Couples From The First Twenty Years You Wish Current Fans Knew About

[beachside]

I've been watching various years from the first 20 years of the show as can handle those years and not current ones and am curious what couples from the first 20 years (1988-2008) would you wish that current fans knew about for me ......

 

Peter and Amanda

Jack and Martha

Brad and Sally

Noah and Hayley

Vinnie and Leah

Will and Gypsy

Tom and Pippa

Matt and Carly

Frank and Roo

Don and Marilyn

[Sb boy]

Pippa and Tom.   Vinnie and Leah. Shane and angel. Micheal and pippa.  We’re. All  faves of mine.  Growing up I am 38 now so only saw Tom and pippa 1. On the living tv rpts 

[christine king]

Tom and Pippa

Roo and Frank

Vinnie and Leah

Will and Gypsy

Shane and Angel

[MattieBelle]

Edward & Peta. Two characters who I thought were great and loved their romance. 

[nenehcherry2]

  On 22/12/2024 at 10:27, MattieBelle said:

Edward & Peta. Two characters who I thought were great and loved their romance. 

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Totally agree RE these two!

And their short longevity on screen adds to their enigma

[beachside]

  On 04/12/2024 at 20:25, Sb boy said:

Pippa and Tom.   Vinnie and Leah. Shane and angel. Micheal and pippa.  We’re. All  faves of mine.  Growing up I am 38 now so only saw Tom and pippa 1. On the living tv rpts 

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There's definetly some good ones here Vinnie and Leah and Tom and Pip especially 

  On 07/12/2024 at 16:29, christine king said:

Tom and Pippa

Roo and Frank

Vinnie and Leah

Will and Gypsy

Shane and Angel

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OMG agree with all of these especially since I'm such a big Roo and Frank shipper - I know recast Roo but we need a Frank and Roo 2025 comeback and also I'm a massive Will and Gypsy shipper too so agree with this one - hate they ruined them in 2010

  On 22/12/2024 at 10:27, MattieBelle said:

Edward & Peta. Two characters who I thought were great and loved their romance. 

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OMG these two were so underrated and this is one definitely that more people need to know about!

  On 22/12/2024 at 12:39, nenehcherry2 said:

Totally agree RE these two!

And their short longevity on screen adds to their enigma

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Agreed!

[cymbaline]

Alf and Ailsa. Even though Ailsa's later years were uneven, to put it kindly, it's a travesty that she has been erased from the show's lore. And because of how they've rewritten Martha's missing years, it makes a mockery of Alf's marriage to her. 

[nenehcherry2]

  On 26/12/2024 at 00:24, cymbaline said:

Alf and Ailsa. Even though Ailsa's later years were uneven, to put it kindly, it's a travesty that she has been erased from the show's lore. And because of how they've rewritten Martha's missing years, it makes a mockery of Alf's marriage to her. 

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The Martha retcon destroys so many things for me (both key 88/9 storylines and their longer term consequences for some central characters):-

- Totally agree RE Alf & Ailsa's marriage. That's the main effect & I won't add any more to what has already been said.

- Duncan's entire existence was built on a lie (as was his relationship with Alf). Enough said. Why hasn't Duncan confronted Alf and Roo about this?

- Roo's out-of-control behaviour drove so much of the show's plot in 88' (the whole Frank/Brett/Martha Jr saga, the Ailsa reveal, Bobby & Frank getting together on the rebound etc) and this was, at least partly, attributed to the impact of her mother's death; to find out years later that she'd known Martha was still alive all along ruins the nuances that Justine bought to the character (especially once Roo "came good" in 88). It's suddenly much harder to empathise with Roo's nasty side. 

