Carly Morris - Sharyn Hodgson

[cymbaline]

Yeah, she and Matt would have been a better match. He was a much more grounded character and if he could manage to be a friend of Adam Cameron's, Carly would be a breeze. Ben wouldn't be an easy guy to be married to and that petulant side to his nature would never really go away. She and Ben got married too quickly and both of them were too young. It's funny that of all the young couples H&A have put together, this pair still appear to be married. 

As an aside, it was nice to see Sharyn Hodgson again on Ray Meagher's This Is Your Life. I wouldn't have recognised her but I assume she's in her early 50s now. 

[homeandawayroxsomuch.]

12 hours ago, cymbaline said:

As an aside, it was nice to see Sharyn Hodgson again on Ray Meagher's This Is Your Life. I wouldn't have recognised her but I assume she's in her early 50s now. 

I feel like she looked different even as early as the early 1992 photo of Carly and Ben with their baby.

Definitely, by late 1997, she looked quite a bit older than 1988-1991 Carly and you wouldn't have known that it was the same actress, Sharyn looks so different.  I'd say she still looks fairly similar to in 1997 now, just hairstyle change and 25 years difference.

[adam436]

On 14/12/2022 at 12:12, cymbaline said:

Yeah, she and Matt would have been a better match. He was a much more grounded character and if he could manage to be a friend of Adam Cameron's, Carly would be a breeze.

I couldn't stand Matt to be honest. I am not sure if it was because Greg Benson seemed like a weak actor or the fact Matt had zero personality and pretty much did nothing for three years. Maybe marrying Carly and therefore becoming part of the extended Fletcher family was just what he needed. 

  

On 14/12/2022 at 12:12, cymbaline said:

She and Ben got married too quickly and both of them were too young. It's funny that of all the young couples H&A have put together, this pair still appear to be married. 

From a writers perspective, I wonder why it was so rushed. Did they have any major storylines after they married or did they just sit in the background with no development? 1990 was a very transitional year with the change of Pippa, the number of cast exits in the first half of the year and what felt like a "sexier tone" (for lack of a better word), so maybe Carly just got lost in all that. 

From what I understand, Julian McMahon didn't want to stay longer than a year, so if the producers knew that, a wedding/exit combo (in a similar vein to Tori and Christian) would have made more sense to me. 

 

[cymbaline]

23 hours ago, adam436 said:

I couldn't stand Matt to be honest. I am not sure if it was because Greg Benson seemed like a weak actor or the fact Matt had zero personality and pretty much did nothing for three years. Maybe marrying Carly and therefore becoming part of the extended Fletcher family was just what he needed. 

  

From a writers perspective, I wonder why it was so rushed. Did they have any major storylines after they married or did they just sit in the background with no development? 1990 was a very transitional year with the change of Pippa, the number of cast exits in the first half of the year and what felt like a "sexier tone" (for lack of a better word), so maybe Carly just got lost in all that. 

From what I understand, Julian McMahon didn't want to stay longer than a year, so if the producers knew that, a wedding/exit combo (in a similar vein to Tori and Christian) would have made more sense to me. 

 

Matt didn't have the most compelling of personalities but I think he'd have been a good match for Carly. I was thinking more along the lines of the two of them being less combative but you're right. Maybe being part of the extended Fletcher family would've given him more to do. I'm not sure how good or bad an actor Greg Benson was because they never gave Matt much to do. I guess his lack of further acting roles after leaving H&A tells a story of its own. 

Because all of these things happened over 30 years ago it's harder to know whether an actor left or was written out. If Julian was only going to stay a year, it makes me wonder what the story was with Sharyn. Was she told she'd be going too or did she decide herself that it was time to leave? 

[adam436]

1 hour ago, cymbaline said:

If Julian was only going to stay a year, it makes me wonder what the story was with Sharyn. Was she told she'd be going too or did she decide herself that it was time to leave? 

I'm not sure if it had been officially confirmed, but I was always under the impression Sharyn's contract was not renewed. It's been mentioned in this thread that Carly had sort of run her course and didn't really fit into the post Tom/Pippa#1 era, so had she stayed and it's really hard to see where the character had gone had she stayed without Ben. The options would have been:

• recast Ben, which would have been too soon after Pippa (though at least Ben was a relatively supporting character in comparison!). Given the writers did very little with them after they married, it's hard to imagine that changing much had Ben and Carly stayed with a new actor as Ben. 
• split up Ben and Carly, which would have been a second short-lived failed "young marriage" in the same family after Frank and Bobby.
• or kill Ben off, which having Carly a widow so soon after Pippa might have felt too much for 1991 H&A. Pippa and Angel did become widows in the space of a few weeks in 1996, but that was a darker period for the show compared to five years earlier.

The show struggled to write for characters in their twenties back then (a far cry from 2022!) and we already Bobby and Marilyn well-established in that age bracket and I suspect more popular than Carly by that point. I guess she probably would not have had Lucinda Croft and Carly would have taken on those storylines, but I can't imagine something like the Nick/Ryan love triangle would have done Carly any favours. 

[project90]

So I'm just now watching 1990 for first time and oh my god Carly and Ben! Just watched the episode they got engaged didn't realise it all happen so fast it been 7 episodes! Everyone just like it a bit sudden umm do you think! She went from being with Adam to trying get with Grant to engaged all really really really fast he talking about loving her and marriage before they kissed. Did any of this not seem weird when it first aired (I was born 1990 so litreally before my time)

[cymbaline]

I don't remember thinking it was weird at the time but then again, I was only a teenager. When I watch those old shows now with adult eyes, the haste at which people get engaged and marry is startling. It felt longer at the time because you'd have to wait for the next episode to air. A weekend could really throw things off. I wonder did they accelerate things between Carly and Ben because they knew they were about to lose Tom? Until Pippa and Michael happened, Ben was the main man in the house. 

[j.laur5]

I always wondered why Carly got such bad send off when she left in 1991?. 

[cymbaline]

It depends what you call a bad send-off. In comparison to some of the main characters who left fairly abruptly, there was some planning put into her departure. Over the course of several weeks, we saw her and Ben's new life on the farm turn sour. Then they broke up and she discovered she was pregnant. She thought she'd be a single mother, but then Ben came back for her. If you look at the two episodes that covered Pippa and Michael's wedding, there is a lot of time given over to Carly and Ben. She got to celebrate her reconciliation with Ben with her friends and family who had come to the wedding. What were you looking for? Montages? Tearful goodbyes and people waving her off?

[j.laur5]

1 hour ago, cymbaline said:

It depends what you call a bad send-off. In comparison to some of the main characters who left fairly abruptly, there was some planning put into her departure. Over the course of several weeks, we saw her and Ben's new life on the farm turn sour. Then they broke up and she discovered she was pregnant. She thought she'd be a single mother, but then Ben came back for her. If you look at the two episodes that covered Pippa and Michael's wedding, there is a lot of time given over to Carly and Ben. She got to celebrate her reconciliation with Ben with her friends and family who had come to the wedding. What were you looking for? Montages? Tearful goodbyes and people waving her off?

I guess people waving her off.