Was 2000 meant to be a "revamp"?

[Matt]

7 hours ago, Sally Keating said:

But they removed all the drama, that's what doesn't make sense.

In fact they could even have used the fact Ailsa had survived her life support being turned off a year before to fuel the story, with Alf refusing to believe Ailsa was really gone "I listened to you quacks last time you said Ailsa was gone and you were all flamin' wrong! Don't worry Ails, I'm not gonna do it again"... etc. So I really don't agree that just because we'd had those scenes in the hospital the previous year it was reason to skip them all out.

I tend to disagree with this statement. In fact, I think the best thing they could've done was to skip over the mourning and the grief. It's honestly the most boring thing to watch when it's all the time and as you noted, it would've been at least a third of the cast... And really, by skipping it all, it allowed for them to go back into normal storytelling as opposed to having to wait it out...

[adam436]

On 02/05/2019 at 02:47, Sally Keating said:

But they removed all the drama, that's what doesn't make sense.

At the time of Ailsa's death, the current cast who were particularly close to Ailsa and whose reactions we could have seen were:

Irene
Donald
Leah
Colleen
Alf
Duncan
Shauna
Sally
Mitch

 

I actually would not have put Colleen in that list, and even Leah, since she'd only been around a few months. Ailsa was pretty much just their employer, I don't think there was anything particular close about their relationship. 

On that though, we'd literally just done the whole grieving/death scenario with Ken Smith a few months earlier. Ken was a relatively minor character compared to Ailsa but you get what I mean... it would be the same thing. 

[j.laur5]

6 hours ago, adam436 said:

 

I actually would not have put Colleen in that list, and even Leah, since she'd only been around a few months. Ailsa was pretty much just their employer, I don't think there was anything particular close about their relationship.  

Leah arrived in March and Ailsa died in November so they had 10 months of screen time. 

Colleen starting working in late 1999 so they worked together for a year and Colleen did know Ailsa for 12 years. However Colleen was out of Summer Bay from 1989-1999 and just quick visit in 1997. 

[Sally Keating]

On 02/05/2019 at 01:17, Matt said:

I tend to disagree with this statement. In fact, I think the best thing they could've done was to skip over the mourning and the grief. It's honestly the most boring thing to watch when it's all the time and as you noted, it would've been at least a third of the cast... And really, by skipping it all, it allowed for them to go back into normal storytelling as opposed to having to wait it out...

Nah I disagree completely

I suggested a range of characters that could have been involved. I didn't say it had to be all of them.

It wasn't so much the ongoing grief as just the initial reactions I was referring to more.

When I look at the well-written and heart-rending goodbyes and the emotional drama surrounding Bobby's death, I can't find anything resembling "boring" about it. Or indeed Shane's death. Or Michael's. Or Tom's...

What I find boring is that in place of all that, we got screen-time surrounding that amazingly classic and exciting character () Harry Reynolds, debating whether or not to leave the Bay. Sally dithering over her relationship with an off-screen fiance that nobody cared about... etc. Yeah, that was worth the sacrifice.

[j.laur5]

But I just think Ailsa was just given a bad exit because TPTB were angry that Judy quit. 

[cymbaline]

If you go by that logic, they must spend a lot of their time being angry at actors who quit. 

[adam436]

On 04/05/2019 at 16:07, Sally Keating said:

Sally dithering over her relationship with an off-screen fiance that nobody cared about... etc. Yeah, that was worth the sacrifice.

Oh, I'd forgotten all about that! Kieran's best man, wasn't it? 

Does anyone know why that happened/the decision behind running the story? As it stands, it was a pointless storyline because he was off-screen for the most part, it happened really quickly after her aborted wedding and ended really suddenly and quietly. Like, was it meant to be a long-term plan thing but circumstances changed - perhaps the actor couldn't commit or the writers decided to take Sally in a new direction with Sally? Or was it simply a random story to help Sally move on from a man she'd only known for a few months? 

Ironically, Sally ended up marrying Flynn, also a doctor, so perhaps Flynn was originally meant to be Luke(?)

[j.laur5]

7 hours ago, cymbaline said:

If you go by that logic, they must spend a lot of their time being angry at actors who quit. 

But someone like Ailsa is different because she was around from the beginning and Judy Nunn is a very well regarded actress expressly in eyes of Channel seven. 

 

[cymbaline]

Long term actors quit TV shows all the time. It's part and parcel of the business. If you bring "anger" in to it, you'll have a list as long as your arm of actors who left, despite them wanting them to stay.

You don't think Judy writing at every spare moment and being more enthusiastic about about being an author might have irked them? Have you ever worked with someone who was emotionally absent from their job? Someone going through the motions but has their mind elsewhere. I have and it's a pain in the ass. I think that is why they gave her such an "out with the trash" demise. Bye bye Judy. You can write your books all day now without having it spoiled by being required to act. 

[James Martin]

On 27/04/2019 at 09:06, Sally Keating said:

I think you and a few of the people above have misunderstood what was bad about it.

It wasn't the lack of build up or the way she died (although that was lame). It was the fact that one minute she's grabbing her chest, and the next moment it's her funeral. Everyone's already grieved. We saw nothing of her death scenes, people finding out, rushing to the hospital, the reactions of people like Irene and Donald, the immediate reactions of Alf and Duncan... Shauna receiving the dreaded phonecall... people saying goodbye to her body (a la Bobby)... After 13 years she just blinked out of the show in one 20 second scene and there was no worthwhile aftermath at all.

This I can agree with, although I stand by the way that the character died was very true to life.