Rewatching The Early Years

[SandsResort]

32 minutes ago, nenehcherry2 said:

I liked how Selina, Jack, Shannon and Curtis spent their first few months (12 months even in the case of Selina and Jack, to @cymbaline's point) just mucking in with the lighter 94-early 95 storylines. It gave us a chance to get to know them as individuals and to appreciate their "gangship" with one another before the revamp put each of them through the ringer! It was, though, very sad to see Jack go from being such an energetic, zany, fun "jack the lad" into a sullen, miserable, bad boy as 95 progressed. Wasted opportunity and didn't play to Daniel's strengths.

1994 was a great year for Jack, with a lot of airtime. As you say, he was well-suited to lighter storylines. We had Shane tricking Jack into getting into bed with Fisher... Michael and Pippa suspecting Jack of being a cross-dresser... Jack dating Selina and then Sonia and Frankie, all at the same time, until they ganged up against him. Fun stuff.

By 1995, Jack was being tempted to take steroids; being racially abused by his girlfriend's father; being blamed for the bushfire which scarred Nelson and destroyed Fisher's house.

I enjoy both the 1994 and 1995 styles of storytelling, but they are clearly very different.

[adam436]

7 hours ago, cymbaline said:

Selina and Jack first appeared in April 1994, so they were well established by the end of the year. Curtis and Shannon came along in September. I don't know what you mean by "how much did they do?".  

I meant it in a were they more supporting characters or were they thrown in the deep end straight away. They were very much main characters by 1995, but I know Damien, Tug, Sarah etc. were all still around for some of 1994, so I wasn't sure if the newcomers were eased into things while the others were still around. 

That question has been pretty much answered now though. 

 

2 hours ago, nenehcherry2 said:

Unlike say late 89 / early 90 which was just... A mess in those senses. I just wasn't a fan of the more slapstick comedy stories like sausage mixups & netball matches were (pardon the pun) somewhat overplayed. And I like a little more drama. But very subjective. 

That period was a mess. The dramatic stuff was poorly written: there was some strange stories like the Zac/Pippa where everyone (Tom, and the residents of Summer Bay!) were so quick to jump to the conclusion that Pippa was having an affair, and details of Emma's introduction were sort of brushed over - Emma dealing her with abuse and Ailsa's relationship with her sister could and should have been major storylines in their own right, but were pretty much sidelined, presumably because they wanted to integrate Dannii Minogue into the show as quickly as possible. 

The highlight was probably the Danny story, and even that was poorly written at times. Justin Connor was amazing and played the part really well (from googling the actor, it sounds like his career was cut tragically short!) and I actually found him a scarier villain than Dodge or the Summer Bay Nutter. I just found the story, especially the ending, quite rushed, possibly because they had limited time before Cornelia Frances' contract ended. 

Then there was the the ridiculous stuff like the Summer Bay Bunyip, the mouse(?) funeral, the hotdog stand shenanigans and the pop band stuff with Martin, Lance and Marilyn. I can't remember the sausage mix up or the netball matches though. We had Lance, Martin, Celia, Floss and Neville (the latter two already gone by this point!) take on most of the lighter stuff in 1988, but they were always very much B plots, whereas in this period they were dragged out far too long and in the case of the pop band, treated as a major story. 

I also don't think it helped that Tom and Pippa barely had any screen time together in their last months - Tom sent to a city hospital for months to recover from a stroke, then there is a few weeks overlap where they are pretty much fighting the whole time over Tom's post-stroke attitude and her suspected affair before she disappears to care for her sick parents. Then Pippa returns shortly before Tom's death, where from what I recall, they were pretty much just fighting again. 

[nenehcherry2]

On 05/04/2024 at 02:03, adam436 said:

The Donna and Angel stories you mentioned were definitely in 1995, but I wasn't even aware of the Tug one. I found Michael and Pippa's seperation quite boring too (I only watched from very late 1994, wmso maybe missed some of the build up), but perhaps that's because I wasn't overly invested in them as characters.

I've not watched much of 1994, but how much did Shannon, Selina, Jack and Curtis do in 1994? They all had massive stories and took centre stage in 1995, but I assumed 1994 was a bit of a transition year between the teen groups, with both groups sharing the screen.

