Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[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. 

[Luke39]

I think.they care less about Oscar currently lol. I think.the Braxtons just organically became widely popular. Not Cameron or anyone's fault. Its the fan.Who latched onto them. But you knoe when they say way to ruin a good thing. That's exactly what happened. But they were so popular they even got a mini spin off. Neighbours cant say.they have ever had characters popular enough to base a special event around. But point is they just over did it. To the point the characterization of the Braxtons railed the show. To the point crime and drama was constant. Like I said a show like h and a. A sleepy town near a beach. Its better when its not so crime driven. And you have doses. Charlotte was a great example. Had a balance. But any way its getting their. But end of day it was the fans who made Braxtons popular. Not anyone else.

[Gerard]

5 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

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.

I always thought the foster family was a very clever set-up for a long-running serial. The fact that the younger cast could leave and be replaced naturally really was such a good idea. Back at the start almost every adult had a go at fostering, either officially or unofficially. So we had Alf & Alilsa, and Donald as well as Tom and Pippa, even Bobby, and in later years, Irene. Perhaps a bit unrealistic, but it all worked so well. I'm not sure why they felt the need to move away from that set-up. It's not like fostering has gone out of fashion or doesn't happen any more.

Nowadays apart from the set-up in Summer Bay House, we have a lot of random characters (mentioned above), mostly linked by the Braxtons for some reason. There is no natural logic behind why they are there. Then again, even the likes of Chris, Nate and Hannah feel rater disconnected.

They could easily do a clearout of certain characters and bring in some new ones who would have some sort of closer connection to the core characters.

[Luke39]

12 minutes ago, Gerard said:

I always thought the foster family was a very clever set-up for a long-running serial. The fact that the younger cast could leave and be replaced naturally really was such a good idea. Back at the start almost every adult had a go at fostering, either officially or unofficially. So we had Alf & Alilsa, and Donald as well as Tom and Pippa, even Bobby, and in later years, Irene. Perhaps a bit unrealistic, but it all worked so well. I'm not sure why they felt the need to move away from that set-up. It's not like fostering has gone out of fashion or doesn't happen any more.

Nowadays apart from the set-up in Summer Bay House, we have a lot of random characters (mentioned above), mostly linked by the Braxtons for some reason. There is no natural logic behind why they are there. Then again, even the likes of Chris, Nate and Hannah feel rater disconnected.

They could easily do a clearout of certain characters and bring in some new ones who would have some sort of closer connection to the core characters.

True. But the foster aspect has sorta returned since Maddy and Spencer were introduced. So im liking that aspect. Currently Evie, Oscar, Vj, Hunter with Alf and Leah.  A clean out sure. But would like characters like Billie, Maddy, Matt to stay on. But guess when you leave hs become adults. What else is their left in Summer Bay. But h and a has potential to break the trend of young actors leaving. I don't get developing a teen character into an adult. Then leaving. 

[Homeandawayfan.]

We do have John and Maz fostering Jett and the odd ref but usually they are few and far between. As said, the characters just are all random, they are not part of a family unit, Kyle, Andy and Josh were bought in as part of Braxtonfest and they are still around even after many of the Braxtons have left. Lucy Addario would be great producing a show like Underbelly or even a official spin off of H&A called The Braxtons. Then she can have crimes, fires, drug wars, bombings to he hearts content.