H&A Spring Break - From the Bay to LA

[Dan F]

Schedule now updated with the Ryan Kwanten episodes - the first 1997 episode is in fact his first episode as a regular, after his 3 ep guest stint earlier in the year.

The 1999 episode is a good one, I watched it again not too long back - we see Vinnie's compassionate side and we have the added bonus of Diana Fraser vs. Summer Bay at the caravan park auction.

I guess I'm one of those people that takes things for granted, certainly during my time here. And I post fairly frequently and don't ever think about how much effort and spare time goes into running the main website and the forum and constantly providing updates. And I appreciate that you and Chris had no obligation to do this (or any other updates) but are doing so purely for the benefit of the UK viewers for something that is only going to last a month anyway so thank you for that and all the other updates.

Much appreciated!

[H&Alover]

Thanks Red & Captain Hulk, good to know I wasn't seeing things. Also thanks Dan F & Chris for all your hard work, Slade is right we do take it for granted where all this info comes from.

Must have been hard for Kim to find out Noah wasn't his, he'd already been there with Brooke who had first let him think she'd aborted Charlie, then let him get attached before revealing he wasn't his after all. If I remember correctly hadn't Barry been giving money to Brooke to help her raise Charlie? Touching last scene with him and Noah. What we won't see of course is Kim finally settled with the baby who is actually his by Kit. He contracted mumps if I remember which put paid to any chance of him having a baby with Rachel who he'd marred.

Amanda did have her maternal side which balanced her bad side well, 'cos when she was bad she was bad.

Pity we didn't get to see the original VJ.

[Angelica]

Today's episode was another amazing episode - I felt just as conflicted as I did the first time I watched the episode as I wanted both Kit and Rachel to be happy (and personally thought they were both too good for Kim anyway).

[Red Ranger 1]

An early reference to Kelli, one of the big villains of 2006, and it seems Amanda didn't know Kelli hated her, I'm struggling to remember if they were initially on good terms when Kelli turned up or not.

And I'm also struggling to remember what year Kelli appeared.It was 2007, wasn't it?Yeah. Wow, that's a really early mention then.

Twas 2007. After Kelli arranged for her own niece to be kidnapped just to put Amanda through hell they were talking and Amanda mentioned that they spoke on the phone (so were still in each others lives) but hadn't seen each other in 13 years. So you can make of that what you will. I guess I would say that they weren't close but if they spoke there's no way she would be able to tell what Keli thought of her. Keli pretended to want to be in her life and rebuild their relationship but I think Kitty found out what she was up to so Ethan paid her off and Kitty promptly left Summer Bay. Shortly afterwards she got Ethan to ruin her wedding. I absolutely loved Amanda, I really did but that moment when Ethan turned up celebrating just after she tied the knot was a master stroke and pure genius. I will never ever forget the look of horror on Amanda's face. It was brilliant! Amanda was completely obvious throughout the whole thing until right up to the point when things came to a head. If it was me personally and I had a sibling who I didn't really contact very often and they turned up out of the blue, I would be extremely suspicious of their motives.

Thanks, that's really interesting.Not sure how that squares with Amanda apparently going to see Kelli in yesterday's episode, especially if she'd been out of contact with her the whole time she knew Dan.I seem to remember that Kitty was aware that Kelli resented Amanda and alarm bells started ringing as soon as she found out she was in town.

I was going to say that Amanda turned out to be the anonymous buyer of the gym but that's wrong, isn't it?It was actually Josh but we didn't find out until long after he'd died and Amanda had inherited it.

Today!Like Angelica, I always found that storyline heavy going, because I liked all three characters involved but obviously someone was going to get hurt.I think the fact we knew Kim was leaving and there was no hope for him and Rachel meant I could invest in hoping for a happy ending for Kim and Kit, which seems in doubt right up to the end.(And Rachel ended up happy with Tony, so all's well that ends well.)Watching it out of context, Kim doesn't come across too well in that episode (it doesn't help that he seems to be drunk for a good chunk of it) and while I sympathised to a point Rachel seemed a bit too highly strung for me to fully identify with.(I didn't really care for Brad's rant either, no matter how good a point he had.)So really the standout was Kit, a character I was very fond of who just oozes empathy, torn between wishing for a happy ending, not wanting to be the other woman and worrying she's the consolation prize.While I understand the reasoning, since she's the one that's sticking around, I think in a way the episode does Kim and Kit a disservice by focusing on Rachel's tears rather than their sunset ending at the end:It was a long road for both of them and kind of deserved after all the disappointment they'd both suffered.I wish Kim and Rachel had had a proper last conversation but the hug was a decent note to end it on, and the farewell between Kit and Matilda was pretty emotional.

Oddly, found it hard to connect with the other storylines, despite being pleased to see certain characters again.I think it was around that time I started to like Cassie less and less, yet I found Sally a bit hard on her.Mind you, watching these episodes alongside the 90s ones on 7Two, she's definitely Pippa's daughter, that's how she would have handled it too.Alf's eye storyline wasn't really focused on enough to gell.Matilda of course was the one who ended up opting out of the HSC that year...

That episode's been repeated before and they were clearly using the print from the repeat, complete with the extra commercial break.I hope that's not a precedent:I think a couple of the Vinnie episodes have been shown on 5* before as well.Incredibly, that's the latest episode, and Kim the latest character, they're going to show in this run:Next latest is Tasha, who left in 2006.

