Hollyoaks Discussion Thread

[DinerLandlord]

lmao. Those episode spoilers make me laugh. I haven't read any since I stopped watching though, but they provided a very detailed picture of any missed events I wanted to catch up on.

I hope for their sake it picks up soon. After such a sucessful couple of years, it'd be such a shame to see them slip back into the old show that was slated so much. Unfortunately, what they were doing right back then (Great actors, Great plots) is what they seem to be doing wrong. Some of the recent casting additions have been awful!

I agree, look at all of the new characters since last summer - Archie, Ash, Gov, Natty, Ravi, Spencer, Anita, Bel, Caroline, Hayley, Leila, Loretta, Lydia. Out of all of them, Spencer is the only really interesting one, and obviously played by a good actor. Hayley had the potential to be interesting, but she's actually a bit dull. Bel, Gov, Caroline, Loretta, Ravi, Anita - all boring. We haven't seen enough of Natty or Lydia yet, but I'm not too excited about them. Ash and Archie are dreadful, for different reasons. Ash is a terrible character, played by a good actor, and Archie is played by a terrible actor, although I quite like Archie as a character.

Anyway, I'm hoping the new arrivals will start to become more interesting soon. Now that

Warren is leaving

, Ash might become the resident villain, although it might be difficult for him to do so with his Mummy and Daddy around. I definitely think Natty will turn out to be a villain too, and lead Ste in the wrong direction, especially after

Justin isn't there to protect Ste.

I also would like to see where Loretta goes as a character. She reminds me of Clare when she first arrived, all sweet and innocent and bringing lots of excitement into the lives of two long-term characters, with Dom and Tony being Loretta's equivalent to Max and OB. Maybe she'll turn psycho like Clare and make their lives hell.

[-Kevin-]

Two of Hollyoaks' leading actors are to quit the show at the end of the month in a dramatic fire plot, DS can exclusively reveal.

Chris Fountain and Jamie Lomas, who play the show's resident bad boys Justin Burton and Warren Fox respectively, will bow out in a storyline which sees their characters caught in a fire at The Loft.

Warren's past comes back to haunt him when an old adversary returns to the village and with neither prepared to bury the hatchet and move on, his enemy decides to settle their score once and for all. As The Loft blazes, Justin becomes embroiled in the incident and viewers will be left wondering who lives and who dies.

The move comes just three months into Lucy Allan's reign as producer and echoes Bryan Kirkwood's decision to blow up The Dog pub and kill off twin Sophie Burton (Connie Powney) when he took over as the soap's chief in 2006.

Speaking of his decision to leave, Fountain said: "I've been at Hollyoaks for five years now and I've enjoyed exploring and playing the many different sides of Justin. He's been a fantastic character to play and so much has happened to him! I’m actually surprised he’s lasted this long!

"I'll be sad to leave as I've had some great times and gained a lot of good friends at work but I personally feel that it's the right time for me - and Justin - to move on…"

Lomas said of his decision: "I've had a fantastic three years at Hollyoaks but having fully explored the character, I felt the time was right for me to move on. I'm delighted to be going out as part of such a dramatic storyline and my final scenes are some of the most dramatic I've ever filmed. I'm sure viewers will be hooked!

He added: "I've had a great time playing Warren and have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Hollyoaks cast where I've made some brilliant friends and worked with some great people."

The pair are due to finish filming at the end of the month, while their characters will remain on screen until the final week of May.

Fountain, 21, joined Hollyoaks in 2003 and has been involved in some of the soap's major storylines including Justin's affair with Becca Dean (Ali Bastian), the 'Who Pushed Clare?' saga and baby Charlie's paternity.

Meanwhile, 28-year-old Lomas signed to play Warren in 2006 and quickly became one of the show's central characters during the Kirkwood era, which saw Warren kill Sean Kennedy and frame Jake Dean for the murder, embark on an affair with Mandy Richardson (Sarah Jayne Dunn) and apparently suffocate his fiancée Louise Summers (Roxanne McKee).

Cant wait

[Laura]

Thanks for posting, Kevin

Sounds good. Can't wait!

