Latest UK Episode Discussion (2006-2017 Seasons)

[Red Ranger 1]

^Yes, there was a preview at the end of last night's episode.I doubt it's Channel 5 that's doing the editing, they are officially episodes 5558-5560, even if they were shown in a triple bill in Australia:They must have been prepared as separate episodes for international release and possibly repeats.

[H&Alover]

I found the wedding quite well done actually, over pretty quick, I liked Roo's dress, but it looked like she decided not to do anything with her hair though. Never mind other random people being there, some would think inviting your ex odd enough. Was a nice touch mentioning Martha. Nice to see Colleen, have kind of missed her getting her words wrong carbuncle for collywobbles and telling Winston 'his ship would come home to roost' By the way what was wrong with Morag we hardly got two words out of her and aside from Celia ranting on on Monday she was just as quiet on Tuesday. So is that then, they've all gone now, Colleen back to the States, Morag to the city and Celia wherever she came from? Poor Winston, for all his bravado he was quite a shy bloke, guess all that bluster is to cover it up.

Casey may well be the brightest of the Braxton boys but when it comes to affairs of the heart it looks like he is like most blokes and is an idiot.He is still new to the dating game after all. I'm glad he he went to see Sasha and it appeared (to me at least) he was building up to telling Sash Tamara kissed him, though he wasn't putting up much resistance, but she beat him to it. Always risky asking someone to chose between them and someone else, but then he decided he only wanted to be just friends with both of them! He is going to be 'away' for two days of the week for a years so is giving them both the chance to move on. I suppose TPTB can use the three day rule whenever Case is inside.Good advice from Brax about keeping his head down whilst inside, considering he has never actually done time himself.

It may just be me but whenever I see Tamara she always reminds me of a young Sally Field.

I'm going to go against the general flow here and say I'm on Dex's side regarding his not telling Sid about his fit/siezure, he'd only just got back a little piece of indepence and he probably felt it would all be taken away again. It was good he was willing to allow Sid to look at his medical file, which may put his mind at rest somewhat. Do agree though April was way OTT by stopping him watching the game show in case it made him too excited, she doesn't know what can or can't set off another attack, last time he had one he hadn't been doing anything! Glad Romeo stood up to Sid about his part in it.

It does seem Brax is having doubts about Adam which I guess is why he wants Heath out of the way, Jamie appears torn about obeying his dad and being friends with Heath.

[Red Ranger 1]

Are April and Dexter going to be in every episode?And people complain about the Braxtons taking over.At least Romeo and Indi managed not to be too irritating by virtue of their scene being totally pointless.The argument is completely forgotten about and instead they have a chat about having kids(please god, no)and April getting into medicine.Sigh.I guess she's paid her penance for the drug taking but I was really hoping she'd flunk out again.Who'd want her as a doctor?The scene between Sid and Dexter and the almost "Be careful what you wish for" reaction from Dexter were a lot more interesting and I'd rather have seen some follow up to that.

Brax seems to have regressed somewhat in his attitude to Adam:Suddenly he's back to dismissing Heath's warnings and treating Adam like he's Mr.Fix-It.Or maybe not, given he ends up going to Natalie for help instead.The running gag of them being interrupted was slightly amusing, especially Heath's blasè "Have we got any fishing rods?"John confronting Jamie was a good moment, shame Heath stepped in.I can't fault Heath's wanting to look out for Jamie but alarms really should have been ringing by that point:He knows Jamie took Jett's phone, he probably believes John about him using it to send messages, does he not think this is weird?Jamie does seem genuinely torn between the fact Heath's the one person who's ever been a friend to him and Adam feeding his obsession. Some elements feel contrived though:Is there any reason, other than power games, for Adam to get Liam to organise a boat rather than do it himself?(Feels very much like a plot device so people find out about it.)Jett and Kyle hanging out was another thing I'd like to have seen more of.I'm just about coming around to the way they seem to be trying to change Kyle's personality completely from his introduction, he's obviously unsure about his place in the Braxtons, there's something almost desperate about the way he's trying to get involved.

