Rewatching The Early Years

[Zig]

Been watching the early years allot recently, it's definitely written better them the current show. The couples are written so much better from 1988 to about 2008.

 

Some things I realised watching this time around

Shane and Angel are actually quite toxic together and they aren't suited, he had more chemistry with Shannon and they would of been a better couple and Angel was with Simon.

 

The more and more I watch the more I hate Michael and hate how he was written in, they moved Pippa on with him in such a rush and sometimes it honestly felt like Michael was forcing her into things when she didn't want to, a key example was when she broke up with him and he forced her to get back together and engaged. Tom and Pippa will always be endgame for me.

Nev and Floss were robbed they deserved better and should of been in the show longer, I do love that Floss came back in later years.

Ben was toxic and high key an abusive partner to Carly, like I have so many alarm bells about that relationship. How the hell they ended up together and stayed together I have no idea particularly when Ben treated Carly like crap. Carly should of ended up with Matt, would been a better exit for them both.

[Homeandawayfan.]

Yes the first year of the show, while it had younger characters, it did cater for all ages and had several older characters. And yes, the original store did look very dated, and twee. It could have been a 1950s store, not late 1980s. We did have the pinball machine and a small refreshments counter but that was all we got in terms of modernity.

[cymbaline]

3 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

Yes the first year of the show, while it had younger characters, it did cater for all ages and had several older characters. And yes, the original store did look very dated, and twee. It could have been a 1950s store, not late 1980s. We did have the pinball machine and a small refreshments counter but that was all we got in terms of modernity.

Early Home and Away could be very old-fashioned in ways. Floss and Neville as retired circus performers was a bit odd, even in 1988. I didn't like Ailsa's shop at all and wasn't sorry to see it go. It was a dated set and no cappuccinos or naughty magazines or pinball machines could rescue it from the timewarp. I don't know why anybody would want to sit down to eat anything in that shop, especially when Celia was within earshot! The outside of the shop was even worse. It's not surprising to read that it was a long-derelict real-life shop which was on the verge of being demolished. The producers agreed to destroy the shop onscreen (i.e. Dodge's arson attack) so that the local authorities could knock it in real life. You can see the production values improving as the show progresses, probably because it looks like it's a soap that'll do well. 

18 hours ago, Zig said:

Been watching the early years allot recently, it's definitely written better them the current show. The couples are written so much better from 1988 to about 2008.

 

Some things I realised watching this time around

Shane and Angel are actually quite toxic together and they aren't suited, he had more chemistry with Shannon and they would have been a better couple and Angel was with Simon.

 

The more and more I watch the more I hate Michael and hate how he was written in, they moved Pippa on with him in such a rush and sometimes it honestly felt like Michael was forcing her into things when she didn't want to, a key example was when she broke up with him and he forced her to get back together and engaged. Tom and Pippa will always be endgame for me.

Nev and Floss were robbed they deserved better and should of been in the show longer, I do love that Floss came back in later years.

Ben was toxic and high key an abusive partner to Carly, like I have so many alarm bells about that relationship. How the hell they ended up together and stayed together I have no idea particularly when Ben treated Carly like crap. Carly should have ended up with Matt, would been a better exit for them both.

It's inevitable that Shane and Angel would've broken up within a few years. They were far too young when they settled down and neither of them was given the chance to grow as an adult and learn more about themselves. In real life, nobody would encourage a family member or friend to marry or have kids at 18 or 19 years of age. There's a reason why most of us don't end up forever with the boyfriend/girlfriend we had at that age. Shane's mother was portrayed as a spoilsport but she was actually spot on about how incompatible they were. Angel in particular would've come to resent Shane and her life in Summer Bay. 

The timeline of Michael and Pippa's courtship is insane if you bring real life into it. It only works if you struggle (as I do) to believe that the two Pippas are the same person. I was a teenager when they brought Michael in. Even before Dennis & Debra's real-life relationship came to light, teenage me detected the chemistry between them. I still quite like their onscreen romance leading up to the wedding. After that, Michael became increasingly less interesting and likeable. My guess is that once they'd installed a married couple in the caravan park again, it was job done as far as the writers were concerned. Having said that, I wonder how Tom would've evolved if he'd been around for as long as Michael. Perhaps he's better regarded because he was gone so soon, before they could trash his character. 

Floss and Neville were good characters but if they were to stay, they'd have needed to be more central to the community. For example, they could've had Floss running a quirky little gift shop selling tarot cards and angel things and whatnot. Being retired and mostly hanging around the caravan park did them no favours. 

That Carly and Ben relationship is pretty disturbing in hindsight. At the time, me and my friends went off Ben because he was being unreasonable but that's as deep as it went. When you're no longer a teenage schoolgirl and you know more about toxic relationships, things take on a very different complexion. I would love them to redo that storyline as closely as possible in modern-day Home and Away because I think it'd be seen very differently. 

 

[adam436]

20 minutes ago, cymbaline said:

The producers agreed to destroy the shop onscreen (i.e. Dodge's arson attack) so that the local authorities could knock it in real life.

I never realised that part! I knew it was a disused shop, but I always assumed destroying the store was part of the producers plan to modernise the show and make it more youth-focused. 

