Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[jodlebirger]

Wouldn't it have been wise to give more effort in making the new characters interesting by the storylines, than try to make them popular by hype?

Absolutely, but it's more difficult that way. And the writers and script producers are too lazy.

IMO other than Ricky, Matt and Zac every character that has been introduced over the past 2 years has been hopelessly bland.

Chris, Denny, Evie, Oscar, Hannah, Maddy, Spencer, Nate, Phoebe, Sophie. BLAH! What is unique about any of these characters?

I have found every character introduced since 2009 less interesting than the characters before, but the characters introduced in 2012-2014 are more bland than the characters introduced in 2010 and 11. In those years they were more one sided and caricatured and probably too extreme in one direction, especially in the beginning (Bianca, April, The Walkers and to a degree the Braxtons).

All today's characters feel bland to me. But some of them have some potential if they were written differently.

I think that Matt is bland too, and Zack has become bland even he had some potential in the beginning.

Kyle Prior is a good actor I think, but he isn't used to his potential.

Chris had some potential I think, but they ruined that when they decided that his only purpose is to bring some humor into the show.

Spencer and Maddy's introduction was very inconsistent. And it is not only the writing of these characters which make them uninteresting, but also the writing of the characters around them. Roo's reactions to Maddy's spoilt brat behaviour, her and Alf's non interest in Spencer when it was revealed that he is bi-polar, if the adult characters around were written better, with a real adult attitude then it would have been more interesting to see them interact and change over time.

In my opinion it seems like the show has characters for only one purpose, The Braxtons for drama, Chris, Marilyn, John and Jett for humor, Alf and Roo for the more quirky scenes and the rest are just there as fillers. Alf is also the one who is suppose to "glue" the town together.

They all need to be written like people with humoristic, dramatic and deeper personalities and storylines.

[greg098]

I completely agree with all the posters about it being a show about the Braxtons. I am glad Casey and Health left but we still have the Barretts brothers who I find boring and unoriginal. This is a small coastal town yet its now full of crime, drugs and killings. The Producers and writers need to realise that the Braxton era had its time but the show needs a new direction. The Braxton's were successful but its over.

Home and Away is originally about fostering and troubled kids. I feel the show has strayed off that. The show right know doesn't feel like the show I was watching 10 years ago. It use to be a soap but now its a drama.

Right now I am addicted to watching the uk soap Emmerdale. It has AMAZING characters and I want to tune in to watch these characters and their journeys. The characters have personalities and are very unique. Home and Away does not have characters like this. Too many good looking people with no personalities.

I hope the direction of the show changes and makes me excited about watching Home and Away because right now I simply don't care about the show.

[jodlebirger]

I completely agree with all the posters about it being a show about the Braxtons. I am glad Casey and Health left but we still have the Barretts brothers who I find boring and unoriginal. This is a small coastal town yet its now full of crime, drugs and killings. The Producers and writers need to realise that the Braxton era had its time but the show needs a new direction. The Braxton's were successful but its over.

Home and Away is originally about fostering and troubled kids. I feel the show has strayed off that. The show right know doesn't feel like the show I was watching 10 years ago. It use to be a soap but now its a drama.

Right now I am addicted to watching the uk soap Emmerdale. It has AMAZING characters and I want to tune in to watch these characters and their journeys. The characters have personalities and are very unique. Home and Away does not have characters like this. Too many good looking people with no personalities.

I hope the direction of the show changes and makes me excited about watching Home and Away because right now I simply don't care about the show.

I think it is exactly the opposite; it used to be a drama/everyday life drama and now it is a soap.

The storylines and characters had better development, and the storylines were far more down to earth, more drama series like.

When they started to use "soapy" ingredients as more triangles and more over-the-top storylines it became a soap. After a while it became a "trash-soap" as we say up here, which means in the same category as "Days of our lives", "Glamour" and Sunset Beach where everything revolves around over-the-top storylines with stalkers and never ending triangles and with bad development of storylines and characters.

They use more violence and crime in H&A than in most other soaps, but the inconsistent writing, bad follow ups of storylines and bad build ups to climax make it a very violent soap at times. Because it is not a crime series, the way the story is told shows us that it is still a soap.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Neighbours is now streets ahead of H&A and knocks spots off H&A now. N is so addictive and is a family drama which has some drama like the tornado but it is more about the after effects. Neighbours and Emmerdale really go to town on H&A right now. I hope H&A can turn itself around but I do worry that the current format of crimes and love triangles will be the H&A going forward. If so I shall switch off for good.

