfit, unfortunately.As to the time scale, the break in UK viewing's confused things a bit(both of them)but that episode was shown in November, she slept with Penn in July, at least once maybe more, and they broke up in early August so she'd be about four months pregnant, which is reasonable.Although if they come back next week, two months of real time later, and she's still thin as a rake we'll have problems...

Colleen was as irritating as ever, acting as though not talking to Marilyn is a threat rather than something most people dream of and muscling in on John and Gina's wedding.As H&Alover said, is Ruby really going to try and break up Romeo and Indi?(And I get the hero bit and his sacrifice of throwing away his exams for Indi...but how's he been abandoned?Or is that wishful thinking?)And Roo.We've had that money hanging around since the beginning of the year and if the plan's really to reward Hugo for his crimes and let him keep the blood money which people suffered and died for thanks to him...I really hope there's going to be more of this but I suspect there won't.

So...the wedding's off and Gina announces she and John are getting married.What?!Don't weddings need marriage licenses and banns and stuff?You can't just do it on a whim!The really frustrating thing is they could have fixed it with a couple of lines of dialogue, say John had already sorted out the paperwork or Gina had been planning to do it all along and already arranged it with the reverend.If that had happened, it would have been a great twist.But instead they just didn't bother, thinking we're all too stupid to notice and instead having me want to throw stuff at the set.

Then Appalling Cliffhanger No.1:Joanna drags April off to Europe.What?!She's seventeen, she's been living away from Joanna for months.If she just said "No", what exactly could Joanna do?But instead she just goes with her, no argument, nothing!She'll probably come back in two weeks, saying "I told Mum where to go" and render the whole thing completely pointless.

Appalling Cliffhanger No.2:Robertson suddenly pops up two minutes from the end and arrests Alf, on...what?Will's say-so?It just seemed tacked on at the end of the episode, apart from a few sullen looks from the now-ruined-beyond-repair Will there was no build-up to it whatsoever.I am astonished that I've come across so many people in the Australian and spoiler sections who are convinced Alf is going to jail because he obviously isn't.

Really hope it gets better next week...

[Miranda]

Well, I loved the last episode! Nothing like a good wedding as a finale!

I like all those dramatic 'Bride running out of the church to her lover' storylines, although I did think it was totally unrealistic that she wouldn't have been stopped by police riding pillion in a wedding dress- very dangerous! Unless Liam was driving at a really slow speed, which could also be a reason for the police to stop him, but... I think I'm going off on a bike tangent here LOL!

I liked Romeo punching Vittorio, it made me laugh out loud. I shudder for poor Romeo now Ruby's got him in the sights of her cupid's arrow... poor bloke....

I am glad John and Gina got married instead, its nice to see Xavier being happy about it, although of course his happiness didn't last long.

Now why couldn't Nicole be pregnant by Aden? Although maybe that was too long ago now.

[Brian]

Wow, it certainly was an action packed 'finale'. So Bianca did choose Liam in a The Graduate moment, btw her dress looked lovely, well done Nicole. Liked their getaway, she must have a thing about two wheeled vehicles! Everyone looked so lovely, including the guys. Gina certainly stunned John by 'telling' everyone via John they were getting married. Who would have thought Romeo would hit anyone let alone Vittorio. Poor Joanna, she won't get to be mother-in-law to a price after all. Unfair to blame April, Bianca does have a mind of her own, which she finally made up the right way in the end.

Yes I agree. A wonderful episode - one of the best I've seen for a long while and all the plots intertwining well together - the wedding scene and vows (with a beautiful bride), Bianca going off with Liam and then declaring their love , Romeo hitting Vittorio (where did that come from?), April (looking gorgeous) leaving Xavier, Nicole telling that she's pregnant, John marrying Gina, Robertson arresting Alf, Alf's daughter leaving. We'll need the weekend to get over that lot!

[Red Ranger 1]

Now why couldn't Nicole be pregnant by Aden? Although maybe that was too long ago now.

Yeah, I wish...I'm fully expecting Nicole to be gone next year, maybe even before she gives birth a la Cassie, and I'd really love for Aden to come back and realise what a mistake he made and be a father to her baby before whisking them off somewhere.Which is odd given how long I spent wanting rid of him...

