Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[gutterboy]

Gotta agree with the above posts..... this year has been by far the worst season in recent memory; I thought the previous season was bad; but this season took things to another level of bad.

As for the season finale.....

Seriously!? Nate had a hysterical women and he didn't think to ummmm maybe STOP the car!? When he was driving it was like he had no brakes lol...... trying to control the car and her whilst driving the car; I know they wanted to causr the crash, but geez..... how about some better writing eh!?

[Homeandawayfan.]

I casually watch H&A now and if it is yet another kidnapping, violent drugs heist or punch up within a minute of the episode (after the extra long recap) then I switch over to Judge Judy. I personally feel the way the show has gone is not fair to the longer term viewers. This era of H&A has overtaken Susan Bower's contempt filled era of Neighbours as the worst period in the shows history.

[CaptainHulk]

Some scenes I just wind up FFWDing if I've recorded the show.

[Gerard]

This era of H&A has overtaken Susan Bower's contempt filled era of Neighbours as the worst period in the shows history.

That's true. Some of Susan Bower's efforts were so dire, I almost reached for the off switch, and H&A these days feels a lot like that. There is still some good stuff going on in H&A, but it is overshadowed by much of the OTT antics of certain characters who seem to dominate screen time. I'm not that interested these days that I care to know what's coming up, but from the bits and pieces I've seen, it feels like business as usual. It looks like H&A will be stuck in its current rut for some time yet.

[LondonF4]

This era of H&A has overtaken Susan Bower's contempt filled era of Neighbours as the worst period in the shows history.

That's true. Some of Susan Bower's efforts were so dire, I almost reached for the off switch, and H&A these days feels a lot like that. There is still some good stuff going on in H&A, but it is overshadowed by much of the OTT antics of certain characters who seem to dominate screen time. I'm not that interested these days that I care to know what's coming up, but from the bits and pieces I've seen, it feels like business as usual. It looks like H&A will be stuck in its current rut for some time yet.

I agree that H&A is not all bad, whereas Neighbours really did hit the skids from 09-12. The difference today is that H&A is still pulling decent numbers and is being artificially propped up by the shows around it. During the dark Subo era, Neighbours didn't have the luxury of being on a #1 network with strong shows on either side. It's easy for the audience to keep watching H&A regardless of the dip in content - they just hang around for MKR or XFactor or the show that comes after. But the minute Neighbours went bad, there wasn't enough happening on the network so viewers abandoned it.

[CaptainHulk]

In all fairness Neighbours in that period DID have "Who Pushed Paul?".

H&A at that point had crap about Abalone/People Smuggling and Dead men who weren't really dead....

[jodlebirger]

Hm... I think that H&A has been far worse from 2010 and onwards, when it comes to storytelling than in the year with Abalone and smuggling people times. I really didn't like the abalone fishing thing, and smuggling people storyline, but 2009 had a lot of great character development and storylines in between. For example there were a lot of Aden/Belle storylines which I thought were good, even if some could have been better and the same with Rachel & Tony. And the year long mystery had under storylines that were interesting for example Aden and Geoff working at the trawler, Irene and Lou's early days, and Martha's interest in Bambang. I also liked Martha in the aftermath of Jack's death she became a character on her own again. And the summer bay community feeling was good.

The show has still potential, but has become stiff and to controlled and that has destroyed the process of good storytelling. Early 2013 had some great scenes with Rosie and the rest of the teens. I think it was a shame that Rose wasn't promoted as a regular and moved in with Irene instead of giving her foster parents we never saw. And Ginas death was handled pretty well, even if I thought her funeral was sandwiched between Braxton drama and it was difficult to feel moved.

But then the rest of the year was quite rubbish.

I think that 2014 has been quite rubbish, maybe the most rubbish year so far for me. It is not so insulting as some storylines in 2010 was, but they are more uninteresting dull uninteresting stuff and repeating storylines that we have seen 10000 times before from 2011 and onwards.

It is a shame though, because there is still a lot of potential. But the characters have to get more realistic and consistent personalities and their storylines and personalities have to change more naturally over time. And I also think that the characters need to be written as characters in the age group they are meant to be and also look like. Don't treat every character under 40 as teenagers, and the rest as clowns.

[LondonF4]

In all fairness Neighbours in that period DID have "Who Pushed Paul?".

H&A at that point had crap about Abalone/People Smuggling and Dead men who weren't really dead....

Maybe some people enjoyed Who Pushed Paul - all I remember is the dreadful Declan recast. Anywho, 09-12 was a legendary awful era for Neighbours and it has since recovered nicely. H&A isn't quite so dire in my eyes, its main problem is the crime emphasis and recycling of stories. So I think it can recover with less effort however there doesn't seem to be the desire for change by TPTB.

[Jezz]

In all fairness Neighbours in that period DID have "Who Pushed Paul?".

H&A at that point had crap about Abalone/People Smuggling and Dead men who weren't really dead....

Maybe some people enjoyed Who Pushed Paul - all I remember is the dreadful Declan recast. Anywho, 09-12 was a legendary awful era for Neighbours and it has since recovered nicely. H&A isn't quite so dire in my eyes, its main problem is the crime emphasis and recycling of stories. So I think it can recover with less effort however there doesn't seem to be the desire for change by TPTB.

I totally agree that the decision to recast Declan was a bad one even though James Sorenson had decided to quit the show rather than being axed by TPTB.

I actually enjoyed the who pushed Paul storyline and at least the episode 6000 milestone in 2010 featured iconic characters like Paul, Karl and Toadie in the episode. Overall, the SuBo era was terrible with too much emphasis on the teens and ruining characters like Steph and Libby but there were some positives amongst it but these were few and far between.

I noticed an improvement in the second half of 2012 to be honest and since then the show has improved even though I thought June 2013 to April 2014 (Kate's death) was a little dull for my liking. I feel like the show has improved considerably since Kate's death with good additions to the cast like Naomi, Daniel and Paige.

Home and Away isn't in a good state at the moment but I still find it to be a better show than Neighbours was in 2009 for example.

[CaptainHulk]

Oh god, the Sucky Declan recast. The character result was like someone grabbed Jack Scully and Taj Coppin, sewed them together and took out what little charisma there was from either!

I'm just glad Declan finished High School before the part was recast, Erin Mullaly would just look... "not right" in a school uniform.

And even 2009-12 Neighbours was nowhere as bad as 1995-early '96 Neighbours.