I liked Michael and Pippa's separation storyline. It was an unusually realistic (as far as soaps go) case of a married couple having a communication breakdown. And a slow burner at that. No big affairs, secrets, criminal activity etc... just a well-loved couple forgetting to interact regularly and to respect each other as human beings as much as a fostering team. Happens often in the real world I don't think any other soap separation or divorce, beyond even H&A itself, have ever shown a separation without an affair or something unreasonable happening. And the effect on the entire family was shown. So I liked it personally. But... Pretty sure I've said all this before on here so I'll stop there

I liked those overlapping transition periods between two teen groups (usually aged two schools years apart). It stopped the show from looking too "night and then day" with its evolution of sub-eras. And it also helped the older teens grow up by having to suddenly set an example of behaviour. Jack hanging around being a pest to Shangel, Tug etc was reminiscent of Sophie befriending Emma and Viv for a good few months before Blake and Karen showed up. In fact, there's a moment in late 90 where Steven forces squabbling Haydn and Blake to play pool together which is IDENTICAL to a moment two years later where Blake makes Shane and Tug do the same. 

Edited April 6 by nenehcherry2

[cymbaline]

I thought Pippa and Michael's separation was well done too. It was dealt with in a surprisingly mature way. As well as their failure to communicate, you could pinpoint events which had added to the pressure cooker throughout the year. Haydn's return some months earlier had done a lot of emotional and financial damage. Then Michael had to try and sell his Boat Shed and ended up being bailed out by Alf. On top of that, Jack arrived in less than ideal circumstances and he was never far from trouble. Later in the year, they took in Shannon when they probably shouldn't have. With 6 kids under their roof by then, they needed to be on the same page.  I also like the episodes from the following year when they go for counselling and slowly repair things. Again, that isn't something you usually see in a soap. 

 

[Bobby Forever Missed]

For @nenehcherry2 Grant was the first character to have CDs in 1990 long before Bobby and Greg https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ldY697mY-YVL2YK2qd0ps1rSEXOVln-3/view?usp=drivesdk

 

[adam436]

7 hours ago, cymbaline said:

I thought Pippa and Michael's separation was well done too. It was dealt with in a surprisingly mature way. As well as their failure to communicate, you could pinpoint events which had added to the pressure cooker throughout the year. Haydn's return some months earlier had done a lot of emotional and financial damage. Then Michael had to try and sell his Boat Shed and ended up being bailed out by Alf. On top of that, Jack arrived in less than ideal circumstances and he was never far from trouble. Later in the year, they took in Shannon when they probably shouldn't have. With 6 kids under their roof by then, they needed to be on the same page.  I also like the episodes from the following year when they go for counselling and slowly repair things. Again, that isn't something you usually see in a soap. 

That's a good point. When you compare them to other married/long-term couples: Alf and Ailsa separated at least twice - in 1988 and then later in the nineties. I can't remember the circumstances of the latter, but Alf ended up moving into a caravan that caught fire and he had a friendship with a blind woman played by Belinda Giblin. I don't recall them coming back together in either of those circumstances being a slowburn type thing. 

Most other separations in the early years are usually done because one half of the couple is leaving the show (i.e. Joel and Natalie, Don and Marilyn), so there was no need to write the reconciliation arc. 

[j.laur5]

I wonder if they might have given Alf and Ailsa a long period of being broken up if Alisa had lived and eventually reunite them like Karl and Susan. 

[CaptainHulk]

It's documented the final quarter of 1989 was... idiotic in parts.

[Homeandawayfan.]

When the show began as we know Don Fisher had a slight touch of the JR Ewing type personality, a guy who would try to pull strokes against people he held grudges with such as Bobby and Nico. But this was abandoned after a few months when he mellowed.

In one workplace I had a guy like that who was my works minibus driver, and he hated having to drop me off and pick me up due to my village being slightly off the beaten track, and a few times he tried to find a way to get me off the minibus so to save the poor soul 20 minutes. Watching the first few months of Don in H&A reminds me of my former minibus driver. Another colleague though said she was always being told by this same driver that "he was going out of his way" when dropping her off and picking her up.

 

[cymbaline]

I'm glad they evolved Donald into a far more humane human being. That original cold, corrupt persona he had wouldn't have lasted the distance. It is jarring to see him being so malicious towards Bobby, Tom and Nico when we know how he changed. As a youngster, I didn't really watch Home and Away in its early months, so I missed Alan. I only knew of him from the way Donald spoke of him later on. To see how he and Alan related to each other in 1988 was a bit of a surprise. They were pretty horrible to each other and had barely begun to make up when he died 

Edited April 8 by cymbaline