Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[Luke39]

6 minutes ago, Gerard said:

I totally agree that H&A set designs and photography is light years ahead of Neighbours. Neighbours has never been know for quality in its production values, and if anything things have gone backwards on that show with regards to actual production.

Not so long ago, Neighbours didn't really care about its past, and H&A did, so the tables have turned a bit. I don't think Neighbours goes overboard with remembering the past. H&A did bring back Olivia and Roo in recent years, and has remembered characters history, like Irene's drinking. But that's not really what's wrong with H&A at the moment.

H&A has always focused more on the young cast, which H&A does well. We saw how bad Neighbours got when it did the same thing. H&A should stick to what it did well for the first 20 years or so. Visually and production-wise it looks awesome, but they just need to work on the story telling and characterisation over big stunts and high drama.

So better balance. I totally agree. I think its getting their. Younger group supported by the older folk. Loving the Zac Storyline right now. Vj, Hunter, Evie, Oscar etc been supported by Alf, Leah etc. I think it needs to.focus on.creating drama without actually acting like they are trying to. Words say allot more then actions.

[John]

I think it is a question of balance as well.  All soaps need drama, Home and Away is no exception and it's always been there.  But if the dramatic storylines overpower the "normal life" storylines they lose their impact and become humdrum.  The "bright lights and loud bang" type storylines need to be infrequent and varied so that when they do occur they have real impact on the audience.

[KittCatt]

44 minutes ago, John said:

I think it is a question of balance as well.  All soaps need drama, Home and Away is no exception and it's always been there.  But if the dramatic storylines overpower the "normal life" storylines they lose their impact and become humdrum.  The "bright lights and loud bang" type storylines need to be infrequent and varied so that when they do occur they have real impact on the audience.

I agree completely. 

Whenever someone is kidnapped/ held hostage/ stabbed etc it's very hard not to loose interest because it happens so often and we all know how it will end (in most cases they will be fine because they always are or we have seen them in promo's alive and well...). Character-driven storylines are necessary in order to have impact, so we know about someones underlying motives and reasons for doing something, instead of plot-driven storylines that are over as quickly as they begun. Real consequences (emotionally as well as physically) need to occur too so we don't get a headache from rolling our eyes when people recover from seemingly permanent damage (such paraplegics suddenly walking again.. and so on..). 

2 hours ago, ~Lynd~ said:

It's not about nostalgia though.Not entirely anyway.If I wanted crime and violence I'd watch Daredevil or Breaking Bad, both of which I love but we watch different things for different reasons.Should shows evolve?Yes but not to the extent where it makes no sense.The entire premise to the show is so different to how it was originally that they might as well scrap HAA and rename the show.

I still enjoy the show enough to continue watching but it's not the HAA I grew up with and the relevance of those issues still continue today.The success of shows like 800 words and House Husbands shows us that not everything has to be so dark.

Yep. I didn't grow up watching home and away but i am watching the early years currently and you wouldn't know it was the same show. The only things in common are Alf, Irene and the sets (which have changed favourably over the years i must say). I find good things and bad things about both eras of the show but certainly the fostering and family aspect of the show has completely vanished in recent years- though it is better now it's certainly not the same. Now while show's should evolve, the basis should stay the same so people can recognize it.

I would like more balance- less crime and more punishment (people seem to get away with an awful lot), more character-driven storylines, more interactions between varying characters (such as the older generation and the younger), and more humour- shows don't need to be completely crime driven and depressed to be good- especially one that built it's foundation as a show about fostering and family. Oh and more diversity would be good too.. 

[dee123]

12 hours ago, Luke39 said:

My point of view was that some of the audience may not know past characterisation. So that wouldn't effect their viewing experience. Whether or not there is character assassination going on. Does it really matter? Presently they have decided to introduce Olivia as a Teenager. So her entire characterization is different. Its okay to not like that. But it is what it is.

And therein lies the problem, it's never a good idea to appeal to just one part of your audience.

[Luke39]

32 minutes ago, dee123 said:

And therein lies the problem, it's never a good idea to appeal to just one part of your audience.

Sure But with Braxtons im assuming.they were appealing to.females haha. They were so popular. THEY decided to base the show around THEm. It felt like The River.Boys Starring Home and Away May be lol. Point is ThAt era has lingered on. Until the extension of that era ends. It well be two.hundred.Steps forward. Two hundreed backwards. I love Kyle. But if hes not going to have a story line that's not crime related. Then well prob leave. But then ya got Andy. Who seems better now. But with Brax and Ricky still up in.the air. That balance May not occur till maybe next year.

[Skylover]

It's all well and good basing the show around 3 characters but what happens when those characters leave? The rest of the show needs to be as strong as those characters and they won't be because they've been left to flounder.

