Will H&A: The Early Years ever return?

[hapitoby]

3 hours ago, cymbaline said:

I've been enjoying those episodes as well. But they're also whetting my appetite and making me want more of them. It's fascinating to see the show evolving over the years and the production values improving. 

Same. I really enjoying it. Some episodes I've seen the last time 7Plus released these and some episodes for the first time. I do hope they stay and they eventually add more to the roster. I very much doubt we'll get years but if they add more big events or entire storylines I'd be grateful. I don't think they'd do the latter but who knows.

[j.laur5]

Last time they had 2016/2017 fire at festival but this time they did not add it. 

[Bobby Forever Missed]

Next year it will be six years since the early years was taken off, the gap between the reruns being taken off in 2002 and 7two restarting them in 2009 was 7 years, i hate to say it but if the reruns were to be reinstated now we would be starting from 1988 again and not March 1996

[Conan]

I would be fine with them starting at '88 again, but I would hope they'd do two episodes a day. At that rate we'd FLY through content... 

[James Martin]

It's a shame Amazon haven't continued past mid-1989.

[cymbaline]

I agree. I assume they didn't get great viewing figures for those 2 seasons? That wouldn't surprise me because if you're coming to Home and Away for the first time, 1988 is not a good place to start. People remember standout storylines such as Roo's pregnancy and Alan Fisher's death but there was an awful lot of rubbish. Also, those old episodes have been repeated on TV and are circulating online. They'd get more of an audience for the 1996- episodes which look like they're never going to see the light of day again. 

 

[CaptainHulk]

On 14/01/2023 at 13:01, cymbaline said:

I agree. I assume they didn't get great viewing figures for those 2 seasons? That wouldn't surprise me because if you're coming to Home and Away for the first time, 1988 is not a good place to start. People remember standout storylines such as Roo's pregnancy and Alan Fisher's death but there was an awful lot of rubbish. Also, those old episodes have been repeated on TV and are circulating online. They'd get more of an audience for the 1996- episodes which look like they're never going to see the light of day again. 

 

Ah, but people who haven't got a Scooby about the way things are or how they went, will want the gaps filled in. What better way than to dive in than learn the story from the start?

[cymbaline]

But the question is, how long will they persist? In my opinion the first few months of Home and Away do not hold up well at all. They're tough going at times, some of the acting and writing is really poor. 

[CaptainHulk]

3 hours ago, cymbaline said:

But the question is, how long will they persist? In my opinion the first few months of Home and Away do not hold up well at all. They're tough going at times, some of the acting and writing is really poor. 

Bear in mind most soaps have a rough start. Brookside due to its production values, EastEnders for getting the goat of actual EastEnders, Emmerdale itself was never intended as a soap but a 26-part bi-weekly lunchtime serial. Neighbours itself had a rough start and they decided to strangle it in its infancy despite it being gritty in places (Scott/Kim, Max and Maria's separation, Julie falling for a married man, Terry's connections to the underworld, etc) and Coronation St itself wasn't meant to go more than 13wks!

[cymbaline]

I'm not disagreeing with you on any of this. It isn't just soaps which take time to bed in. There are lots of TV series which aren't the best at the start and take some time to hit their stride. My point is, if somebody who's not familiar with Home and Away was to log into Prime and start watching, they wouldn't get far. I'd love to know why they only uploaded the first two seasons and no more. Were the viewing figures low?