The 2005 Season

[Zig]

Firstly I would love to thank @adam436 for giving me the idea to start this thread and the next one I'm about to, after his on the 2000 season.

2005 was a big year as we had so many things happen but particularly because it was the final year for two longer terms characters in Hayley and Flynn who had both been on the show for a bigger period them most at that point.  As well as losing Hayley at the end of the year we also lost Jesse who had been on and off the show for a number of years, as well as Scott , Josie and Henry who were more forgettable in my opinion and of course Kane and Kirsty. 

Iconic storylines/moments: 

• Flynn cancer which was heartbreaking to watch, particularly as him and Sally were soulmates and getting torn apart but also because it broke Ric and Cassie to and their newfound family was about to be torn apart.
• Alf's 60th/ Chloe accident/ Jesse final exit. This all tied into one. It was great seeing the likes of Don, Pippa and Lance again just to name a few for Alf's birthday but them Chloe coming back and dying was heartbreaking but what was worse was finding out Jesse was responsible and saying goodbye to him one final time.
• Sally and Flynn finally becoming foster parents, sure they already had baby Pippa but now they were following in the footsteps of Pippa and Tom and become foster parents to Cassie and Ric
• The Summer Bay Stalker which was obviously a storyline that had allot of people wondering who it was and what would happen next, unlike these days the storyline left people at the edge of their seats wondering who it was and them for it to be Zoe someone who I wasn't excepting, like that reveal shocked me.
• Hayley/Scott/Kim love triangle and baby revealed, hated this storyline but was big at the time, it was like it never ended.

Forgettable storylines/low points: 

• Cassie abuse with her uncle, not much came from that after her nan died she just moved in with Sally/Flynn and forgot about it, like it wasn't even mentioned when Macca abused her a year later. 
• Barry Hyde killing his wife, this was such a pointless storyline and he was a pointless character like why was he even in the show.
• Dan Gambling, honestly what was the point just to have it so him and Leah would spilt up but obviously get back together later.
• Josie the whole Josie character was pointless it like she was written just to try to get Tasha away from the bay and in the long haul to hurt Jesse, also the whole Marc thing was pointless to me. 

[j.laur5]

I didn’t find Sally and Flynn believable as foster parents to Ric and Cassie, they seemed more like older siblings . I guess it was because the actors playing Ric and Cassie were older than the characters and not even ten years younger then Kate Ritchie.

As for Barry I definitely did not think he was pointless, as he proved to be good principal and love interest for Irene. And I enjoyed having a flawed character like Josie on the show. 

[Spinach]

Flynn didn't die until 2006, though. If you're going for "long-term" departures, Kirsty had been around for longer than Flynn's two incarnations.

I did really enjoy 2005 at the time (especially the first half). The stalker was super exciting (though I did think Zoe was pretty obvious), and the family set-up with Sally/Flynn/Ric/Cassie was great (I didn't even care that the age differences were so unbelievable). Still, in many ways, this was the beginning of the end for me. There was just so much excitement and drama - and the success of the stalker seemed to make the producers feel they needed to replicate it over and over again, leading to the years of life-threatening disasters every week (they lose their impact when they're that frequent). It started to flag in the second half of the year with the ongoing Scott/Hayley/Kim paternity drama. I was definitely addicted for most of the year, though.

[adam436]

It was a big year, but there wasn't much to like about it. This was actually the year I stopped watching H&A for a good few years. My interest had been waning for a few years, but Chloe's pointless death and Jesse's exit was the final straw for me. Jesse had run his course, but he didn't need or deserve that exit. 

I hated the character of Josie and as already been said, a pointless character for the reasons mentioned. She was essentially early a softee version of Angie, introduced because the producers realised it was a mistake killing off Angie.

I enjoyed Sally and Flynn as foster parents, but there should have been a spread of ages to mix it up. Having two teenagers who were the same age and were dating each other didn't work. I thought they might have ended up with Olivia after Chloe's death, but she was gone and forgotten about pretty quickly.

Another big controversy that year was the Hayley recast. I actually preferred Ella Scott-Lynch in the role, having found Bec's Hayley to be OTT bubbly, but suddenly going from blonde to redhead was quite jarring. I wasn't a fan of the Scott/Hayley/Kim triangle either. Scott and Hayley were obviously just paired up because they were both at a loose end following Noah's and Dani's exits.

[James Martin]

2005 was good, it's the changes it fired the starting pistol for which taint it for me.

2006, however, not a fan.  All that cop drama stuff turned me away.