Does the show need an injection of life, if so, then what?

[adam436]

9 hours ago, pembie said:

Plus characters forgive one another fair to easily Marilyn and Roo should have admitted to each other the both drive one another mad and realise they aren’t quite friends 

It's a soap though - storylines can't move on if one event prevented two characters from being friends or interacting with each other. Hollyoaks does this frequently - the current Ste and Warren story is an example. I guess in a larger cast it is easier for characters to avoid each other (such as Sienna with Darren and Nancy), but it would become quite difficult in a small cast. 

I think one of my problems with the current show is that none of the couples are stable or feel like end-game: I'm talking Remi/Bree, Kirby/Theo, Rose/Mali, Xander/Dana and Cash/Eden. I understand characters and couples can't live drama-free lives, but where are the great love stories like Shane and Angel, Vinnie and Leah, Will and Gypsy (pre their early 2010s return), Travis and Rebecca, Sally and Flynn, Noah and Hayley etc. 

The current producers have proved they can give us the big love stories - they did it with Brax and Ricky and Dean and Ziggy. Those couples had their issues and broke up, but ultimately I cared about them and I believed they were end-game. I am not invested in any of the current couples because either the chemistry isn't there or the writers don't really know what to do with them so they break up and get back together every few months. 

In the 90s or 2000s, couples like Cash and Eden or Remi and Bree would be married off by now and probably starting a family. The writers' decision not to do that probably reflects modern society with people waiting longer to get married and starting a family, but I feel it also reflects a lack of commitment from the writers to create stable couples. 

[CaptainHulk]

Nerf the Crime and the Medical a bit.

More laughs

Filming outside of Palm Beach/Macquarie

[adam436]

22 hours ago, CaptainHulk said:

More laughs

Do you mean the characters having a laugh or the audience laughing at the characters? 

Alf, Irene and Marilyn certainly had their share of lighter moments in the nineties so we know the actors are more than capable of the comedy stuff can do it. And Shane Withington can do comedy too. I can't comment on any of the younger cast since they've never really been given the opportunity. 

It feels like those characters haven't laughed in so long and with all the heightened drama, a comedy B plot would feel out of place right now. The closest story we have had it recent times would be Marilyn thinking John and Irene are an item, John's misusing his free coffee card and John and Alf's banter. 

I actually think getting John and Marilyn back together would relieve some of that - they can both be such fun characters and bounce well of each other with the right material, whilst still working well on the dramatic stories. John and Marilyn would give us a "fun couple", leaving Justin and Leah and all the younger pairings to carry all the dramatic relationship dramas. It's actually baffling they even separated in the first place really, since neither character has really grown or been taken in a new direction as a result of the separation. And with John and Marilyn sticking around long-term, they would have rivalled Alf and Ailsa for H&A's longest-running onscreen marriage. 

It's not easy finding that balance between comedy and heightened drama that H&A needs to maintain to survive. It's been done in the past in the 80s and 90s, but the show and television viewing habits have changed so much that that balance and formula wouldn't work today. That's why the examples I mentioned are probably the most we will get - they are lighter moments to break up the drama without going into veering into full-on sitcom territory like we did with many 80s characters. 

[atrus]

On 20/06/2024 at 15:08, Red Ranger 1 said:

As ever, I'm left thinking if people who say the show should get back to its roots even know what those roots are. Saying Alf and Roo are the only parent and child on the show as if that's somehow shocking: If we're being literal, they were the only ones when it started as well.(I guess, aside from rarely seen child characters, the next would be the retconned Bobby/Don/Morag parental relationship, followed by Michael and Haydn.)

Thanks, I know perfectly well 'what those roots are', having watched the show all my life. I made it very clear further up my post that I wasn't just talking about biological parent/child relationships when calling for a need for multigenerational families - quite the contrary. Foster parents/children was the whole original point of the show, and many of Pippa and Tom's kids had lived with them very long-term, so there's no way I would ever exclude this from my definition. You say it's not shocking but I would challenge you to name a single other soap in the way the term is generally understood in Aus/UK where there is only one parent/child pair or less. The result is an utter dearth of variety in interpersonal dynamics.

Irene giving adult lodgers pearls of wisdom is more welcome than the previous status quo, which saw her home offscreen for what felt like years and her relegated to a life behind the coffee machine - and I guess having lodgers again vaguely simulates a parent/child relationship. But it pales in comparison to where the show once was, as I don't think Irene is really seen as or sees herself as a parent to these characters.

I agree about the bringing in of Theo being a good decision (compared to most character additions in the last three years) in terms of making a family unit with Leah and Justin. But it's a highlight among incredibly slim pickings in my view, and now he's ensconced in the band he's a shadow of his former self.

Edited June 23 by atrus

[Homeandawayfan.]

H&A started off as a show mainly about a foster family and their neighbours Alf, Ailsa and a nearby school which featured a lot as the foster kids were teens. H&A was like an Aussie Grange Hill, with a school element, a great setting for us who were kids/teens at the time. I always preferred H&A back then to Neighbours which seemed rather dull and slow in comparison, and not as much sunny location scenes which H&A had. Now it is the other way round.

US TV show Dallas, and H&A had some fantastic exterior sunny scenes. The Fletcher's were like a fostering version of the Ewing's in some ways. Tom was more like Jock Ewing though, a much younger version, and Pippa like Miss Ellie.

Sad that as of 2024, the charm, heart, warmth and original premise of H&A seems to have been traded in for endless gangsters, lives in danger, medical and sex and rock and roll. I have zero interest in endless River Boys.