But I'm going to miss Justin and Warren

I reckon it's Clare that starts the fire.

[xGlowingAngelx]

Spencer is definately one of the most interesting left, but I'm worried slightly about where exactly he could go as a character once Warren leaves. The character would have to come on leaps and bounds before Warren's departure to work as an individual. I hope they could do something there because the actor is great and I think the character could be one of the more popular.

I like the character of Bel. She amuses me (Of course, I haven't watched the show in 4 months. She may have changed ), but the rest of the Roy's are dreadful. I have no idea who Natty is

What I do fear is that the McQueens are going to take centre stage. Although they lost probably the most popular member when JP left, the rest of the family are still pretty popular overall and it seems every decnt storyline we hav somehow leads us to one or more McQueen. I don't want it to turn into the McQueen show, especially since I've completely gone off all of them, apart from Mercy and Mics.

I think Rhys, Tony, Kris, Malachy, Darren, Jack, Tom, Steph and Michaela are the characters they should focus on, because IMO they're the strongest actors left and if many more of them decided to leave only to be replaced by actors that are as dreadful as the other remaining ones, the show will completely lose it. If they focus on those I've just listed, they'd stand half a chance of gaining my interest again.

Whatever they decide to do, I'll just ope for their sake they don't lead the show downhill again. It'd be too sad and such a waste of the hard work over the last few years.

[-Kevin-]

I hate when soaps do this , when all the characters from a certain period all leave around the same time and then theres a huge amount of new characters that come flying in. Then it feels so stupid . Hollyoaks is still in this phase at the moment and it looks like its going to get worse with whats happening in may

Home and Away went through the same thing in the middle of 2008 after loads of main characters left and then new characters came flying in at once, which I hated. I hate change me so these kinda things dont usually bode well with me.

[Slade]

So glad Tony gave Mercedes her marching orders. She should count herself lucky that he didn’t call the police. If it wasn’t for Jacqui I think he probably would have. I was kind of hoping that she and Tony would give things another go but I’m not sure if it would have worked out in the long run. Perhaps he was right and the relationship had run its course. In the back of my mind the problem is essentially there would always be resentment from her because he slept with Mercedes. I could definitely see her having to constantly suppress the thought and envisage a scenario where anytime they had a disagreement/argument she would undoubtedly bring it up.

I was kind of glad Leila kissed Elliot as it made me feel a lot better about Justin. He did the right thing finishing with her, although it probably would have better had he done it before he kissed Hannah. It’s inevitable that those two are going to get together. I’m glad as they are a better match than their current/previous partners.

Surprise, surprise Sasha and Warren got it on. The main thing that interests me now is how Calvin will react. You would expect him to go out all guns blazing but I think he will be smart about it and simply bide his time and then exact his revenge.

[-Kevin-]

TEN Hollyoaks stars are facing the axe as bosses plan a big shake-up of the Channel 4 soap.

Some of the show’s hottest names such as Jennifer Metcalfe and Gemma Merna, who play strumpet Mercedes and dippy Carmel McQueen, could be under threat.

The ten characters who will go haven’t been named yet. But it means no one is safe.

Even Hollyoaks legend Nick Pickard—who has played Tony Hutchinson since the Chester-based soap was launched in 1995—has been told there is a question mark over his role.

One of the worried cast revealed: “It’s a nightmare. Everyone’s character is under scrutiny and there will be around ten changes so a lot of people are looking over their shoulders.”

It means the future of show favourites such as Carley Stenson (Steph Dean), Ricky Whittle (Calvin Valentine), Kieron Richardson (Ste Hay), Zoe Lister (Zoe Carpenter), Anthony Quinlan (Gilly Roach) and Emma Rigby (Hannah Ashworth) could be in doubt.

Heart-throbs Jamie Lomas (bad boy Warren Fox) and last year’s Dancing On Ice runner-up Chris Fountain (Justin Burton) have already announced they are quitting the show next month.

Jamie, (pictured top) who is dating Corrie actress Kym Marsh, is planning a stint in Los Angeles to pursue his dream of breaking into US telly. The cull will start in April and continue until October as individual contracts run out.

