Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[JamesC10]

I have tried really hard not to criticise the show but I feel like I should do this.

There are not many long-term characters anymore. Only Alf, Irene, Marilyn and Leah are the longest serving characters in the show. They are all underused especially Irene!!! When was the last time Irene had a storyline?

The Bay had lost its identity and I feel the Braxtons had ruined the show's legacy. The Braxtons are arguably the most overused characters in the show's history. When Sally left the show in 2008, Home and Away was not the same without her but when she returned, I felt Home and Away "died". It was not the same anymore.

We have FAR too many young characters and I feel that the "new" characters Lucy Addario and Louise Bowes created are just "bland" characters. Tamara, Spencer, Maddie, Josh, Kyle, etc are not that interesting IMO. I'm bored of the teen relationship dramas and especially bored of Casey's repetitive storylines.

Brax, I feel, is so overrated. Many people watch the show for Brax and I get concerned that they portray Brax as a "hero". Brax the hero, who donated money to help Pippa.. but no-one has thought where the money has actually come from (ignoring the fact that Brax was actually broke not that long ago), he got Angelos with money he got from crime, therefore any profit that comes from Angelo is dirty money, which he gave to Pippa. If it wasn't for Brax, then Charlie would still be alive. Brax keeps on insisting that he is fed up of his brother's problems, but refuses to leave them alone and takes charge. He demands everything go his way and that he is right.

Casey is an arsonist, armed robber, father murdering thug, who threw boiling water.. or oil (can't remember) over someone, who uses people and plays the victim. Poor Casey, nothing ever goes his way, even though people bend over backwards to help him out. How many times did Casey go back and then drop out of school? No-one would have let him go back that many times.

He used Sasha, he knew that Sasha loved him and he didn't love her, but didn't do anything to stop it. Then with Sasha thinking she was pregnant, Casey decided that that may be a good thing as it may be his only chance to be a father because he thought he was going to jail for killing his father.. never mind the fact that Sasha was 17, as long as it is good for Casey. Then while still with Sasha, Tamara kisses him and Casey does nothing to stop it. Zac, who had known Casey for 5 minutes, sacrificed his job to save Casey from his 'awful' weekend detention that he got for armed robbery (even though he already had a record for arson).

Romeo gave him a job at the gym, Casey got hurt and Romeo had to take on more shifts to cover for him, which caused both Romeo and Indi stress, especially when they had just opened their business. To thank Romeo and Indi for this, probably his only chance to get a job outside of his brother's business, he steals the gym car and doesn't pick up some gym equipment and he drinks on the job, which could have resulted in someone getting hurt and Indi and Sid losing everything if sued.

But Heath is the one who had been developed the most and he is one of the most interesting characters at the moment.

Then they have the extras like Alf, Irene, Marilyn and Roo show support for the Braxtons when something goes wrong, court cases and hospital visits (of which there are many), even though these people (apart from maybe Irene because of her link to Heath through Bianca) would be so fed up of the Braxtons and the trouble they have brought to the Bay, they would hate them.

And lets not forget that while the extras have to make do with the scraps that they are given, the Braxtons have been to Melbourne twice, out to the desert once and have just finished filming in London.

It has become Braxton and Away.

Even if the Braxtons were good characters, this is still no way to run a show, there are other characters that need screentime and character development, people are being ignored. There can't be this kind of favouritism towards a group of characters and they know that the Braxtons are hated, probably more than they are loved, yet they do nothing about it, like giving more focus to other characters..

Irene.. who? I am sure I read that this is Irene's 20th year on the show.. she has done nothing this year.

Sid's mental health storyline lasted about a week, a few days of Sid losing it, he goes off screen, Dex figures out that Sid is in therapy, they have a talk and Sid is cured, if that was a Braxton story, it would go on for months.

They couldn't resist putting Brax in Sally's storyline, making him the secret hero. When they could have just had Winston give Sally the money needed, he bought the boat, so had money for that, so they could have easily had him donate some more and then make him broke. The producers wanted Sally (one of the best ever characters) to praise "Saint" Brax.

The writers and the show is going to be in for a shock when the Braxtons leave sometime in the future and they have nothing to fill the hole left because the other characters have been reduced to background extras.. However the fear is that they replace them with Braxton clones.

We don't have any proper families in the show (mum, dad, brother and sister etc). We certainly do not have many "older characters".

Many thanks to Reo from another forum for some of the information about the Braxtons etc

Are the current producers trying their best to turn Home and Away into a teen show?

What are your thoughts?

[Bobby Forever Missed]

Heath is nothing but drug pushing scum! hello producers! some of us have LOST people to drugs and you're carelessly having characters sell them in a 7pm show?! very irresponsible!

[sindikatas]

It wouldn't be so bad if it was a teen show. I would have it any day over the Braxton show. I don't think producers are deliberatly ruining the show. They just have this silly idea that the Braxtons save the show, that's why they have to be involved everywhere. That's why they think it's easier to make long term viewiers like them rather than new viewers like other characters. Brax donating money to little Pippa is one example. The other is that they tried to make Heath&Bianca more popular by having them have Celia's approval as a couple. The engagment ring was so dear to Celia that it's unbelievable that she could give it away so easily to a stranger. I can only explain this that she is finally ready to let her dead fiance go. Why I say it's easy to favor Braxtons. Because their fans don't complain that their storylines are repetitive. So the writers don't have to think hard. Personally I don't hate them as characters. It's not exactly their fault that writers think they are too good to be interacting with the rest of community. They need special characters like Kyle, Tamara, Ricky. Having said that I think this year has been better than the last one. There were less crimes and we saw more new faces this year. Marilyn finally stopped being an extra. Even Roo and Harvey started to do something useful rather than constantly arguing like last year. I like Jett and I quite like Maddy. She's a normal teenager for me. The introduction of Mangrove river students has been quite exciting. Alf has become too soft IMO. Irene is an extra unfortunately. There's a long way to go, but I think the show is slowly recovering.

