adam436

There have definitely been times when we've had too-similar characters in the same era. The current batch of characters proves that point, but it's happened in other eras too. The mid 2000s group of Lucas, Matilda, Cassie, Drew etc all felt somewhat interchangeable. The character-types like the popular girl, the tomboy, the surfie, the nerd, the jock For me, Joey Rainbow is the geek character, but depending which teen gang you grew up with, they'll mostly remember Steven, Damien, Dexter, Oscar etc. Occasionally, teenage characters have "broken the mould", such as Edward, Tegan Brook, Justine, Vinnie etc. But mostly, they are interchangeable, even some that are more memorable than others.

I assume Brad Armstrong was written out so that Sally's exit was about her, rather than her just getting married and riding off into the sunset - if that makes sense. Had Kate not quit in 2007, I assume Brad would have just become the next Mr Sally Fletcher/head of Summer Bay House for the next few years. I enjoyed the story too, and thought it was a great way to link the iconic Milco, but it was strange for them to be finally reunited and then just leave each other after a few weeks. I wonder what the reasoning was - was the idea to have a link to Sally remain in the show?

@Revealed I'm not sure not being attractive enough or not liking the character is reason why they are "pointless". Some characters I actively disliked, but I still see the purpose they served. Brodie Hanson, for example. I couldn't stand the character, but she did serve a purpose as the "voice of reason" etc, and had a love interest. I agree with others being dull (i.e. the Holdens), but again they served a purpose. Judith Ackroyd is an interesting one - I remember liking her at the time, but she was secondary to Edward's story arc and even her role as principal wasn't neccesary, since Donald was still around at that point and could have continuned in that role. She could have easily been written out with Edward and Peta to be honest. She just floated around doing very little after Edward other than a romance with Joel (which was essentially just to give two characters at a loose end something to do until their exits), so she was definitely pointless in her last 6 months or so. For me, pointless means they just hang around and don't add anything to the show (i.e. Matt Wilson, Simon Fitzgerald). Even some of the borderline characters like Colleen, Floss and Neville were created for comic relief purposes. I found their comedy stuff irritating and eye-rolling, but that was their purpose. Likewise, some of the "nerds" filled a character type and were part of the central teen gang, family unit or part of a central family unit. Yes, all the characters seem to be cookie-cutter characters these days. When one leaves, we pretty much get another one to slot straight in - Abi/Flick, Mali/Dean. There are certainly more pointless characters these days, mostly because the majority of the cast a similar age and therefore all serve a similar purpose. Sadly, I agree. She was one of my favourite characters at the time, especially after the Alex story and doing the right thing in Colby's trial, so I was really sad to see her go. I'm not now wishing she would come back or that she didn't leave though.

I liked that we had such a close male/female friendship that never crossed that line. It rarely happens in H&A. I agree. The producers clearly didn't though, since they'd invested months in her and Cash and introduced two half-siblings for her. They clearly saw a longer-term future for Jasmine.

It's honestly a shame the producers wasted so much time with time. Miles stayed nearly four years, so if they got together within the first few months, we got have had a decent amount of them as a couple, and avoided Miles/Kirsty, Leah/Roman and Leah/Elijah. My top five in no order: Edward and Peta - I loved their romance and the fact they stayed together throughout his diagnosis etc. Admittedly, Peta is pretty much only remembered for the romance though and didn't add much as an individual character. Tom and Pippa - Vanessa and Roger had great chemistry, even when they were arguing. Given how central they were, it's a shame we only got two years of them as a couple and they didn't become the backbone of the 90s like Michael and Pippa did. Vinnie and Leah - the only love interest I've truly enjoyed Leah with. They were cute together and she was great for Vinnie's character development. Alf and Ailsa - a constant of the early years was Alf and Ailsa, so much so that it became hard to imagine one without the other at the time. John and Marilyn - I love their chemistry and how they were a bit chalk and cheese. Honourary mentions to Travis and Rebecca, Don and Marilyn and Steven and Selina.