Our source added: “There are going to be a lot of changes. No one is safe but the last thing you want is to be out of work in the current climate.

“Everyone’s keeping their head down and doing their best in the hope they’ll be saved from the chop.”

The shake-up is being planned by new producer Lucy Allan who took over in January and is planning some radical changes to make the show more gripping.

But our source joked: “A few of us are calling her the Grim Reaper. Obviously she wants to put her stamp on the show and bring in new people.”

Last night a Hollyoaks spokesman denied the changes were anything to do with saving cash. He said: “There are no planned cutbacks for Hollyoaks. The nature of the show is that people come and go.”

Source : News of the world.

[xGlowingAngelx]

it's the News Of The World, so a more "Believe when see" thing. However, if it is true, I hope they do this wisely. Seriously, why axe the likes of Carley and Nick - both which are popular long term members that long term viewers are so fond of - when they could axe some much weaker cast members? I really think this new producer needs to take a step back and scrutinize some of the shows more recent casting decisions and actually take notice of the viewers reactions before she does anything else. In the last 2 or so years, we've lost some amazingly popular characters and some pretty good actors - Jamie and Chris being the latest in line. In order for those losses to avoid being MAJOR losses, it needs to be made up with new additions that are A) Strong actors and B) Characters worth watching. Out of all the new additions we've seen in the last 12 or so months, only a small handful of them have been majorly decent (The likes of Malachy and Spencer for instance) the rest have either been decent actors but not used to the full potential, or just plain awful actors that we see way too much of.

Personally, I class Carley/Steph and Nick/Tony amongst the small handful of those that I would actually be interested in watching. The majority of others I have been interested in are the ones that have left or are leaving and all the others have now been pushed out of the spotlight, despite being worthy of their place (I've said it before and I'll say it again: Despite his major storyline last year, I still think Ashley Taylor Dawson/Darren is severly underused and VERY underrated. Ditto Jimmy McKenna/Jack).

I would really love to spend a day in the shoes of Lucy Allan and see whether she actually watches the same show we do/did.

I miss the good days of late 2006/2007/Early 2008 when the show was IMO at it's strongest.

[Laura]

OK if its true then the show is just going to get worse and worse

[DinerLandlord]

The fact that there will be a cull is great news because there is so much dead wood in the cast at the moment. However it is not good news if the likes of Steph or Tony are to go.

My predictions for the chop:

Russ Owen - they need to make him a central character again like he was back in late 2005/2006, or get rid of him.

Josh Ashworth - he's dreadfully dull and definitely the weakest of the Ashworth children.

Gilly Roach - he hasn't done anything in ages, and he's just a sidekick for Rhys anyway. His only good storyline was with Jess back in 2005.

Sasha Valentine - the worst character in a terrible family, I cringe when I watch her.

Calvin Valentine - I think his time has come with the end of the Warren/Louise/Justin era. He was a big part of that too. His only saving grace is that he is incredibly good-looking, which might save him.

Kris Fisher - I know he's popular, but Zoe, Zak and Kris are all graduating from college this year, and I think he's the weakest of the three, with the least potential for storylines. One of them has to go, the students rarely stay after Uni finishes.

Elliot Bevan - they really need to get rid of this useless lump.

Archie Carpenter - as much as I love Archie, Stephen Beard can't act to save his life, and he's extremely unpopular with the fans. I'd be shocked if he didn't go.

Ash Roy - unless they do something interesting with Ash they need to axe him. He's too similar to both Rhys and Darren. The only way for him to become interesting is if he becomes a villain like Warren.

Theresa McQueen - I don't think the actress is any good. The character had potential, but she's just embarrassing to watch now.

Other than that, I think some of the parents might go, perhaps Neville and Susanne, or maybe Gov or Bel. Leo is probably safe because I don't think all the Valentines will be axed, especially not Lauren(unfortunately). I'm worried Spencer might be axed after Warren leaves, if the writers don't figure out what to do with him. I really hope not though, Spencer is an amazing character.