[Luke39]

16 minutes ago, Edward Skylover said:

It's all well and good basing the show around 3 characters but what happens when those characters leave? The rest of the show needs to be as strong as those characters and they won't be because they've been left to flounder.

Well its not a sitcom like Big Bang theory haha. So should never be about three characters. Braxtons should have been integrated into the show. Not infiltrated if that makes sense. Blend in. Not take over. But alas here we are five years later.

[Gerard]

I'm sure, once upon a time, every main character used to get roughly equal airtime, regardless of their role in the series. Nowadays there is a definite emphasis towards certain parts of the cast - to be fair this has been redressed a bit over the past year, but until then the likes of Alf, Irene, Leah and Roo were more often than not just glorified extras - especially Irene - we rarely saw her outside the Diner.

Yet we had what seemed like full weeks on end where the action was centred around Castle Braxton, which brings up another issue where characters seemed to circulate only within their own groups. Where had the sense of community gone?

Now, I think more because they have no option, due to certain characters leaving, we are seeing more of a balance. But we are still some way away from an integrated community. That's what's really missing these days.

[Homeandawayfan.]

On 18/03/2016 at 0:05 PM, Gerard said:

I agree with all of this. When "Home and Away" began, it was all about a central foster family who moved to the fairly sleepy town of Summer Bay and explored both the family relationships within the foster family, and also the general resistance of the conservative locals to having an unconventional family unit containing mainly teens from former troubled backgrounds.

Everything was very character based, and while there was room for lots of action and humour, it was all about the characters, and friction between the generations. Even when the original foster children moved on, they were seemlessly replaced by a new generation of equally troubled teens. Everything felt natural and right. There was a fair share of over dramatic stories, as with any soap, but this was balanced out with humour and relationships.

I must admit to being quite disappointed when the fostering element all but disappeared, which started with the departure of Pippa, but eroded for a few years under the Nashes, before they more of less wiped the slate clean and went in a different direction with the Sutherlands, and the "Drop In Center" (I never totally bought into the "teens helping teens" thing). They could have gone down the path of re-casting Pippa, or perhaps persuaded Debra Lawrence to stay on for another 6 months or year, had a whirlwind marriage and then killed Pippa off, with the new husband maintaining the continuity - not sure how I would have felt had it played out that way). Or they could have possibly found a new set of foster parents to take over from Pippa, longer term, as they didn't want to uproot the children (or whatever credible plot they could come up with).

I don't blame the Sutherlands for the situation H&A is in today, but they did send the series off in other direction. Having said that, things did nearly come full circle years later when we had Sally take on the Pippa role, with Flynn. I think that set-up worked really well, and H&A seemed to be heading back on course. However by this stage, TPTB seemed to be upping the ante as far as the dramatic plots were concerned, with more crime and violence, and this must have worked ratings-wise, as we seem to have been stuck in that mode ever since. We had over the past years ever more gripping plots, like the Sarah Lewis siege, Sally being stabbed etc. But TPTB must have realised they were onto something as more and more crime took over, at the expense of character development, even sideling old favourites like Irene and Alf for younger better looking "hunks", who also appealed to the current audience.

Summer Bay was no longer a peaceful backwater, but felt more like some kind of gangster-ridden suburb of the city. Gone was the warmth and safely of family life, and in came the "eye for an eye" mentality, where revenge was the name of the game. Once people getting beaten up, maimed or killed became the norm, where do you go from here?

What do the current H&A audience tune in for, and would the audience soon get bored if they returned to family based character driven plots? How much crime-driven drama would be the right amount to keep most of the viewers satisfied - without going to one extreme or the other? The safest option if their main concern is viewing figures, is to stick with the current course they have been on for the past few years, even if it means alienating fans of the traditional series. Change is a risk, it might pay off, it might not.

Well as you know I did some research recently into the pre history of H&A and the creator spent ages researching foster children for real, so the show was deffo based around a fostering element, an element that is virtually non existent today. I even found on a Australian Media Archive website that years ago Ch7 kept archives of stills from current and future shows, and every couple of months they made a new folder, and Home And Away appears in a Aug/Sep 1985 folder of stills of Ch7 future and current productions. The creator Alan Bateman cared for his show, you could tell that when it first aired, so it says a lot about the current producers, who only care for the Braxtons or a certain clique of characters such as Kat, Charlotte, Phoebe, Ricky, Andy, Oscar or Maddy. The show may be fixed but it will take years for it to be fixed if ever it does get fixed. I think the rot begun with Cameron Welsh and it has carried on.

 

 

[j.laur5]

Well in 1998 they could easily have brought back Vanessa to play Pippa after Debra quit.