Red Ranger 1

Actually, the weirdest thing about that set-up is that Lucas lives with Kim and Kit.I remember just after the kidnap when Rachel was on the phone to Lucas asking him if he'd heard from Tony and I suddenly thought "I hope she's got a mobile number for him because if she had to ring the house that would be really awkward..."

Agree with a lot of what's being said here.I did like Martha and Roman together and thought they had a good chemistry, even though I thought putting them together when it was obvious her and Jack were going to reunite was a fairly dumb idea.(And having the whole paternity saga and then just having her lose the baby anyway was pretty pointless as well.) If , then I think Roman and Martha could get together and it could work but I'd want them to wait at least several months, preferably a year, before it happens.They should probably be friends for that time but not in a spending-every-minute-together/never-have-scenes-with-anyone-else/relationship-in-all-but-name kind of way.Which would, I suppose, leave them both in limbo and perhaps not make for particularly good television but there needs to be a decent level of respect for what Jack and Martha had.We've seen them working well as friends since they split up and I think they should carry on like that for a while whilst maintaining links with other characters.

Hang on, so we're all saying Melody's guilty because of publicity material(which can be unreliable) rather than what happened in the show?Isn't that a spoiler at best? Anyway, question stands:How exactly did she do it?The only explanations I can think of is that either there was a conveniently situated bolt on the doors or someone left a key and/or padlock in the door or Melody brought a padlock with her.In any case, someone should have been responsible for making sure that the exits were clear in the event of an emergency and obviously wasn't doing their job.

It's interesting that Geoff and Melody are now basically back where they started, with her making assumptions and him insisting he doesn't see her that way.Maybe if they can get back to being friends and things don't work out between him and Nicole, they could start heading in that direction again.

I like Belle's handling of things and I like Aden and Roman's interaction with Sydney. I'm still not entirely comfortable with Sydney and to a certain extent Aden's reaction to Angelo but I'll let the situation play out before coming to any conclusions.

Did we actually see Melody lock the doors?And if so, how?If one careless act by one off-her-head fifteen-year-old can potentially endanger people's lives, they were probably breaking safety regulations anyway.(Were there any fire exits?That'll impress the investigators...)If Kane was incapable of seeing someone standing in the middle of the road until it was too late, then he was probably going too fast for that road in that visibility:Not speeding necessarily but not showing enough "hazard awareness" and he could well face culpable driving charges.I guess we'll have to wait and see how much locking the doors affected things.Knowing disaster cliffhangers, the whole thing'll probably result in a couple of broken bones, a few minor burns and everyone else just getting soot on their face and their hair messed up. As for the drug possession, Melody is a minor and it was her first offence.If she had a ton of drugs on her or was a persistent offender, she might end up with a fine but a few grams is unlikely to get her more than a warning.

Sorry to bring it up again for everyone who wants to talk about Geoff and Melody but I still don't really like the Aden/Melody interaction.To my mind, that's the ultimate "opposites attract" idea and it always seemed forced, unnatural and rather out of character.I just think they're too different and they wouldn't want anything to do with each other, not dislike each other exactly but just wouldn't have enough in common to keep spending time together. I agree that I found Geoff and Melody getting together surprising.They didn't get off to the best of starts and, whatever the similarities in their beliefs, she didn't seem like the sort of person Geoff would go for.(He tends to be attracted to people like Nicole and Tam who are more obvious with their affections, for want of a better word.)Still sitting on the fence with regard the idea of getting them back together, maybe with everything they've been through since they've been apart they are actually now different enough for there to be a contrast.

Thank you so much, Anaya, for agreeing with me because I actually felt really bad about that post.I stand by the two points and I'm glad other people felt the same but there were a couple of occasions when I was worried I'd overstepped the mark and just started making petty comments instead of constructive arguments.It's the Red Ranger equivalent of chair-smashing:It feels right at the time but afterwards you're a bit ashamed of yourself. Anyway...In a vague attempt to drag this conversation back onto topic, I wouldn't want Geoff and Melody back together for at least 3-6 months, I wouldn't want Melody and Aden together for at least two years and if either happened they'd have to make sure it doesn't result in Melody becoming an object of hatred for fans of other pairings.

I think the fact that, as I recall, the scene ended with a massive close-up of Belle indicates what the important thing was.(At the very least, it was in there.)Presumably she was supposed to be thinking "Oh, he's so nice" as opposed to "Why are all my scenes with this guy again?" And I agree with the comments about Angelo:A lot, if not necessarily all, Aden/Belle fans hated the guy for getting in the way of their perfect(/hideously mismatched/totally dysfunctional)couple right from the start, using Aden's childish "stupid loser cop" mantra, hating him for arresting Aden(?!)and calling him "sleazy" for dating Belle and Charlie so close together while Belle was sleeping with Aden behind his back.

