Rewatching The Early Years

[j.laur5]

19 hours ago, cymbaline said:

How do you know for certain that Judy is the one who decided to leave? The decision may not have been in her hands. Besides, everybody has to leave sometime. She was there for 12 years and I'm sure she did very well financially from it. Debra Lawrance is pretty open about how Pippa paid for the real estate.

She said many times in interviews that it was her choice to leave.

But I think we’re lucky that we had Judy as long as we did as she already done her first novel Eye in the Storm as early as 1988 so Judy was writing novels in her entire time she was on H&A.

I think H&A did very well having 5 original characters by tenth anniversary even though Pippa was recast. 

Dont forget in current show we have four characters who have stayed well over 20 years and though Marilyn hasn’t consistently been on show for 20 years but if you add her three runs it’s now over 20 years. 
 

 

Edited May 18 by j.laur5

[Homeandawayfan.]

Neighbours only had 1 original character by its 10th birthday in March 1995. H&A was lucky to keep at least 5 by its 10th birthday.

I am sure Judy wanted to leave to do other things, and concentrate on her writing.

[nenehcherry2]

What an actor says in interviews doesn't always necessarily match the behind-the-scenes reality. 

"Official lines" and all that. 

Edited May 18 by nenehcherry2

[CaptainHulk]

3 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

Neighbours only had 1 original character by its 10th birthday in March 1995. H&A was lucky to keep at least 5 by its 10th birthday.

I am sure Judy wanted to leave to do other things, and concentrate on her writing.

The only redeeming things about the 1995 Season of Neighbours were Future legends Lance and Toadie making their debuts and Anne Haddy getting to work with real-life Husband James Condon again, if only for a short time, only he wasn't a baddie this time

Edited May 18 by CaptainHulk

[adam436]

7 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

I am sure Judy wanted to leave to do other things, and concentrate on her writing.

She definitely did, but H&A was also undergoing an overhaul at the time so it may have been a mutual decision, especially when you consider the original diner set and Stewart house were both gone a few weeks before Ailsa's exit, the remaining original cast were relatively underused in 2001/2002 and Judy has been quite open about just going through the motions in her final years on H&A because writing was her passion. I suspect it was ultimately Judy's decision to leave, especially after the long-running story to introduce a long-lost daughter for Ailsa, but I also think it's likely the producers didn't fight to keep her with all the wider changes happening at the time. 

 

7 hours ago, nenehcherry2 said:

What an actor says in interviews doesn't always necessarily match the behind-the-scenes reality. 

"Official lines" and all that. 

Just recently on Hollyoaks, Stephanie Waring has publicly said she was given the chance to say it was her decision to leave, but chose to say she was axed. It absolutely would have happened on Australian soaps in the past too and probably with some actors/characters we'd be shocked to learn about. 

Edited May 18 by adam436

[nenehcherry2]

8 hours ago, adam436 said:

She definitely did, but H&A was also undergoing an overhaul at the time so it may have been a mutual decision, especially when you consider the original diner set and Stewart house were both gone a few weeks before Ailsa's exit, the remaining original cast were relatively underused in 2001/2002 and Judy has been quite open about just going through the motions in her final years on H&A because writing was her passion. I suspect it was ultimately Judy's decision to leave, especially after the long-running story to introduce a long-lost daughter for Ailsa, but I also think it's likely the producers didn't fight to keep her with all the wider changes happening at the time. 

 

Just recently on Hollyoaks, Stephanie Waring has publicly said she was given the chance to say it was her decision to leave, but chose to say she was axed. It absolutely would have happened on Australian soaps in the past too and probably with some actors/characters we'd be shocked to learn about. 

Fully agree with all of this. I suspect that the writers / producers started giving Ailsa more powerful storylines again from the 95 revamp to get a better ROI on her $300K AUSD salary after 5-6 years of nothing but "you can have a coffee on the house!", "could you look after the place for half an hoauar, Love?" and "ssshhh, you'll wake Duncan!". 

Edited May 19 by nenehcherry2

[cymbaline]

I can't remember where I heard Judy talking about her departure but it sounded like both parties knew which way the wind was blowing before anybody stepped into the room. Even though she was the one who said the "I'm leaving" bit out loud, the producers weren't very far behind. I think everybody understood that Judy would pull the plug on Ailsa herself and that's exactly what happened. You could argue that the producers indulged her for a very long time. She was able to write all those books on company time because they weren't giving her much to do.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I feel at least Neighbours never went for such a radical change the way H&A did in 2000. Classic H&A ended in 2000, and quite quickly as well, whereas Neighbours always has evolved naturally.

[cymbaline]

19 minutes ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

I feel at least Neighbours never went for such a radical change the way H&A did in 2000. Classic H&A ended in 2000, and quite quickly as well, whereas Neighbours always has evolved naturally.

Which approach has worked better? Neighbours has been cancelled twice and it looked like it was gone forever until Amazon stepped in. 

[Homeandawayfan.]

19 minutes ago, cymbaline said:

Which approach has worked better? Neighbours has been cancelled twice and it looked like it was gone forever until Amazon stepped in. 

Not sure, but yes Neighbours was off air for over a year. H&A has never been off air since Jan 1988, I know both shows have always had short Xmas breaks but that was just traditional.

Some people on FB and who I know in person who watch Neighbours even say that 1985-2022 Neighbours and 2023-current Neighbours are more or less 2 separate shows even though the 2nd version is a continuation of 1985-2022. Not sure I totally agree with that logic, but H&A has never been axed then returned.