Heath is nothing but drug pushing scum! hello producers! some of us have LOST people to drugs and you're carelessly having characters sell them in a 7pm show?! very irresponsible!

I generally like Heath, but the drug thing shouldn't have been overlooked.

[Ukfan2013]

Is this just another thread to bash the Braxton's and writers/producers. This has all been said in numerous other threads.

[JamesC10]

Is this just another thread to bash the Braxton's and writers/producers. This has all been said in numerous other threads.

No it isn't. I was just stating my concern about the show. I can't find the other threads so I apologise if this is another thread on this. I'm mainly talking about the current direction of Home and Away.

[Bobby Forever Missed]

Is this just another thread to bash the Braxton's and writers/producers. This has all been said in numerous other threads.

I'm getting pretty tired of being told not to "bash" the Braxtons haters have opinions too you know!

[Ukfan2013]

I didn't say you couldn't bash them. (but I see you have called yourself a hater) I am just pointing out that this gets said every week in other threads. It is all very repetitive and just goes round in circles. But whatever, I'm probably in the minority anyway, just posting my opinion. Carry on

[cadyctslover]

I am just pointing out that this gets said every week in other threads. It is all very repetitive and just goes round in circles. But whatever, I'm probably in the minority anyway, just posting my opinion. Carry on

Yeah, well maybe you could not go on about that. Try that.

I'm pretty bored of the current format. I was excited for Sally's return and I have to say her first couple of weeks worth of episodes were great and I have enjoyed her return overall. Having said that I found the contrived effort to shoehorn Brax into her storyline very frustrating, and frankly I'm disgusted with the execution of it.

We're really supposed to believe that Brax (who clearly doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself and his immediate family) would donate $80k to someone he's never met before after a 10 minute conversation about her daughter? Please. Plus, revealing to Alf when he asks that it was actually him, is not an 'anonymous' donation! What a guy! Then minutes later the same episode he blows up when Sasha suggests that alcohol might have affected Casey's driving - a pretty reasonable suggestion. I doubt we'll see him apologise for that, that'll be one of those instances where his unnecessary agression is acceptable because of his love for his family.

I've noticed a pattern of storylines to try and glorify Brax, Casey and Heath, to literally spell out to the viewer that they're good people. They allow them to behave unreasonably, and rely on circumstance to justify their actions. For example:

• Casey goes to work drunk and hits on his recently widowed boss, but it's OK because his girlfriend left him
• Heath sleeps with a barmaid in Melbourne, but it's OK because he thought Bianca was seeing Zac

[Blaxland 89]

Just my personal opinion. I've watched the show from the beginning and I much prefer the current episodes over 2006, 2009. I hated it back then with Amanda doing awful things that we were supposed to forget about so nothing has changed there. I liked Sally return and also having her mix with newer characters. Having Sally, Maz, Leah, Irene all sat round a table is something I thought I would never see. The show, to me, is not at its worst.

[Reo]

You really had me confused for a moment. I was reading it and thinking, 'Wow! That's exactly the same as my opinion.. that's spooky, hang on! That's mostly word for word my opinion!' lol

I wrote it on a thread which questioned why some people don't like the Braxtons. It wasn't a bashing thread, but it asked for reasons why a lot of viewers don't like them, so I wrote my very long opinion, which was agreed with by a few people.

The fans of the Braxtons only seemed to write that they provided good drama, which is not a great reason to put the Braxtons at the centre of attention and ignore every other character, because good drama can be written for any character if the show focused on them more.

I can't imagine any viewer seriously agreeing that things are right on the show now, whether you like the Braxtons or not, it's clear that the show focuses on them too much while ignoring other characters and there is absolutely no reason why screen time can't be shared equally among characters.

Then minutes later the same episode he blows up when Sasha suggests that alcohol might have affected Casey's driving - a pretty reasonable suggestion. I doubt we'll see him apologise for that, that'll be one of those instances where his unnecessary agression is acceptable because of his love for his family.

You're completely right, of course people would think that the crash had something to do with Casey drinking considering he spent the last few weeks drunk, including while he was at work! The lack of respect Casey has shown Indi for giving him the job and covering for him any time he is in jail or in the hospital, which is a lot, is disgusting. Imagine if someone did get hurt while he was helping them while drunk, Indi and Sid would have lost everything. Casey wouldn't get any other job unless it was given to him by a friend.

I wrote about Brax's behaviour towards people in another post in the thread. I believe this is a 5* spoiler..

The way he grabbed Peta Bradley and shouted at her about Casey, when there is nothing that she could do about it but wait and she had other patients to look after..

but that's okay, because Brax is just worried about Casey.

Then again Brax grabbed that Hayley woman (I think she was helping Heath with his custody case at the time) and dragged her to a cliff, threatened her and she was only able to get away after hitting Brax with a rock (correct me if I am wrong, I don't really remember every detail) and I believe Brax kept threatening her, telling her to leave town. But that too was okay behaviour for Brax, because once again it was his anger/concern/upset about someone he loved (Charlie's death? Although I blame Brax for that, he dragged her into his lifestyle) that caused that threatening behaviour.