But I've been expecting Nicole to be pregnant since she slept with Geoff in mid-2008, so I guess it was only a matter of time.

[Ryan]

I felt a whole lot of the last week felt very contrived in trying to get us to our destination and that really let it down.

*The Marilyn drowning scene, where it almost required the woman to be unnaturally stupid to have Marilyn drowning for a few minutes.

*The ridiculous panto atmosphere of the wedding, a lot of whom can hardly claim to know Bianca and the ridiculous non-rational hatred for Vittorio.

I also agree about Will. We remembered him as the rough diamond that found love with Gypsy. What are we left with almost 9 years to the day since he left? The character has been destroyed to such a large extent and it's one of these Home and Away "Why the hell did they bring them back" storylines. Alex, Kane etc over the past few years. Good characters given **** storylines and almost making them totally unredeemable.

[ebrett84]

I kind of agree with the last couple of posts. The Marilyn drowning thing was just absurd. The first time I saw it I actually thought this random woman was trying to kill Marilyn. She seemed to drag her into the water and then just ran off and only mentioned her after a good minute or so. Huh?

I agree with RR that the April cliffhanger was completely pointless and stupid. The John / Gina wedding didn't bother me though. Yeah, it's ridiculous, but I like those two so I don't mind suspension of disbelief in the name of good soap. Honestly, if that kind of plot hole bothers you that much, you're watching the wrong show. OTOH, the Bianca / Vittorio stuff. What was with everyone just turning on him and treating him like a monster? Yeah, he's a plank who won't be missed by me, but I don't see how people like Alf and Romeo go from being perfectly happy for Bianca to marry him to treating him like a piece of dirt. Wouldn't it look like Bianca's the one in the wrong? She's the one ditching her groom at the altar for another guy. And Romeo is indeed a windbag. I'd have expected something like that from Lucas Holden.

Will's return has to be the worst one ever, narrowly edging out Kane's 2003 return where he came back as a complete tosser who had all his 2002 character development thrown out and was 180 degrees different from the pretty nice, reformed character who left... and still managed to have Kirsty fall back in love with him anyway despite the fact that he was now a massive jerk. That's why his 2008 return and the breakup of KK didn't bother me that much. Because he was pretty much the same guy he'd been his last stint on the show which was when the real damage was all done, and it was ridiculous that she'd still be with him. Alex's return also didn't bother me, but that's probably because I'd always hated him.

[Merlin]

So, Miles is in Africa, Alf's been arrested, Roo's gone to the States, who exactly is looking after the Caravan Park in what is the peak holiday season? Romeo and Nicole have never been seen helping out, although Jai and even Melody used to.

I'm with you, Red, I miss Miles as well, let's hope he still has a business when he comes back!

[Red Ranger 1]

Yeah, I don't really like that Nicole's going through this without him, I don't really trust anyone else to keep an eye out for her...

To be honest, I didn't mind the Summer Bay residents' behaviour at the wedding.(Although what happened to the "small, private" affair?They weren't going to invite Colleen but they asked the Walkers?)Although there was some strange overdubbing which suggested the entire church was jumping up and down and cheering when Bianca ran to Liam, the only person we actually saw applaud was April, who's been pushing for it for months, and it was only her, Xavier, Romeo and Ruby, who've all been keen for them to get together, who went out to wave them off.Everyone else seemed a bit bemused and they only turned on Vittorio when he showed his true colours and started manhandling Bianca, which did actually shock me, and they realised that beneath the charm he was pretty arrogant and didn't think any woman should say no to him.I thought Romeo throwing the punch was fairly in character, although it might have been more in character if he'd just pushed Vittorio away from her instead of using his fists.He's a friend of Liam and his role as a self-appointed protector of abused women was established back when he was insisting John was going to end up hitting Gina.

As for John and Gina getting married...I've seen this sort of thing in British soaps, someone taking over someone else's wedding, and they've always had the explanations ready("Oh, I spoke to the vicar a few weeks back, it's all set up", "Oh, we had the banns read, we just never set a date"). Someone on Australian discussion suggested it was just a symbolic wedding and they'll pop down the registry office later(which is more or less what happened when Will and Gypsy got married, so this slapdash approach is a fairly new thing)but if that's the case, why didn't they say so?One or two extras lines and I'd have loved it.Instead I was left feeling the writers just have no respect for the show or the audience if they think they can get away with being that lazy.

