Is everyone enjoying Home & Away at the moment?

[icarus99]

Not to be negative because I adore Home & Away (I've watched it continuously since the pilot episode) but I can't shake the feeling that for the first time I'm just not enjoying it at the moment- I'm wondering if it's just me or is that a general consensus?

I can't quite put my finger on why but I know I've not liked the gradual shift in tone over the years away from the school/a central family, I don't really care about or like most of the current characters.  Obviously I adore Alf and Irene but they're not always around and I've never really taken to new Roo.

With Neighbours finishing it would have been great if Home & Away was on fire to show everyone why it is brilliant and belongs on TV.

What does everyone else think of the current storylines/characters? 

My dream wish list (I know this won't happen!) would be a foster family back in Summer Bay and Justine Clarke and Dannii Minogue returns.

 

[pembie]

I’m not really nothing really happening I really care about

Spoiler

These quick exits have felt quite lame to give Jasmine family I think is a mistake when she’s off soon 

 

[myken]

Home and Away is not the same show anymore. It feels totally different from what it was originally: fostering, where the students were at school, grew up and eventually moved away. I have stopped watching because of this. If it returns to more of its roots I will start watching again.

[CaptainHulk]

Seesaw.

Feels like there's a missing community feel and the laidbackness is almost gone but The Stewarts, Leah and Justin are the saving graces.

[Matt 1 wards]

I am not enjoying it at all and made the decision last week to stop watching. It has become like a music video that has an interlude with Tane and Flick snogging every so often.

I feel so sad that they have moved away from everything that gave the show Community and warmth. The legacy characters feel more like extras these days. The transplant story would have been played out with a lot more emotion years ago but again fell into the background. 
 

It must be soul destroying when the old cast members see the scripts these days and it revolves around them worrying about the Paratas or Chloe and not actually having a life or issues of their own. 
 

I can see a mass exodus ahead if they don’t sort it out. My Australian family have switched off since the band arrived on screen out there as it’s unbearable! 

[Jezz]

The show is going through a weird phase with a large turnover of cast members in a short space of time.

Some of this was out of the control with the producers with Jasmine (Sam Frost) and Logan (Harley Bonner) leaving due to the vaccine mandates.

I'd like to see a new family (whether it's a biological or foster family) introduced into the show.

[CaptainHulk]

The Band ain't working for me tbh

[pembie]

I’m interested in the bikers story but after that not much 

[Homeandawayfan.]

I watched a UK pace episode yesterday and it just reminded me why I do not watch the show anymore. Just the same old endless carnage and the awful sinister generic underscore music.

[Red Ranger 1]

Okay, well, to go against the flow...yeah, I'm enjoying it. It's a shame that we've plunged back into "gangs" territory after the opening months of the year were pleasingly free of that sort of thing, but it's just a storyline and hopefully at some point it'll end and we'll have something else. The older characters are reasonably well-served: Leah and Justin remain a highlight, Irene's continued her reinvention as a kind of mentorish older female character rather than someone all the teenagers had to live with regardless of logic, John is definitely fitting well into a similar mentor role while retaining his comedic edge. Roo is...okay. Marilyn was never the strongest and is only really considered top tier because of longevity. Alf has gone off the boil a bit. Somewhere between 2000 and 2005, he morphed into this kindly grandfather figure, but recently he more and more resembles the short-tempered small-minded ultra-conservative he was in the 80s and 90s. It's not necessarily a bad decision, just a bit jarring.

Of the post-2015 characters, there's very few black marks for me: I've never really warmed to Chloe, I find Nikau intensely annoying a lot of the time, and I've never quite warmed to Ziggy and Dean either individually or especially as a couple, although I do like Dean and Mackenzie's sibling relationship. Tane has developed well from the black sheep of the family to a reluctant patriarch. Theo has matured well from his initially annoying characterisation into the shot in the arm Leah and Justin needed to stop them being isolated. Felicity I adore. (What was it Jasmine called her? A fun, slightly drunk hurricane?) Cash is bland but inoffensive. Xander and Rose have potential.

As for the band...I like the characters but I'm not sure where the show's going with this. We're surely not going to have regular musical interludes with them? I strongly suspect they'll be another Liam Murphy and end up getting jobs at the Diner or Salt!