[Red Ranger 1]

I will admit that I'm actually liking Neighbours more than Home and Away at the moment, which may change when Paul Robinson's next crime storyline kicks in (I did genuinely nearly give up on Neighbours about four years ago when the amount of crimes characters could get away with without any punishment threatened to get too much) and I do think it's got the community feel and family-based drama that Home and Away just doesn't know how to handle anymore.Emmerdale, frankly, I'm on the verge of giving up on now, although I'm probably past the crisis point:Last week's episodes where a once likable character turns into a psychotic killer and his intended victim is so unpleasant half the audience want him to succeed was far more dire than anything Home and Away's turned up recently and an example of what Home and Away could become if they're not very careful.

I do find the current case reasonably engaging, there's some poor writing for the young adults at times but the teens have a decent mix of personalities.To be honest, I think Alf and Irene worked fine until the show started listening to people's views on what they should be like, and now instead of being reassuring figures they're pretty much written the same as everyone else, flying off the handle at the slightest excuse to create drama.The show couldn't cope up with a decent relationship if their lives depended on it, instead having characters abruptly cheat on someone they were madly in love with a week earlier and expecting us to be on their side.And the crime/drug storylines, while not as prominent as they were two or three years ago, do seem to have become what the stalker or natural disaster stories were I earlier years, a way of spicing things up when they run out of ideas, with the inevitable diminished returns.I think in some respects things are getting better, in others perhaps not so much, and I also think some audience members don't really know what they want the show to be and complain about anything.I'm still enjoying it anyway.

[Homeandawayfan.]

One thing I have noticed is how the interiors of the Braxton house and the diner and Angelo's all have sort of darkened rooms even in daylight, whereas the sets used to be very bright and inviting. I suppose it could be to reflect the current format of the show.

[Lila_Q]

As I said before this is my 11th year watching the show. I started when I came to Australia to improve my English. I chose to watch the show because I thought that comparing to US soaps this portrayed real life (or something close to it). There were always natural disasters, accidents, murders, stalkers and a lot of drama, but recently and to be precise in the last 4 years IMO it is worse than ever. I think that the show started to become 'darker' when Cameron Welsh was producer, but it is worse now with Lucy and Louise. Even if producers of the show are not completely 'in charge' of the show, they must have some input in it. If Channel 7 bosses want a lot of drama, crime and stunts on the show, the writers can at least write decent script - I find it that since Louise took over the scripts are very often poorly written. IMO at the moment the show is popular but there is no quality in it. Loyal fans, like most of us on this board just 'hang in there' hoping that it will get better and that's probably the reason why the ratings are still relatively high and why the show survives.

These are my issues with the show (in last 4 years):

In last four years there were 13 deaths on the show: 5 by natural cause (Ross, Romeo, Gina, Jess and Rocco), 2 accident (Teagan, Ethan) and

6 murders (Charlie, Hammer, Danny, Stu, Jake, Casey). For small coastal town 6 murders in 3 years is a lot. IMO Ross, Romeo, Ethan, Stu and even Jake's deaths were unnecessary.

What I also don't like is how quickly characters get cured. One day they are in intensive care and the next they are having a coffee at the Diner. I know that time in TV show is supposed to go quicker, but Leah (liver problems), Roo (allergy on vaccine), Bianca (brain damage), Brax (broken leg, being shot, stabbed), Josh (being shot), Andy (being stabbed), Casey (being stabbed in jail, left to die in the desert, paralysed after car accident), and

Oscar (eating disorder)

were happy and healthy in no time. Only real healing process was Dex's after his car accident. I took months for him to recover after brain damage.

Romeo's cancer storyline - I know that cancer can spread quickly, but at the end of the day he lived with experienced doctor as well as with nurse and doctor in training, and I don't know how it is possible that no one noticed his mole when most of the time he was walking around shirtless. I know that Luke and Rob didn't like the storyline either - just too naïve. IMO they didn't know how to write him off the show so they just killed him off. There were so many other ways to write him out.

