March saw the last two updates to our exclusive Behind the Scenes feature detailing Dan's last few days at Palm Beach and the filming of key episodes such as Dan Baker's memorial and Miles overcoming his fear of water.
In the reference section of the site we started a new section for issues covered in Home and Away and started with a look at the soap's coverage of HIV. Look out for more updates to this section coming soon.
In the videos section of the site we added episodes 3141 and 3142 to the 2001 folder and episodes 3356, 3357 and 3360 added to 2002.
The biggest updates to BTTB this month came from the features section as we marked Lucas's departure with a series of features and we counted down our long awaited Most Popular Character 2008 which saw Sally reign once more as your favourite character. Speaking of Sally, Dan the man was able to negotiate an exclusive interview with the lady herself which will be coming soon to BTTB.
Still on Sally, we saw the results of our annual scriptwriting competition. A huge congratulations to our winners Drew and Amii and also to all who entered. BTTB would like to extend its thanks to the wonderful Coral Drouyn and her team of esteemed judges Dean, John and Eduardo for their participation and also to Frankie for ensuring the competition ran smoothly. Thanks also to The Surf Club and Bevan for donating the prizes and Dan for organising them.
April saw a huge number of additions to our guest character profiles section with Sean Evans, Hospital Interns Lewis Rigg, Marie Cashman, Ric's nemsis Viv Anderson, Gwen Stacy, who offered Dan a job in America, Aaron Copeland, Sally's biological father, Henk Van Minnen, Jacinta Curtis and Jules Munroe. Still in shock with the news that Milco was real we began the difficult process of creating a character profile for both the imaginary friend and the man behind him, Miles (Milco) Copeland. We also bought Tony Holden, Ric Dalby, Jack Holden and Martha McKenzie., Alf Stewart and Leah Patterson up to date.
April also saw Drew Curtis leave the bay and we celebrated the event with his leaving feature.
May was a massive month for BTTB with coverage of three high profile departures. Cassie was first to leave our screens on 7th May and to mark her departure we reviewed her exit storyline, her friendships, took a tongue in cheek look at her disastrous relationship history and shared some of our favourite Cassie episodes.
The next day we marked the departure of Summer Bay's golden girl as Kate Ritchie left the bay after 20 years. Sally's leaving feature was the biggest we have ever undertaken on BTTB and to host it we launched a separate site www.sallyfletcher.net. Our tribute site for Sally included a detailed year by year look at Sally's time in the bay, a detailed relationship history including an in depth look at her love story with Flynn. We reviewed her happiest and saddest moments, her weddings and the self-hate issues that plagued her time in Summer Bay. We took an extensive look at her leaving episodes and saw what our members thought as well as getting the comments of Bevan Lee who masterminded her exit storyline. The site also paid tribute to Kate with a detailed biography and what's next feature plus a scrapbook tribute made up by our members, passing on their messages of good look and goodbye to Kate. To complete the site we shared a number of key Sally episodes with you and have continued to add to the site throughout the month of May.
The day after Sally left saw the departure of one of the most controversial characters ever to appear on Home and Away. Sam was despised with a passion by the majority of our members but for others she was simply misunderstood. Her body washed up on the beach the morning after Sally left and provided enormous storyline potential as Martha and Jack amongst others came in the frame. On BTTB we took a look at the evidence, the storyline, the suspects and the eventual conclusion of the murder mystery storyline in Sam's Departure Feature.
Our location section was added to once more with a look at the iconic Summer Bay Caravan Park and teenage pregnancy was covered in some detail in the Issues area of our reference section.
With the main departures out of the way, the rest of May and June were given up to our character profile section. New contributor Karen and old time profiler Bttb-rox! got to grips with a number of guest character profiles and detailed profiles for a number of recent guests including Jazz's lawyer Dane Jordons, Belle's boss Gavin Johnson, School teacher Steve Braeburn, helicopter pilot Colin Page, Roman's army friend Adam Masters, Simon Jeffries, coastal news reporter Carla Townsend and Tara O'Neill's mother Grace.
Profiles were also updated inline with the departures as Sally's mother Diana Wilson, Sam's sister Britt Grey, Murder Detective Ross Buckton, Rory Tolhurst, Johnny Cooper and Cassie's relatives Joy Foxton, Ben Foxton, Liam Bennett, Carla Bennett and Pauline Bennett.
Some blasts from the past came with early years profiles for Steven's uncle Philip Matheson and original baddy Brian Dodge Forbes. We also reviewed a number of famous faces from the Olymic based era of 2000 including Morrie Sanders, Casey Bradon, Elka Graham, Ian Thorpe, Samantha Riley, Chris Fielder and Emily Fielder.
Video updates came mainly from the departure features but we also uploaded a couple of classic episodes from 1995 as well as some more recent ones. Remember to keep checking back as we continue to add episodes and clips to our increasing selection.
Our behind the scenes team is as strong as it has ever been with our librarians and moderators supporting our talented and hard working contributors Ryan and bttb-rox! We are pleased to welcome -Karen- and Foxy to the purple team and Eduardo Bearo as a features contributor. If you are interested in helping us out or have anything to offer us in terms of pictures, summaries, profiles, episodes or anything at all please PM a member of staff on our forum or email dan@backtothebay.com.
A final thank you to those staff members who are not credited for their work but who contribute tirelessly to the site, you know who you are and a thank you to those who read the main site, it makes all our hard work worthwhile. Stay tuned for more updates coming soon including our exclusive interview with Kate Ritchie who played Sally Fletcher.
Skykat,
Site and Forum Administrator.