Yep, sounds exactly like what Aden did to me.I don't really see how Melody can be held legally responsible for the accident.Morally, maybe, but that's another matter entirely.

Liked the way Belle told Aden he was a father.Not so sure about Aden telling her she can't be friends with Angelo.

People want Melody to go to jail?What the f..?Aden deliberately tries to kill someone and takes hostages and apparently doesn't deserve to go to jail and you want to send Melody down for taking drugs?She deserves a warning at most.Yes, I agree there needs to be a scene of her facing up to the way her actions have affected people but putting her in the slammer is just crazy.I like the idea of her being sent to a retreat, that would probably work well for her.

Please, no, not Aden and Melody.When he was comforting her, I was practically throwing things at the set.The guy's the poster child for mental instability and he's the one coaxing Melody out of a panic attack?It was obviously just there to make the viewers and/or Belle like him again.Didn't work.

I'd definitely rather watch Melody than...certain other characters...I'm quite intrigued by what they're doing with her.It's seemed at times as though she's got lots of different personalities but now I'm beginning to think it's deliberate, she seems to be going through some sort of identity crisis.It's as if she's so desperate to be liked that she's willing to play any role and act in any way that'll make people like her.And as a result, like she said to Miles, she doesn't even know who the real her is anymore. Miles' parenting style is a bit relaxed and hands off but I think it's actually effective.Instead of giving people lectures that they're just going to ignore, he sits back and lets the situation play out while keeping the lines of communication open so they know they can come to him if they want to.It's led him to take his eyes off the ball a few times, there's been at least one occasion when Melody's been out late and no-one's bothered to check whether she's come home or not, but he knows more about what's going on than they think.It worked with Jai, who eventually opened up to him when he hit rock bottom, and hopefully Melody'll do the same. Not sure what I think about her recovery time.I usually complain about Home and Away's habit of making people magically better but in Melody's case I don't think there's any deep seated psychosis. She needs to start seeing a counsellor again but I think making that decision would be a big step.If not back to normal, I think she would become..."functional" for want of a better word very quickly.

Gosh, wasn't expecting that!Like Belle and Angelo as friends.Belle really needs to tell Aden about Sydney.

No, Sadie's still out there somewhere. I'm pretty sure Cain and Eli were around at the same time.I remember a scene, around the time Eli showed up, where Cain wasn't living with the Dingles and he turned up while Sam was there alone and tried to take the money from the pot.And Eli, who none of them liked either at the time except Sam, turned up and stopped him.That's the only time I can remember them being together which is odd because Cain must have been around for quite a while afterwards.

It's odd but I can't actually remember these two having a scene together until last year.And then in the opener you had him being her knight in shining armour after the latest time she was kidnapped and I thought "These two have got a really good chemistry.They're going to get together."And it just worked. I remember that first time they kissed and Irene was ringing them up and trying to find Rachel because Leah had just found out Dan was dead and I was just shouting "Don't answer your phone! Don't find them!I want to see Tony and Rachel together!I want them to kiss!" It's a shame they don't get any screen time but it does make the little moments all the more special.I liked when Tony went to the reunion with Jazz and even though she was doing him a favour(or so it seemed...)and they were getting on well, the minute she started badmouthing Rachel he was like "Don't talk about her like that."And that episode where Jack and Tony were at the hospital with Martha and the writer seemed to have forgotten Tony and Rachel were a couple:When Rachel leaves Jack with Martha, in the background she walks up to Tony in the corridor and puts her arms round him. It was probably completely improvised but it just kept the relationship alive. It's a shame that a lot of their conversations seem to happen off screen.I remember when they just casually dropped into conversation the fact that Tony had had a vasectomy and they'd been talking about having children and I was wondering when exactly that had all been established.And don't even start me on all that nonsense surrounding the Olympic Cliffhanger.First Rachel disappears and, on the strength of a couple of e-mails she didn't reply to, all her family and friends including Tony decided she'd run off with Hugh.I just didn't understand why they'd think so little of her.Even if Rachel had decided to leave Tony(and it's a big if), she'd have spoken to him about it or left a note, not just vanished.And then when it turned out she'd been kidnapped(for the fifth time...), no-one seemed to have any sort of reaction to it at all.Even Rachel just brushed it aside and started campaigning for Aden to be let out.I could understand her sympathising with him but you'd expect her to make sure he was put somewhere where he couldn't hurt anyone rather than being on his side.And as for Tony, I'm not even sure he had a reaction, bar the occasional half a line.There was no scene of his talking to Rachel about what happened or confronting Aden about the way he treated her.The fact that everyone just welcomed Aden back into the fold and, in a couple of cases, actually started treating him better just made it look as though they didn't care about Rachel. In a way, I'm actually glad they didn't get married because it does seem as though they've been moving a bit fast, getting engaged after only a few months because that's what older couples do.I hope they get married eventually but I want them to build up to it properly instead of it just being a throwaway obligation.