The main problem with Chloe and Mia is that they we tied so strongly to Ari, so once he was written out, they were surplus to requirements. They still weren't overly great characters, but had Ari stayed, I'm sure Mia and Chloe would have had a longer lifespan too. It looked like the producers might have decided to keep Chloe on for a while (she outstayed Mia by a few months!), but once Ryder and Bella left and they were clearly going in the Lyrik direction, she was written out too.

Martin had potential as an individual character (when you consider characters like Vinnie and Martin succeeded him), but the producers really weren't keen on breaking them up, even when Marilyn came along. I was never that keen on Lance though. I feel like they took his dim-wittedness to unrealistic levels at times. When you look at the rubbish they were given in 1989/1990 like the fish funeral, the hotdog stand and the band story, it did felt like they belonged more in a sitcom rather than a soap. You could argue that with some of the 1988 stuff like Santa Never Stops in Summer Bay.

Thanks Dan. I remember the very misleading Sally montage at the end of the 2006 finale too. Kate also had a role in a movie called Stepfather of the Bride which came out a few weeks before Sally was stabbed, which added further fuel to the fire too. I guess the fact that she was even making those comments publicly suggests that she had had enough, and if Kate was dead against Sally becoming "the next Pippa" before it happened and then leaving within a few years of it happening, it may have been a contributing factor in her decision to leave.

Here is a cover from TV Week from December 2006 that made me think she announced it much earlier. I don't have he actual article though, so the wording could have been misleading to sell more copies

Interesting. Kate Ritchie gave her notice within a few years of being instilled as "Pippa" (from memory, the news broke in late 2006), but that may have been a coincidence. I think it was a nice touch the show came full circle, but there were many issues with the set up. Having her only two foster children becoming a couple, Mark Furze and Sharni Vinson looking way too old to play teenagers (especially when hanging out with Henry and Matilda) and only having two children of the same age. The Fletchers/Rosses worked because we had a spread of ages of the children. Then Joel McIllroy leaving within a year or so didn't help either.

That rings a bell - thanks. It also explains why they recast Flynn. Sally and Flynn weren't yet married or on their journey to have a child when Martin Dingle-Wall left, so it's likely the producers felt strongly enough about Sally's long-term future they were willingly to recast Flynn rather than start over again with a new love interest.

I guess the Logan situation didn't feel that bad because he'd only been around for a few months and only had links to established character Mackenzie, whereas Jasmine had been around for over 4 years and three new regulars were all tied to her. Logan also exited at a time when departures were happening in quick succession (Ari, Ryder, Bella, Mia, Chloe, Jasmine, Logan), so having a relatively new character quietly slip away didn't bother me that much.

It was terrible timing for them. They'd spent months building up her and Cash, and had just introduced two half-siblings for her. I understand her exit had to occur off-screen, but it could have still been written so much better.

I'd say that's about average when you consider many leave within a few months, and others like Duncan, Christopher, VJ, baby Pippa and to a lesser extent Grace stuck around for years.

Wasn't the idea of Sally as the central foster mum floated either in 1998 when Pippa left or 2000 when Summer Bay House was empty again, but it was decided Sally was too young at the time? I vaguely recall reading that somewhere, but I can't remember which year they toyed with the idea. Then Dan Bennett(?) decided 2004 was when the timing was right

Tony was written out when Amy Mathews (Rachel) decided to leave. I don't know what happened to them though. I liked Zac up until the final 6 months or so. I really liked Charlie Claussen in Blue Heelers and McLeod's Daughters, so I was excited to learn he was joining the show. I recall Ada saying sometime after Dan was killed off that she didn't want Leah to get married again, so I assumed that meant when she did marry Zac, he must have been sticking around for the long haul.

