H&A Spring Break - From the Bay to LA

[Dan F]

Interesting interview with Katrina Hobbs. Wow, she has hardly changed!

They way they used to dress her, she seemed a lot older than the 26ish that Katrina was in 1997 (definitely in-line with her 'mumsy' comment) - and you're right, she's barely changed in 20 years, she's got a great energy about her so quite a shame she was so underused.

Quite a depressing and understated exit for her too really.

Always thought that was a holiday visiting Lance she came back from.

Yep I'm pretty sure that's right, she'd been visiting Lance - I'll double check with the ep though.

[alexx]

Kelly was always a favourite of mine too. I can see where Katrina is coming from (thanks for that video link!) but I found the character endearing and sweet (perhaps that's what she means by bland haha). I liked the Travis/Kelly romance because they obviously had a lot of chemestry and loved each other but their end goals in life were too different and that's what came between them. It was quite a sad departure really.

[Dan F]

Right, just checked Colleen's return (September 1999) and it does confuse things out a bit. Joel pulls her car over as she's arriving back (a rarity in itself seeing Colleen behind the wheel) - she doesn't know Joel, and she says she's been staying with Lance for a holiday, but ended up staying longer than expected. Though really, surely she'd know Joel when he introduced himself given they both grew up in Summer Bay...

She's then surprised to find Pippa is no longer running the caravan park and mentions "You go away for a year or two and everything changes" - she does know Justine though who arrived after Colleen's 1997 appearance, so she must have left between June 1997-Feb 1998.

We've got a note saying Jesse mentions her babysitting Rachel later in 1997, but I was sure there's later mentions of it. Unless he just referred to Mrs Smart and it was Narelle's mum he meant

[beau_t]

Thanks Dan, looks like we were all right AND wrong in different ways (including the writers lol).

This is completely out of left field, but speaking of Kelly, I don't remember her and Michael ever saying two words to each other.

[James Martin]

The older stuff has been filmed with CRT screens in mind. Flat screens process images in a different manner.

It's worth remembering the shift to HD meant changes in cinematography and, most significantly, lighting. LED wasn't an option back in 1997.

[beau_t]

The older stuff has been filmed with CRT screens in mind. Flat screens process images in a different manner.

It's worth remembering the shift to HD meant changes in cinematography and, most significantly, lighting. LED wasn't an option back in 1997.

The point was that the even older credits, like from 1990, look better on current flat screens than the 1997 ones. This is because of video effects that were applied to that particular style of credits, which looked fine on screens back then, but don't hold up on modern ones.

[Dan F]

The opening credits seemed a little blurry today. Whilst they probably look the least dated, they don't seem to have faired as well in quality as the earlier styles oddly.

The older styles were just normal videos but I think they used all sorts of grainy filters and video effects stuff on the 1996-1999 credits which were fine for TVs back then but probably don't look as great on modern high quality screens.

Yeah it was just the style as beau says - there's some definite diffusion over the footage (the text is perfectly sharp), and of course it's ramped up even more for the 1999 revamp which we'll see one ep of next week.

[James Martin]

They may well have been mucked up right from the first couple of seasons, as the episodes were all over the place on Seven around the season finale/opening weeks. Last 4 weeks of 1989 they only showed a single double ep per week it seems. It wasn't until 1991 that a season ended with a 'Friday' episode number. One of the many things on my to-do list is to try and sort out some UK airdates for earlier years of the show, so could be a bit of a minefield.

I can confirm from my anally retentive memory that the 1993 season began midweek. Dale's death, a Tuesday episode in Australia, was aired on a Wednesday in the UK (the evening showing famously preempted for European footy) From what I remember, Christmas Day would be taken off but otherwise the show stayed on air with some odd TX times on bank holidays. I remember during Christmas 1993 it went out at 11:10 and 15:40. It wasn't until we got much closer the show was dropped on Bank Holidays. Friday episodes were dropped in July 1998. Ironically, the final Friday episode - Lachie slipping into a coma - had its teatime showing cancelled after an afternoon World Cup game went to penalties. I'm amazed it stayed on air for France 98 given how close ITV had gotten and how much the scheduling of the show was royally buggered during the tournament.

A UK air date list would be epic; although the time of TX varied wildly throughout the country I'm pretty sure the same episode was shown on the same day everywhere, unlike with earlier Australian soaps where regions went at their own pace. The BBC have started publishing old schedules as printed in the Radio Times (which, for example, is useful for seeing what was supposed to be shown, say, the day Princess Diana died or on 9/11) but there's no similar archive for ITV.

[Red Ranger 1]

I noticed the Colleen mention but yeah, she definitely didn't stick around until 2012.As Dan says, when she turns up in 1999 she's clearly been gone a long time, not knowing Joel and expecting Pippa to still be running things.I actually don't remember these frequent mentions of her so I'm not convinced there's a continuity issue there.I had a feeling Linden Wilkinson had played another role but didn't remember who until I read this thread and went "Oh, yeah, that."Katherine came across as a lot more supervillainish than I remember, practically cackling at Shannon during their phone calls.

Wasn't that bothered about Kelly's cameo, she's not a character I had a problem with but not one I particularly missed either and I think her exit suited the character.It was nice to see a bit of Chloe, and also Sally, who surprisingly seems just like her adult portrayal and it's only 1997.(Her echoing Pippa's sentiments to Shannon felt like she was rehearsing for when she's running that house.)I was slightly disappointed that, despite Channel 5's misleading episode description, we didn't get to see Wayne.(Given BTTB's similar but more accurate description, I wonder if they paraphrased something wrong.)Jesse with hair...

While it wasn't a particularly strong Shannon episode, and a perfect candidate to be dropped for a child abuse episode or anorexia episode, I actually really enjoyed it because of the decent use of other characters.The Selina stuff was okay but what I really enjoyed was seeing Tiegan, even if it was the early stuff when she had a massive chip on her shoulder.I'm wondering if she got SORASed when they brought her back as a regular, because she's in class with Sam here yet later on she's in a higher year with Tom and Justine.And, yes, Hulk, I noticed that her school uniform seemed criminally short even by Summer Bay standards, it looked like we almost glimpsed her behind when she stood up at the table.So, guessing this is during the period when Pippa was working as school secretary, and Marilyn trying to wrangle it to employ a girl assistant is leading up to her getting a lesson in equality when she's forced to employ Joey.

The BBC have started publishing old schedules as printed in the Radio Times (which, for example, is useful for seeing what was supposed to be shown, say, the day Princess Diana died or on 9/11) but there's no similar archive for ITV.

If memory serves me correctly, Sharpe's Eagle (which went ahead) and the Star Trek:Voyager episode Death Wish (which didn't...that episode seemed to get pulled every time it was scheduled).Didn't the Radio Times include ITV by that point anyway or are they only showing the BBC channel listings?

[j.laur5]

How long was Colleen back in 1997 for?.