Yeah I am surprised to but I cant wait to see the King's reaction to his return after all he did fleece them before he left and kidnapped Tom!!It will be interesting to see how he gets on with Eli as well.

Ooh, definitely interesting.Really looking forward to reading more of this.

Interesting so far.Want to see where you go with it.

I'd hate for that to happen. I feel Belle and Aden have moved past all that highschool teen drama. They don't belong with the teen group anymore. But they don't belong with the adults either. They need to start forming friendships with the likes of Martha, Kirsty, and even Rachel, that age group. With the kind of issues they've dealt with last year, and are going to deal with this year, they have outgrown all those teenage stuff. I'm not saying the should act like adults, just not act like highschool kids either. For most part of Geoff's time on the show, Belle has looked at him as a nuisance, and I like that because thats how you look at an annoying little brother, and thats what I see their relationship like now. So I feel if she were to start hanging out with him and getting involved in his love life and stuff it would be horrible. And also a step back for her. She's moved past all this. Even when they were in school together you would never see her hanging out with him or even talking to him all that much. So if they do it now, it would just look like a desperate attempt, now that her friends are gone, to give her people to talk to. She needs to start building friendships with characters, like Rachel and Martha who have more life expierance and have been through just has difficult stuff as her. People on her level now. As for Nicole and Aden, while I don't care for this friendship, I don't find it weird. Because, unlike Belle and Geoff, they have had some kind of relationship since the time she arrived. But as long as it just stays Nicole and Aden and not Nicole, Aden, and Belle. Because if Belle and Nicole were to becomes friends then that would bring Geoff into it too. And Geoff and Belle becoming better friends then now would be cringeworthy, for me, to watch. I actually really like seeing Geoff and Belle together and wish it happened more often.(Frankly I'd rather see those two in a scene than seeing them with Aden and Nicole but maybe that's because of the scarcity.)When they were rubbing each other up the wrong way at the start, I think that was mainly because he was giving Lucas a hard time and Belle was sticking up for her friend.Last year, I really liked their interaction, they came across as two people who were pretty much exact opposites but were still incredibly fond of each other.I think it said a lot that he was the one who got her to go and see Aden in the clinic, even if it was just an excuse to have him bump into Melody.But I wouldn't like to see Aden and Geoff suddenly become friends given that they've always disliked each other.There'd have to be some sort of scene justifying it rather than going down the "Aden's a regular so everyone in Summer Bay's his friend now" route that seems to have become popular. I agree that Aden and Belle are getting a bit old to hang out with a bunch of school kids, they seem to be in an age group of their own.It would be nice to see Belle hang out a bit more with the likes of Kirsty, Martha and Rachel.At the beginning of last year they seemed to be building a friendship between her and Leah but then it just disappeared:Even though they work together I can't remember the last time they were in the same scene so it would be nice to get back to that.They really need some guys for Aden to hang about with.Roman's taken on more of a parental role towards him but maybe now that Aden's left school they could start to view each other more as equals.It's hard to imagine him being friends with Miles or Jack but maybe, if they actually made it a storyline point instead of it just happening, it could work.

Oh, that was lovely.Really sad but lovely.Great fic.

I agree that if Geoff and Melody got back together it wouldn't be the same as before.And yet...there's something there still.Even if they'd stayed together, they'd probably have become different people (Beginner's guide to soap characterisation:Introduce fun and interesting characters, then torture them until they're as miserable as everyone else)and I think it's only because they split up that there's a desire to keep their relationship in some sort of bubble rather than letting it be spoilt.But I agree they'd have to be very careful how they did it.If Melody's responsible for breaking up Geoff and Nicole, that could well be the final nail in her coffin as far as some people are concerned.

I agree that .I just wish they'd given them a break first:Since they've been back together, she's been pregnant with another man's child, then they gave her cancer and now this.Would it have hurt to let them be happy for just a little bit?