Life long illnesses - for example Irene and Marilyn's cancer (no one mentions that anymore), April's OCD, Ruby's Type I diabetes, Spencers bi polar disorder.
If they wanted to introduce mental disorder on the show they need to follow up. People with OCD and bi polar disorder struggle even if they are on medication. Monica from TV show Friends is perfect example, for 10 years we could see signs of OCD in her behaviour. I'm not saying that they needed to talk about that all the time, but April could have certain things that she did that would remind the viewers that she's got OCD. Same with Spencer, this year I can't remember any interesting storyline he was involved in so they could explore depression and mood swings.

Oscar's eating disorder, I was happy when I found out they are going to address that, just for them to move on in two weeks. The only reason for that storyline was for Nate and Hannah to get closer. They didn't need to get closer because of that - they work together.

Nate - DR that knows all - completely unrealistic. According to his bio he's supposed to be general surgeon. In last year or so on the show, he preformed brain surgery on Bianca, surgery on Josh after he got shot, surgery on Darcy's hand, surgery on Andy after being stabbed, but also treated Roo (yellow fewer), Leah (liver damage), Brax (deep vain thrombosis), Ricky (pregnancy), Danny (dehydration),

Oscar (eating disorder)

. They could've made him an ER doctor who admits patients and then consults a specialist. By looking at hospital building it looks like big hospital - but then again Sid was miracle doctor as well.

The Braxtons going to London - out of 5, 4 of them have criminal record and 2 are on still probation - I rest my case!

Main characters getting away with major crimes - all the Braxtons, Ricky and Andy

The way characters act out of character or are naïve:
Charlie - police woman who believed that leader of the gang had nothing to do with the crimes they were committing
Hannah - caring auntie who came to the Bay to save her family, falls in love with the criminal and puts her family in danger
Zac - strong character who started drinking because of the girl
Bianca - educated woman (previously engaged to a price) falls in love with a drug dealer
Brax - family man (the guy you don't want to mess with) who forgives/ understands everyone who tries to hurt his family, Brax admitting that he killed Johnny for me was out of character (that guilt could've been triggered off many times before) as well as his behaviour after

Casey's death

Natalie - school councillor focuses only on one student (mainly because of his brother). For getting involved with Brax in Italy (where I'm from) she would've lost her job

Also after being kidnapped Oscar, Evelyn, Josh and Kyle didn't show any trauma. I believe that fearing for your life must be very traumatizing experience and for them just to carry on the next day is completely absurd. Same goes for Casey, as soon as he came come from the desert he was ok. Once he told Kyle that he's still dreaming about that but we couldn't see it.

How quickly Evelyn and Oscar moved on from the death of their father - he turned out to be a bad guy (or misunderstood as H&A likes to portray them), but most of their life he was ok - they must've had some feeling for him.

Is it possible for anyone to finish high school without repeating? I know that it can be hard, but it's not rocket science. Even April who was excellent student had to repeat.

Loose ends- why was Roo so secretive about her trip to Peru, what happened to Harvey when he disappeared, where is Sargent Watson?

And what really gets on my nerves is that all bad things done by the regular characters are because they were manipulated by someone else i.e. Casey, Ricky, Andy - they are portrayed as victims and no one takes responsibilities for their actions. And they get away with it.

So to answer the question, I don't know if the producers are ruining the show (people still watch it), but they are definitely not making it better.

[cadyctslover]

^ An excellent summary of some of the problems with the show over the past 3 years or so.

[LondonF4]

H&A has lost its heart, soul and basic ability to tell interesting storylines. It's now a show about bland characters trapped in an endless cycle of rinse and repeat stories. Crime and cheating, with occasional humour from John and Marilyn. It really needs to take a leaf from Neighbours which was in terrible shape but has turned itself around and now the superior soap. If Neighbours can do it so can H&A.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I think that is why they are called the producer, they are in charge of much of the input if not all, the buck stops with the producer, hence why they are called that. Lucy and Louise want the show to be an Underbelly clone instead of Home And Away. As I said, they dont understand what Home And Away is all about, I tell you if I was producer I would cut down on the crime stories and endless love triangles, and the harsh underscore "music" and axe some of the deadwood and bring back the fostering element and character driven stories. TPTB need to listen to us who are not happy with the current format.

The current producer of Neighbours understand what Neighbours is supposed to be, whereas Susan Bower didn't she was into endless teens and crimes which people were getting away with. Lucy and Louise are the same as Susan.