[James Martin]

^Yes, there was a preview at the end of last night's episode.I doubt it's Channel 5 that's doing the editing, they are officially episodes 5558-5560, even if they were shown in a triple bill in Australia:They must have been prepared as separate episodes for international release and possibly repeats.

I'm assuming that was the case - 5558 and 5559 ended on some pretty dull cliffhangers though, but yes - I'm guessing the episode was split up at Seven's end and have probably been sent to Channel 5 as three separate episodes, which they certainly don't work as. Having just finished watching the entire episode, it's pretty impressive. Some good quality dramatic tension and Charlie's death getting dug back up was great. As we're not supposed to chat about 5* here I won't spoil it for anyone still to watch Part 3 tomorrow.

I'm glad the trial and the wedding have been wrapped up to be honest, because it feels like both of them have just dragged on for absolutely months on end - especially so given the extended hiatuses Channel 5 have pulled the show for this year.

Interesting that there's a "Next Time on Home & Away" at the end of the third part, rather than the usual "Coming Up" aston without a voiceover.

I'm hoping this "refresh" for the show lives beyond a bit of marketing hype at Seven, but the

return of Sally

alone means we're in for an interesting year on the show. I'm just hoping we don't get a ridiculously long hiatus this summer. We're a month behind now... at most two-three weeks is all we need - providing we come back from Christmas 2013-14 with a month of episodes left, we don't need to fall any further behind than another fortnight, really.

[H&Alover]

I've read what you put James, that'll be good if it happens . We've still got Kyle's trial (sorry) to come so a bit more waiting around. So Colleen is still around, is she living in the house? Methinks she is missing being useful the way she offered to help in the diner. Didn't take long for Jamie to home in on her, John intervened pretty neatly. His antenna must have been twitching to follow Jamie on the assumption he stole Jett's phone. Didn't Jett say he had it on charge in the house, meaning Jamie broke in again!!! John didn't actually break into Jamie's car, it was unlocked, mind you he would have looked an idiot if the phone hadn't been Jett's. Heath, I suppose, is in a tricky position, he wants to be a friend to Jamie, but knows full well there is something not right with him. Jamie really doesn't know what to do, Adam can, if he feels like it, will help him track down Leah (though if I was Jamie I wouldn't hold my breath). He likes having Heath as a friend, as he said to him, no-one had stood up for him before and he did ask Adam if there was any other way. Going by the preview though something sets him off anyway.

Talking of the boat why, apart from the 'one last job' line why did Adam use Liam as a go-between? I guess Bianca was the underlying factor there. Even if questions were asked later as to who hired the boat, Liam had no particular axe to grind with Heath. True they didn't always get on, but nothing he couldn't handle.

I thought that was interesting that Brax asked Nat to help (via her mate) Casey (discreetly) when he was inside. Going by the preview it looks like he has finally seen the light!!!

Jett and Kyle, an unlikely pairing, there's quite an age gap there, but hey it could work. Kyle did get bothered by the fact Heath referred to him to Jamie as a mate rather than my brother. I wonder if he called round to Brax to ask if he could move in, though I don't see Case being overjoyed about it.

April was referring to the 'distant' future when she mentioned kids, she's got to get qualified first! She wouldn't be the first doctor who have done drugs, drink and won't be the last, aren't med students notorious for working hard and partying even harder, at least she's already got it out of her system, hopefully. Sid obviously listened to what Romeo said the night before and didn't give Dex a hard time about keeping quiet about what happened to him.

[Red Ranger 1]

Alf's episode count this week:Two(although he was credited on Thursday and Friday).Things go a bit crazy at the end of the year, with April and Dexter in every episode(although only very briefly on Friday without any dialogue)and Romeo, Indigo, Bianca and Heath are in four(the former two also only appearing in a brief montage on Friday).