 

21 minutes ago, cymbaline said:

I still quite like their onscreen romance leading up to the wedding. After that, Michael became increasingly less interesting and likeable. My guess is that once they'd installed a married couple in the caravan park again, it was job done as far as the writers were concerned. Having said that, I wonder how Tom would've evolved if he'd been around for as long as Michael. Perhaps he's better regarded because he was gone so soon, before they could trash his character. 

I'd argue the same with Pippa as well - once she was married off to Michael, she also became less interesting and likeable too. 

You make a good point that perhaps Tom and Pippa #1 are more fondly regarded by many fans, perhaps because they left so early on. Had they stayed as long as Michael and Pippa #2, their characters may have been treated the same way by the producers.

I can see a bit of that element creeping in in 1989/1990 to be honest. Tom and Pippa felt like they were becoming secondary characters to Carly, Steven and Bobby (who had moved out anyway!), and did spend quite a bit of that time arguing with each other - Pippa making the decision to foster Dodge without consulting him, Tom becoming a workaholic, Tom thinking Pippa was having an affair, and the big argument they had on the day before he died. The only big fight I remember from their first year was Pippa hiding Danny's suicide attempt, otherwise they were largely a united front. It also didn't help that they both took rather extended breaks that didn't overlap either - Tom when he recovered from his stroke and Pippa when she had sick parents.

 

[CaptainHulk]

Michael was a bit of a Napoleon to be fair. 

Hogan's General store was probably left the way Bobby's adoptive Grandparents left it with very few updates (looked pretty similar in the 1970 flashbacks) and Ailsa had not long bought it.

 

[Homeandawayfan.]

16 hours ago, cymbaline said:

Early Home and Away could be very old-fashioned in ways. Floss and Neville as retired circus performers was a bit odd, even in 1988. I didn't like Ailsa's shop at all and wasn't sorry to see it go. It was a dated set and no cappuccinos or naughty magazines or pinball machines could rescue it from the timewarp. I don't know why anybody would want to sit down to eat anything in that shop, especially when Celia was within earshot! The outside of the shop was even worse. It's not surprising to read that it was a long-derelict real-life shop which was on the verge of being demolished. The producers agreed to destroy the shop onscreen (i.e. Dodge's arson attack) so that the local authorities could knock it in real life. You can see the production values improving as the show progresses, probably because it looks like it's a soap that'll do well.

 

Yes, also the Fletcher house was very dated inside in 1988, and the bait shop, on top of the very old fashioned store. Whereas in Neighbours in 1988 the sets were all modern looking and quite clean and tidy.

When H&A began, Summer Bay was deffo an old fashioned small remote township by the coast with very few amenities for the locals. Erinsborough was a city suburb, and within easy reach of the city centre.

 

[adam436]

6 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

Yes, also the Fletcher house was very dated inside in 1988, and the bait shop, on top of the very old fashioned store. Whereas in Neighbours in 1988 the sets were all modern looking and quite clean and tidy.

I think H&A did try to rectify this later on with the new Diner set and the Beach House set. I guess H&A was using the appeal of the beach over sets, whereas Neighbours being suburbia, had to rely more heavily on modern interior sets and backyard swimming pools for the visual appeal. 

 

6 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

When H&A began, Summer Bay was deffo an old fashioned small remote township by the coast with very few amenities for the locals.

Now it feels more like a Byron Bay-esque town with Salt, the high volume of young hipsters etc. 

[CaptainHulk]

14 hours ago, adam436 said:

I think H&A did try to rectify this later on with the new Diner set and the Beach House set. I guess H&A was using the appeal of the beach over sets, whereas Neighbours being suburbia, had to rely more heavily on modern interior sets and backyard swimming pools for the visual appeal. 

 

Now it feels more like a Byron Bay-esque town with Salt, the high volume of young hipsters etc. 

Hence Man-Bun sporting folk like that Banjo bloke a while back.

21 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

Yes, also the Fletcher house was very dated inside in 1988

It was basically Alf preserved the way t Martha had it before he sold up to the Fletchers as he was grieving her (people don't actually have to die for you to grieve them) and as a tribute kept the joint nice, if a little dated. Let the park go to crap and the McPhees were his only permanent tenants, though.

[Homeandawayfan.]

In early 1989, the show was just over a year old, and the new producers wanted it to be a mainly younger persons soap, hence why they introduced a modern Diner, and then the Surf Club in August 1989, and axed Floss and Neville, and, in regards to Tom and Pippa, especially Tom, becoming a more supporting character.

The original shop went in April 1989 due to the real life premises being derelict but I feel it would have been written out or majorly refurbished anyway.

As said while the 1988 season had several youngsters such as Stevo, Roo, Carly, Alison, Sally, Frank, Bobby and Lance and Martin, we also had the older characters such as Tom, Pippa, Ailsa, Alf, Floss, Neville, Celia, Colleen, Morag and Don, and they were heavily involved in the storylines which focused on the brat pack. We had many scenes in the school classrooms but usually Don was there, and Walter.

[cymbaline]

A recurring theme in the early years was how broke so many people were. Fisher and the Stewarts were comfortably off but everybody else seemed to have casual or low-paid jobs. The Macklin office was one of the few places to offer anybody a career path and even then, that didn't last. It's so different to today, where they seem to be selling Summer Bay as a glossy place full of beautiful people with perfect bodies.