Sarah Lewis Olympic Siege: 20 Years On

[James Martin]

Next week marks 20 Years since one of Home & Away's most iconic storylines.

As the show went off air to make way for Seven's coverage of the Athens Olympics, the deranged Sarah Lewis took the Bay hostage before killing Noah Lawson, and ultimately turning the gun on herself.  It was only the show's second mid-season finale, after taking a similar break four years previously for the Sydney games in a dramatic mudslide storyline.

Was this a major turning point for the show?  Was it to H&A what the plane crash was to Emmerdale just over a decade previously, or the tram crash was to Coronation Street six and a bit years later?  Or were there other events that significantly reset the show into what it is today; I think we can all agree it's a very different one to the H&A of 20 years ago.

Of course the most audacious thing was the brave move of killing off an extremely popular character, but it created some amazing drama for Bec & Amy as Hayley & Kit bonded over their grief.  I also recall the episodes for some truly epic production values which the British soaps just didn't have at the time.  Finally, I can't go past Beau's final episode, clearly based on A Christmas Carol and on the face of it you wouldn't think would work but was in reality really effective; a trick then showrunner Bevan Lee would revisit in 2008.

It also dovetailed into the Zoe/Eve stalker storyline which dominated Daniel Bennett's tenure in 2005 & 2006.  Was that a bigger shift, as arguably there was more fallout (Kim/Kit/Rachel) but did they jump the shark in putting Peter into witness protection when they'd done that with Vinnie in said siege, Peter being a central part of that storyline?

Was Sarah's final act 20 years ago a major line in the sand for H&A and was it the genesis of the show we have today for better or worse, or am I giving it too much credit?

[adam436]

It was one of the biggest moments we'd had at that point.

I still remember being shocked that they had killed off Noah, one of the more popular characters at the time. I thought we were going to have Kane die a hero, or guest characters Peter would be the death.

[Jezz]

Thanks for this creating a new thread to mark 20 years. I remember creating a thread to mark 10 years.

Tomorrow (August 13) is the official anniversary.

It was massive when this happened. One of the best cliffhangers the show has produced that left everyone on the edge of their seat and we were all left guessing for a fortnight as to who had been killed off.

I think the arrival of the Braxton brothers/River Boys marked a dramatic shift away from the show we used to remember and the one we see today, though the 2005-2010 years were a precursor to that.

All I can say is I miss 2004 a lot. Memorable characters all round, great writing and gripping drama that was addictive as a viewer.

Edited August 12 by Jezz

[adam436]

It was the first big cliffhanger of its kind. We'd never has a siege of that scale before. It was more shocking than the big scale disasters like the landslide, earthquake etc.

It was probably the big turning point of H&A which hurtled into the new dramatic era where we almost had unhinged villians and a "disaster of the week" in 2005-2010

[Zig]

I watched this episode and the aftermath recently, the first time i watched it in full and oh my gosh, it was written so well, i cried and cried. Still gutted they took Noah away from us

[~Lynd~]

Noah's still My favourite character of all time so I'm glad He got an exit people are still talking about 20 years later.It was done well and before the time where it was done regularly for the sake of it.It's a shame the time of good writing and memorable action are long gone.

Spoiler

Almost 20 years to the day and my precious Felicity is also among the dead.Not as dramatically though in my opinion quite well done for the time we're in.She's probably the only character I've loved that way since him.Who knew they were still capable.My two loves in Summer Bay heaven.

Clearly they love Me.

Edited August 13 by ~Lynd~