Edited June 23 by Homeandawayfan.

[CaptainHulk]

16 hours ago, adam436 said:

Do you mean the characters having a laugh or the audience laughing at the characters? 

A little from column a, little from column b.

Something along these lines

John: I'm fit as a mallee bull, my endurance is second to none!

Marilyn:*coughs loudly*

Roo: *spits out coffee*

[flea]

For me the Braxtons were not terrible, but it started the massive shift of focus on the show - going from family units and simple life to guns and violence. 

What I would do is the following -

We don't need several doctors or coppers. For years H&A worked well with one of each. Go back to that. 

Bring back the school, and thus re-introduce a teacher and maybe a head as characters.

Get rid of the gang/violence side and bring in a couple of families - as in 2 parents, 2 kids etc... Not grown up adults, with long lost relatives, but proper family.

The kids then go to the school....

Bring back the caravan park properly, and also bring back the fostering and mentoring of "waifs and strays"

H&A used to be a beacon of promoting how family can be two things - the one you are born into, and the one that shows you love. That has been lost. Jett was probably the last proper character that was adopted, yet before him it was a pretty regular thing. 

Have a younger teen cast in who will have relatable problems - dating, social media, studying problems, drink/drugs temptations, and modern issues. 

Theres a lot of deadwood in the show and part of it feels like it has come from so many leaving quickly at the start of Covid.

Lyrik was always a hard sell and whilst individually all the characters have found their feet, it really is time for them to move on so we can focus back on family and roots. Bree and Xander are terrible characters and both badly acted. Tane / Mack / Flick / Cash / The Band - have all been in for 3+ years now and it is time to change the direction by refreshing that cast list.

Either get Marilyn back with John and have them as the new loving foster couple, or bring in a partner for John to fulfil that role. Its classic, but it works.

Same with Irene - she is set up really to be on her own, but she has always historically opened up her home to those in need. 

Mali and Rose could even become the new nucleus of a new family. Both of them ideal to try raising kids/foster. 

Bring the show back to family. Look at small every day issues (Maybe have a family on the breadline struggling - maybe a late teen/early 20s same sex couple , a peer pressure storyline, maybe a school bullying one, even have a mixed race couple getting some trouble by some opposed to it etc...) that actually exist and explore them to get people asking questions.

The show has lost its identity over the years. When was the last time we had a proper natural disaster - a flood, a fire, an earthquake and we saw the COMMUNITY respond. Not every death has to be via a shooting / stabbing etc...

 

[Homeandawayfan.]

I feel the show started to show signs of the current format in the mid 1990s and that was almost 30 years ago now. 1995 and 1996 saw a ramping up of the drama and more focus on disasters and lives in danger etc, such as the bushfire, Angel's car crash, Saul's cult, Ailsa's attack etc in 1995. The show still stuck to its original premise until the Sutherland's arrived in 2000 and we had the drop in centre. 1988-1994 was when H&A was quite a feel good show and I wish it had stayed that way.

[stevester55]

On 29/06/2024 at 23:09, flea said:

For me the Braxtons were not terrible, but it started the massive shift of focus on the show - going from family units and simple life to guns and violence. 

What I would do is the following -

We don't need several doctors or coppers. For years H&A worked well with one of each. Go back to that. 

Bring back the school, and thus re-introduce a teacher and maybe a head as characters.

Get rid of the gang/violence side and bring in a couple of families - as in 2 parents, 2 kids etc... Not grown up adults, with long lost relatives, but proper family.

The kids then go to the school....

Bring back the caravan park properly, and also bring back the fostering and mentoring of "waifs and strays"

H&A used to be a beacon of promoting how family can be two things - the one you are born into, and the one that shows you love. That has been lost. Jett was probably the last proper character that was adopted, yet before him it was a pretty regular thing. 

Have a younger teen cast in who will have relatable problems - dating, social media, studying problems, drink/drugs temptations, and modern issues. 

Theres a lot of deadwood in the show and part of it feels like it has come from so many leaving quickly at the start of Covid.

Lyrik was always a hard sell and whilst individually all the characters have found their feet, it really is time for them to move on so we can focus back on family and roots. Bree and Xander are terrible characters and both badly acted. Tane / Mack / Flick / Cash / The Band - have all been in for 3+ years now and it is time to change the direction by refreshing that cast list.

Either get Marilyn back with John and have them as the new loving foster couple, or bring in a partner for John to fulfil that role. Its classic, but it works.

Same with Irene - she is set up really to be on her own, but she has always historically opened up her home to those in need. 

Mali and Rose could even become the new nucleus of a new family. Both of them ideal to try raising kids/foster. 

Bring the show back to family. Look at small every day issues (Maybe have a family on the breadline struggling - maybe a late teen/early 20s same sex couple , a peer pressure storyline, maybe a school bullying one, even have a mixed race couple getting some trouble by some opposed to it etc...) that actually exist and explore them to get people asking questions.

The show has lost its identity over the years. When was the last time we had a proper natural disaster - a flood, a fire, an earthquake and we saw the COMMUNITY respond. Not every death has to be via a shooting / stabbing etc...

 

Yes..please get Lyrik gone and some others and have a family in how it use to be lol

[Homeandawayfan.]

Neighbours was also guilty of becoming more focused on misery and darker stories by 1992, like H&A seemed to do c1995/1996. Both shows were proper feel good shows in the first 6 years.