To be fair, they wrecked Kane's character development every time they brought him back:Even in 2002 they ignored the fact that he left town in 2001 ashamed of what he'd done and determined to be a better person, stopping to apologise to Dani for hurting her(which she seemed to forget), and had him go back to his "She wanted it" stance.I didn't like what they did to Alex but I think the acting saved the storyline, with Danny Raco playing him as a basically decent but somewhat weak person who did the wrong thing.It always felt like a plot device to have Leah and Alex fall out so they didn't have to explain why he was never at her weddings more than anything else.But the way this has gone with Will, I'm genuinely expecting for him to get packed off to jail and Lily to be left with Irene and they've just brought him back so he can give Irene someone to mother.

[Slade]

With a full house I have to say I really, really enjoyed that episode. I agree with Brian, I thought it was the best one I'd seen in quite a while. I couldn't stop smiling though the whole wedding scenes. I have been up and down with April as of late. There were times where she annoyed me with her whole attitude about Bianca's wedding but I have to admit I found it quite funny when she turned up at Bianca's lunch with a T-Shirt of Liam. Anyway even though it felt like she took great satisfaction in seeing Vittorio jilted like that (and seeing him lose) I couldn't help but smile at her Cheshire cat grin. I wasn't particularly anti-Vittorio as per say but what I really liked about that was seeing the smug look being wiped of Joanna's face. I never liked her. As I said before I think she's quite an arrogant individual. Shame as April said she decided to punish her for effectively ruining Bianca's wedding by whisking her of the Europe.

I also liked the way Ruby and Romeo came out to support Liam and Bianca equally delighted. In spite of that I didn't really like Romeo hitting Vittorio (and Alf gesturing him to leave afterwards). I was left wondering if it could have been handled slightly differently if maybe Romeo got someone else to help him physically restrain Vittorio. And it did seem as though everybody else condoned what he did. Fair play to Bianca for actually not going through with the wedding (even though she probably shouldn't have let it reach that stage) as it must have been difficult and I agree it was cliched. It reminded me of the end of that 60s film with Dustin Hoffman. Personally I can't see Liam and Bianca going the distance but in spite of that even if they do break up within a couple of months better that than Bianca entering into a loveless marriage.

Marilyn shouldn't have even bothered making the effort with Colleen. She should take it as a blessing that Colleen wants nothing more to do with her - I would.

I wasn't expecting Nicole to announce that she was pregnant with Penn's child but I'm really not surprised in all honesty. Doesn't that girl ever use protection?

I really hope they don't take Ruby down the route of trying to pursue Romeo and break up him and Indy - Remember Ruby Indy lost her job because of you. You owe her!

I thought Gina wanting to take Bianca's place was a surprise butI really liked the scenes with John and Xavier. A few months ago I never would have thought they would be getting on this well but it's at the point where Xavier has moved on from accepting John to actually welcoming him.

I don't like Will but funnily enough I felt sorry for him again. I felt he was in an impossible position with Robertson who effectively blackmailed him although I don't understand why Will didn't seek legal advice whilst he was being questioned. Robertson's timing as always was impeccable arresting Alf. Everyone seemed to pick up pretty quickly that Will was involved someone how unless I'm reading to much into it but nevertheless I liked how Irene gestured to Lily that she and Will were leaving clearly in full support regardless.

Oh and I'm finding that I really like the episode previews.

[Miranda]

Now why couldn't Nicole be pregnant by Aden? Although maybe that was too long ago now.

Yeah, I wish...I'm fully expecting Nicole to be gone next year, maybe even before she gives birth a la Cassie, and I'd really love for Aden to come back and realise what a mistake he made and be a father to her baby before whisking them off somewhere.Which is odd given how long I spent wanting rid of him...

Aw, wouldn't that be lovely. At times I hated Aden with a passion but mellowed towards him as time went by and he grew up and dealt with things. He could turn up for a couple of episodes, then whisk Nicole off. I bet Todd Lasance would like a guest appearance, unless he fell out with the show like ?Bobby Morley/Drew, which I doubt.