H&A Spring Break - From the Bay to LA

[atrus]

Emotional stuff with Vinnie and Leah. A decent exit episode for him, I thought.

Don't remember Kick - what a daft name. When I read the description on the C5 website I thought they'd just spelt Nick wrong! Another school play story though - they come around fast.

[Slade]

I remember Charlotte - I always felt she was stunning, and did not deserve the way Jude treated her and the way he ultimately left her for Shauna (Again, it is interesting that we have 2 episodes in a row showing Shauna getting in between a girl and her boyfriend).

You're right. She didn't deserve to be treated like that. Even especially after watching her and Jude in that episode. And she met such a tragic end too.

Now that's more like it. Right during the peak of the Sutherland era. I quite enjoyed the stuff with Dani and Brodi. And really liked Kirsty calling Dani out on her hypocrisy with regards to Kirsty disturbing her when she was getting up early. Also that really Dani was out of shape because things weren't happening with Josh. I also liked Jade interjecting and telling Dani that Kirsty had a point and Jade was deliberately trying to be smart about Dani seeing Josh again (As an aside I found the recap at the beginning of the episode really funny when Dani and Josh were about to kiss, Alf disturbed them then Josh and Dani banged their heads together). This was obviously just before Kane returned (or should I say Flynn sought him out) as the rape the year earlier affected Dani's relationship with Josh. Tammin Sursok was another H & A actor that went to the US although not quite as successful as some of the others she has done ok. I actually remember watching the show back then and always thought that Kirsty was hot.

I vaguely remember Kick. and quite enjoyed the way he was trying to inject some fun into some of his teaching although it wasn't entirely appropriate. When Fisher goes into full headmaster mode I find him really funny. I liked the way he was telling Dani off for being late and even the way he was reprimanding Kick about his teaching methods.

I remember not being particularly interested in the storyline with Leah and Vinnie but I always thought that when Vinnie said goodbye to Leah and they saw each other for the last time it was really sad.

[CaptainHulk]

Brodie needed a slap in 3149. It needed saying. She was a total bitch to Alex throughout.

[Blaxland 89]

Can't say I like Jude much. Always seem to be feeling sorry for himself and playing the victim. Then the way her was using Charoltte at the party was disgusting. He was a bit of a drip through most of his time.

[H&Alover]

Those last scenes between Leah and Vinnie were so hearbreaking,it had me in tears! The last shot of him in his cell as the door closed and he broke down was very well acted. We shouldn't forget VJ was just a baby so never knew him.

I'm guessing from what we saw Jude and Charlotte were a proper item by then?

Although I quite liked Brodie she did have this annoying habit of shaking her head a lot when she talked! We don't seem to see much all girl interaction nowadays like Jade, Kirsty, Brodie and Dani. Liked the come back from Dani about 'seeing' seeing Josh as opposed 'seeing' hm. It was so obvious Dani wanted to 'see' Josh by the way she took all that trouble to take his jacket to him! So much for him taking it slowly with his relationship with her!

I don't remember Kick either, he can't have been around for long, Don was the Don we all know and love, being his usual stuffy self.

Mixed bag of people this coming week.

[Red Ranger 1]

So, early 2002: Shauna's sloped out of town, Will and Gypsy have sailed off into the sunset, Jude and Charlotte are together and Vinnie's in jail.I do remember seeing the trial episode during one of those Home and Away weekends that 5* used to do around the time of the 2007 run.Even though Vinnie doesn't turn up until way after the halfway mark, that was a very effective ending for the character.And the tragedy is increased when we know that, visits in bear costume aside, that's the last time Leah and Vinnie saw each other, which means it's even harder not to share Jesse's disgust from the Kim Week that Leah turned her back on Vinnie in favour of a succession of inferior stand-ins.(One reason why I never invested in Leah and Dan.)

I liked Brodie a lot more in that episode: She worked better bantering with Dani than sniping at Alex, especially when Dani's being the crazy one and Brodie's being the level-headed one.When it was the other way round, it tended to play out more seriously.Jade casually deconstructing Dani's dramatics was fun too.We're obviously in that period where Kirsty had dropped out of school to become a hairdresser (hence the reference to having to go to work), but in isolation her trading barbs with Dani was quite fun.And yes, interesting to see Josh in the days before he turned evil, when he was still friends with the likes of Noah.

I'm suddenly realising I was wrong about Don being principal straight from Judith leaving to him leaving: This is leading up to him being briefly fired and replaced with Paris during the closure threat. Was Kick the one that was in the bus crash episode 5* showed a few years back?We can't be far off that and there was a male teacher in it who had me going "Who are you?" a lot.

So, next week we're going to be dancing back and forth a bit, but we start off in 1997, in between the last two episodes of Shannon Week.

EDIT: One more thing that struck me is how strange it is to see Dani still in school uniform at this point.It's one of those cases where so much adult stuff has happened to a character that it's a bit of a jolt to realise they're still school age.

[Blaxland 89]

Quite a lot of others actors in these eps have also been successful in la. Takin Sursok and Jason Clarke who played Kick has become hugely successful

[CaptainHulk]

Dan wasn't too bad although he was kind of bland compared to his brother but looking back I couldn't see Peter/Leah as a long term thing.

The only real character flaws of his were the gambling mess that put his family in danger and sleeping with Amanda again (In his defence she was hot but in 2005-06 she was such an eeeeeevil cow, She and Izzy from Neighbours would have been good mates! )

The Brain swelling arc was pretty good viewing (trashing the house, kissing Sally).

[atrus]

I do have vague memories of Sally hanging out with Heath Ledger's bad lad and helping him steal the exam papers, though I'd have had no idea it was him if it hadn't been flagged up.

Nice to see Casey; we've hardly seen anything of her in these last few weeks, even though she kept popping up in the titles. Felt bad for her in that last scene - I always rather liked her, and don't recall her being nearly as awful a person as Liam was making out?

Liam was generally a nice character - quite quiet and introspective (a little bit like modern-day Oscar), and I recall liking his romance with Stephanie. I can't remember why he landed up in foster-care in the first place, but like Shannon's real mum, his seems to be a bit of a high-flying professional.

[Blaxland 89]

Enjoyed the locations in Heath Ledgers episode. They stopped using that wharf location around 2000 I think and moved to the we saw with Scott and Dani etc for the early 00s.

Any know the song played in the diner with Liam and Francs. Goes along the lines of How Long How Long.