I'm not sure that those three episodes work any better stuck together.It might make the way characters flit in and out of episodes as if they're not sure if they're meant to be in them or not a bit more palatable but they still disappear for lengthy periods then reappear randomly.The cliffhangers(Casey being led away by a prison guard and Heath going off on a boat with a psycho)weren't dull at all in my opinion, the latter was actually quite tense.Wednesday's episode, which focused on the Casey/Tamara/Sasha stuff, was clearly telling a completely different story to the other two so I don't think sticking it on the front of them would serve it well.Some elements(Brax's zig-zagging attitude towards Adam, Brax and Natalie's near-reunion, Heath and Jamie going to the city and coming straight back)would seem even more rushed and stranged when viewed back to back.The closing montage makes more sense as the end of the three episodes but makes just as much sense as the end of the year.It was pretty rubbish anyway, draining all the tension from the cliffhanger and leaving me willing for them to get a move on and cut away.

Viewing the episode in isolation...Well, it's perhaps a bit much to have John and even Adam coming out with the exact same arguments that anti-Braxton viewers have been making for the last two years and I'm far from convinced that Brax wouldn't have done exactly the same as Adam if Heath or Kyle had been stalking Leah.(Remember him deleting Bianca's call for help when Heath was hassling her?)This storyline could work if it was a genuine epiphany for Brax, a realisation that he's brought pain and misery to every single person about him and the start of him mending his ways, but we've had plenty of these moments before and he'll probably have forgotten it within a few weeks.(Heck, he seems to have forgotten it by the promo for the next episode.)Natalie suddenly throwing herself at him after weeks of insisting...well, basically what he insists now, feels a bit random too, as does Bianca suddenly recognising Adam as the villain of the piece with her "I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand" after previously insisting he was just trying to help her.Plus point:The show has done a surprisingly good job over the last few episodes of doing the impossible and making Kyle likeable.

Heath and Jamie...Am I imagining Jamie as a more three-dimensional character than he's supposed to be?Characters dismiss him as being as bad as Adam, but at heart he comes across as just a scared little boy wanting someone to love him, whether that's a girlfriend or his father.Even when he abandons Heath, I felt just as, if not more, sorry for him.He's a potentially complex character yet everyone seems to treat him as just "the bad guy".There's an irony in that he actually seems to convince Heath to give things a go with Bianca, and not for any other reason than he thinks it's the right thing to do, just before leaving him for dead.

[Slade]

Oh no, she's back :(

Aside from that I found the scene in the Diner really funny when Jamie was trying to charm her to find out where Leah currently is. I'm disappointed that Jamie succumbed to the pressure that Adam was putting on him and attacked Heath because I actually quite liked the scenes with them. Heath seemed to be the one person in the bay who actually empathised with him. Although I do think he partly befriended Jamie as some sort of way to get dirt about Adam. Whilst I don't think that Jamie is beyond redemption I do think as far as his time in the bay goes, he's pretty much finished. Sadly I feel he's been duped. Adam doesn't want Heath out of the way because he's shooting his mouth off. He wants him gone because he knows Bianca's still in love with him. I wonder if Adam's going to let Bianca go or whether he will become obsessed like his son.

Surprisingly I've warmed to Kyle. If you think about it, what he did is actually worse than what Jamie has done to Heath. Kyle was quite prepared to let Casey die a slow painful death where you could argue that at least what Jamie has done if his plan works will mean Heath will die relatively quickly. Also at least he's unconscious. Anyway I'm glad Brax has decided to let him in so to speak.

It's funny up to the point where he confronted Adam, Brax was as blind to Adam's misgivings as some of the people in the bay were to his own. And the scene where Natalie was basically calling Brax out for not seeing through Adam had me shaking my head as it seemed very pot, kettle, black.