- Alf's delayed role in exposing Bobby's parentage is harder to now understand; Alf was already unlikeable as it was presented to us back then, in his initial sitting on the knowledge that Morag was her mother and then even refusing to share with Ailsa and Bobby. Why would he be reading Martha's diaries if she was still alive? He could have confronted Martha sooner rather than later for more information and exposed the entire business much earlier. Allowing Bobby to get away from Al Simpson sooner, for Don to know much earlier on (and thus to stop Don's victimisation of Bobby) and so on... Again, we were led to believe that the pain of reading Martha's diaries had made him not want to dig deeper. Much harder to empathise with Alf now. Don should be appalled with him.

- Martha stopped being the go-between for Morag and the Simpsons because she was "dead". Alf could have stepped in to support transferring the money. Again, more letting down of Bobby. 

- So, therefore, his entire relationship with Bobby before and after the reveal was built on lies. And he sits there crying at her deathbed like the hypocrite that he has since been revealed to be. 

 

 

[Red Ranger 1]

  On 26/12/2024 at 08:48, nenehcherry2 said:

to find out years later that she'd known Martha was still alive all along ruins the nuances that Justine bought to the character (especially once Roo "came good" in 88). It's suddenly much harder to empathise with Roo's nasty side. 

- Alf's delayed role in exposing Bobby's parentage is harder to now understand; Alf was already unlikeable as it was presented to us back then, in his initial sitting on the knowledge that Morag was her mother and then even refusing to share with Ailsa and Bobby. Why would he be reading Martha's diaries if she was still alive? He could have confronted Martha sooner rather than later for more information and exposed the entire business much earlier. Allowing Bobby to get away from Al Simpson sooner, for Don to know much earlier on (and thus to stop Don's victimisation of Bobby) and so on... Again, we were led to believe that the pain of reading Martha's diaries had made him not want to dig deeper. Much harder to empathise with Alf now. Don should be appalled with him.

- Martha stopped being the go-between for Morag and the Simpsons because she was "dead". Alf could have stepped in to support transferring the money. Again, more letting down of Bobby. 

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I think you're misremembering several key details of the retcon there. Roo didn't know Martha was still alive until 2018 (so her behaviour in the 80s was defined by what she believed to be true), Alf didn't know until 1988 when Martha wrote to him (so again, it doesn't make any difference to the way he treated Bobby prior to the series, since he believed Martha to be dead). I'm struggling to remember the details of the 1989 retcon but I think Alf was only supposed to have worked out Morag was Bobby's mother a few months before we found out?

Edited December 27, 2024 by Red Ranger 1

[nenehcherry2]

  On 26/12/2024 at 08:55, Red Ranger 1 said:

I think you're misremembering several key details of the retcon there. Roo didn't know Martha was still alive until 2020 (so her behaviour in the 80s was defined by what she believed to be true), Alf didn't know until 1988 when Martha wrote to him (so again, it doesn't make any difference to the way he treated Bobby prior to the series, since he believed Martha to be dead). I'm struggling to remember the details of the 1989 retcon but I think Alf was only supposed to have worked out Morag was Bobby's mother a few months before we found out?

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Ah, thanks for filling in the gaps! I'd been told the info second hand since I've refused to watch the show for over 15 years. My bad, should have got my facts right first. So thanks for putting me right on some of this.

The diaries were read by Alf "not long after Martha's death", so circa 1985/6. So fair enough on the Bobby score.

Nonetheless, still a mockery of his marriage to Ailsa & of Duncan's entire existence; after all, she'd shared the ultimate secret with him.

I'm guessing that they didn't confirm exactly WHEN in 1988 Alf found out? This is key... Thinking of how he and Ails separate in mid 88 because of his comment about her father's death... If he'd known about Martha by then, that's ultimate hypocrisy. 

The fact is that Alf, once he knew, allowed Roo to not be aware that her mother was still alive (which had, as you agree, caused her so much pain and reckless behaviour and led to her giving up her own child, named after the very woman at the centre of all this sheer chaos) also adds to my (negatively) refreshed view of Alf. Which is an insult to the character which the show's creator & Ray himself has built.