[Dan F]

That episode's been repeated before and they were clearly using the print from the repeat, complete with the extra commercial break.I hope that's not a precedent:I think a couple of the Vinnie episodes have been shown on 5* before as well.Incredibly, that's the latest episode, and Kim the latest character, they're going to show in this run:Next latest is Tasha, who left in 2006.

Interestingly it's a straight chronological run for the next 2 weeks - ideally they could have put Chris in the 3rd week, though I guess with him being the biggest Hollywood star at the moment it made sense for them to start with him.

[c120701]

That episode's been repeated before and they were clearly using the print from the repeat, complete with the extra commercial break.I hope that's not a precedent:I think a couple of the Vinnie episodes have been shown on 5* before as well.Incredibly, that's the latest episode, and Kim the latest character, they're going to show in this run:Next latest is Tasha, who left in 2006.

Interestingly it's a straight chronological run for the next 2 weeks - ideally they could have put Chris in the 3rd week, though I guess with him being the biggest Hollywood star at the moment it made sense for them to start with him.

Yes, I was thinking that too, especially with the talk of Vinnie being in Witness Protection, I was thinking how it would have made sense for that to come after Vinnie week.

[Slade]

Thanks, that's really interesting.Not sure how that squares with Amanda apparently going to see Kelli in yesterday's episode, especially if she'd been out of contact with her the whole time she knew Dan.I seem to remember that Kitty was aware that Kelli resented Amanda and alarm bells started ringing as soon as she found out she was in town.

No worries. TBH, wasn't sure if you were actually joking at first as you seem to know almost everything that's happened in this show over the last 15 years or so.

Sally annoyed me when she wouldn't let Cassie take the job as a barmaid. It's not the fact that she turned her down that I had a problem with. It's that she was so smug and arrogant about it. Almost as if she felt working behind a bar was a degrading.

It's funny, I often looked at Cassie and sometimes thought she looked amazing but other times not so. Thought she had beautiful eyes.

Didn't like the way Rachel was trying to pressurise Maddie into telling her about Kit and Kim. I wondered at first whether Kim saw Kit as a way to get out of his marriage with Rachel. Then I wondered if he wanted to be with Kit for Archie. Then I thought yeah, he loved her. So I guess it's fair to say it's probably all three. Didn't see any of the stuff that led to them being a couple and getting married but could never understand why Rachel wanted to be with Kim. She's never struck me as the sort of person who would go for someone based on their looks. And I always thought she wanted to be challenged intellectually. Not saying that Kim's stupid but what did they actually talk about most of the time? I'm glad Kim ended up with Kit as I thought they were a better match.

[emmasi]

Didn't see any of the stuff that led to them being a couple and getting married but could never understand why Rachel wanted to be with Kim. She's never struck me as the sort of person who would go for someone based on their looks. And I always thought she wanted to be challenged intellectually. Not saying that Kim's stupid but what did they actually talk about most of the time? I'm glad Kim ended up with Kit as I thought they were a better match.

Their first meeting was when Kim was OD'ing and she saved his life. I don't remember all the details, but I think he pursued her until he wore her down. I think it was a relationship based on him hero-worshiping her and her enjoying that. I don't think they ever had anything "real" between them, but that doesn't mean that their feelings for each other weren't intense at the time. I actually loved them for a while but as time went on, she began to be more and more resentful towards him, and I never forgave her for not having the guts to just cut him loose. She was the "adult" in the relationship, he was the love-sick patient who owed the brilliant doctor his life. Instead she just got colder and colder towards him until he strayed to his old girlfriend, Kit, who actually loved him for who he was (and only then when he thought he was literally about to die in the wilderness!). But Archie was definitely the deciding factor. Kim was a rare character who had a very specific character arc - he came to the bay to escape the scandal of getting a girl pregnant, and left the bay to escape the scandal of getting another girl pregnant. Only one of these kids was actually his, and he clung to that kid for dear life after two previous false-starts (three if you count a failed adoption attempt), and after finding out that he had later become infertile. So you could argue that he didn't really love Kit and would've stayed with anyone who could finally give him his own biological child, but I personally like to think that Kim was attracted to a very particular set of genes, and Robbie had already left town with Tash

[Red Ranger 1]

I remember Rachel seemed instantly attracted to Kim once she saw him conscious and then they bonded during the counselling sessions (which I guess is exactly what you're not supposed to do but it did seem genuine).I think they loved each other:They were pretty solid and stuck by each other as the universe seemed to throw everything it could think of at them (his dad being arrested for murder, her dad going on the run and leaving her to care for a brain damaged mother who then died, an underage girl accusing him of indecent assault for the heck of it, her being kidnapped a lot, explosions, helicopter crashes, infertility...).They were actually in a good place and planning a new future together overseas when he slept with Kit, which seemed to be a purely instinctive thing rather than a sign anything was wrong with his relationship.But that was possibly the problem: While he loved Rachel, I think he'd been in love with Kit since 2004 and never really stopped.However many other people they dated, there was always that special bond between them (dare I say soul mates?).I don't blame the three of them for trying to make Kim and Rachel being married and Kim and Kit having a baby together work, but when she and Archie are basically his only chance of having a family and there's still strong feelings there, maybe it was inevitable it would blow up sooner or later.

Actually, I was slightly surprised that the repeats basically skipped over the whole Kim/Rachel relationship which was pretty huge in 2006 (they skipped over 2006 as well).I'd have thought they'd have put the wedding in there but I guess they can't show everything and I'm not sure what I'd leave out.

[Lesley Bee]

Does anyone know if Peter Baker (Nic Bishop) appears in any of the special eps on 5*?