Regarding Sasha and Casey I did mention a while ago that the only reason Casey slept with her was because it was on a plate and he was certain he was going to jail for a very long time. I still think he likes Sasha and really cares about her but he's formed a bond with Tamara and no amount of love Sasha has for him can change that. I think one thing that's disappointing was the complete and total disregard he seemed to have displayed for Sasha's feelings with regards to Tamara. It was if Sasha was meant to put up without any sort of objection whatsoever as Casey's behaviour was perfectly reasonable as Tamara saved his life in the desert. I thought it was completely out of order when Sasha was upset after Sid made a scene in public about Dex keeping quiet about his seizure and Sasha just wanted her boyfriend to comfort her and because Casey's attention wasn't' completely focused on her, Tamara childishly stormed off in a strop and Casey went after her. Even Tamara herself said that she didn't blame Sasha and that Sasha was a better person than her. If Sasha wasn't in love with Casey she probably would have finished with him after his kiss with Tamara but she let it go because she was in denial with regards to Casey's situation with Tamara being purely about helping her out of gratitude and no romantic feeling on his part. At least Casey realises how insensitive he was being. I assume that at the moment he's backed out and hasn't chosen either of them but sadly I assume that he will lean towards Tamara and Sasha will end up getting really hurt. Not sure if I've recalled a time in a soap anyone going to jail for a couple of days a week. Still given the current situation it actually might be better to go to jail for 3-4 months rather than spend a couple of days inside a week for a year. Still it helps the 3 episode rule.

Have to say I felt completely indifferent about the wedding although Sasha looked really hot.

[Red Ranger 1]

Interesting to look in Australian Discussion for the finale week and see everyone going "The 90-minute finale was just three normal episodes stuck together."So obviously they didn't buy the "It doesn't work as separate episodes" argument either.(In fact, even Channel 7 don't seem to have bought it:Apparently the episodes were on their equivalent of Demand5 with separate opening and closing titles, recaps and promos, same as they were here.)At least some parts of Australia have frequently shown episodes in double- or triple-bills if the usual timeslot isn't available or there's a breaking news story so this is hardly a special case.

[JosieTash]

Interesting to look in Australian Discussion for the finale week and see everyone going "The 90-minute finale was just three normal episodes stuck together."So obviously they didn't buy the "It doesn't work as separate episodes" argument either.(In fact, even Channel 7 don't seem to have bought it:Apparently the episodes were on their equivalent of Demand5 with separate opening and closing titles, recaps and promos, same as they were here.)At least some parts of Australia have frequently shown episodes in double- or triple-bills if the usual timeslot isn't available or there's a breaking news story so this is hardly a special case.

Although the eps themsleves weren't groundbreaking, I liked that it was a triple ep here in Oz simply because they WANTED to do it that way. It wasn't the result [for a change] of a delay due to extended news coverage of things like bushfires or floods or 9/11.

It's like, I took it as though they did so to celebrate the 25th anniversary.

[H&Alover]

Oh dear Brax, you've just made an enemy of a very bad man!! If he thinks for one moment Adam will now leave town and everything will be OK, he's in for a nasty shock. Although I think he did start having his own doubts, it took three people (John, Nat and Kyle) to get him to see what Heath had been telling him for weeks, if not months. That's the problem with some heroes, they do have feet of clay. Mabe Brax and Adam are similar in a lot of ways, but I do think Brax has some scruples which Adam seems to have lost along the way. I'm with you Slade about Adam wanting Heath out of the way, it's because he doesn't like anyone leaving him, he loves having power over them, he's not obessed over her the same way Jamie is over Leah.

Odd how it was Jamie who finally got through to Heath about rebuilding things with Bianca. That talk they had about finding love and not letting it go was nice, though Heath isn't obessed with Bianca and it is returned. Would Adam have called him and told him to get rid of Heath if Brax hadn't fronted him?

So Kyle will be moving into the Braxton house and Casey (although he doesn't know it yet) will be moving in with Nat and Liam, that'll be an interesting conversation!

The reference was made to Brax by Adam it's been nearly a year since Charlie died, which I guess is what prompted Brax to break up with Nat, though she is still connected to him and the rest of the family so I can't see it making much difference to Adam if he's got revenge in mind. Of course this could also result in Casey not getting an easy ride in jail and what about Kyle and Adam arranging things to happen so he got off?

Oh dear looks like Dex was a tad premature in thinking he may not have anymore seizures/fits and he wasn't doing anything more strenuous than watching April getting congratulated by his family.