I disagree about Jack Wilson, but I agree with your summation of Adam Cameron. I just found Martin a more likable character, and given Mariyln instantly formed a trio with him and Matt as soon as Lance and Martin left, it's obvious the producers saw them as replacements. I think the problem is the show wanted to be more "sexier" by early 1990 (writing out some older characters, the increased bikini and speedo scenes), and I suspect the producers thought Adam and Matt looked better without a shirt on than Lance and Martin

What option did they have with Zac? Widow Leah for a third time? I guess there were other ways to break them up that didn't paint Zac as the villian though. Hunter was revealed to not be Zac's son which just added to his poor exit storyline. Part of the problem was that the writers wasted so marrying off Zac and Leah that it felt disatisfying to break them up after a year. He was around for well over 4 years, but they were only happily married for a few months. Ada's leave possibly changed the course on that though, since she was originally meant to be away much longer than she was. It is more frustrating, because there is little time for them to be redeemed.

Coincidently, I stopped watching the show for many years around the time the Holdens arrived I didn't find any of the Holdens particuarly interesting from the little I saw of them to be honest.

Four years in total - 3 years of the floating boxes and then 1 year of the larger boxes. That whole style was much easier to update though. It's just a matter of replacing the text/box rather than filming a whole new group/duo shot every time someone leaves/joins. The late 90s style meant that many characters waited months before being added and others sometimes remained long after they'd left so multiple updates could be done at once. The 2004 titles was easy enough too since the actors were probably in front of a greenscreen.

This might be what I am getting confused Jade cheating with Seb with! There was a school performance and she got really sexually inapporpaite with Seb during the performance. I don't remember any further details though.

Thanks everyone for sharing those insights. I remember the initial pairings were Duncan/Jade and Nick/Kirsty, but both seemed quite uneventful pairings from memory (perhaps due to being slightly younger?). I recall much of the drama for Nick and Jade - did Jade cheat on Nick with Seb after Charlotte's death? I recall her going "off the rails" after Charlotte's death, despite barely knowing her. It might have been around the same time as the Angie stuff. From memory, I think I preferred Jade with Seb, despite them being a relatively uneventful pairing in comparison. I also wasn't really a fan of either Jade or Nick, so perhaps that's why I don't see the magic in them as a couple. I can see for those who liked them as a couple, why it was frustrating they didn't get their "sunset ending". Jade left not long after Nick, so she could have followed him to the US instead of that awful twin swap stuff. 2004 was a big year for poor exits - Max was shipped off to boarding school in a blink-and-miss-it exit instead of moving away with Rhys and Shelley, Jade and Seb's has been discussed above, Rhys' exit was messy in the sense that the writers had spent ages building up the Hunter/Sutherlands as the new central family unit, only to tear it all apart after a few months.

May I ask why people liked Nick and Jade so much? I'm not critising, just trying to understand as I watched that era and was only a few years younger than them at the time, but I can't really recall anything that special about them. There was quite a bit of musical partners with that group though between Duncan, Kirsty, Kane, Seb, Jade, Nick and whatever guest characters came through, and Nick and Jade were certainly one of the more long-running couples of those, but I don't recall anything that "magical" about them. I'm also probably biased because I wasn't keen on the Sutherlands overall except for Shelley and Max, but Nick/Jade and any pairing that came out of that group of characters (except the Kirst and Kane drama) just seemed like the standard run-of-the-mill teen couple. Anyway, I still agree that Jade deserved a better ending than finding out she wasn't a Sutherland and then barely being mentioned again. She could have left with Seb, who left around the same time, or reunited with Nick off-screen. Seb was my favourite of that teen group, so I think he deserved better than ending up in a wheelchair too (or leaving with Jade, but I'd have taken that over the wheelchair exit!).

I guess the problem was there was only so much that could be done in terms of corporate espionage, progress vs the environment etc, so it got exhauted pretty quickly. I wonder if it would have kept chugging along had Frank, Roo, Stacey, Tom etc. all stayed longer or whether it would have still fizzled out eventually.

That's a good list. I'd say Tom, Natalie and Joel all had terrible exits, but the cast turnover was so high in 2000 they probably just wanted everyone gone as quickly and quietly as possible ready for the new era. Charlotte was a punching bag for the writers for most of her stint, so it was kinda fitting she went out like that. She was a pretty forgettable character though that she could have had a one-episode exit storyline and it would have been just as memorable for most people. It gave Josh West and Jade some new material to work with though, but overall it wasn't very impactful when you compare her to other deaths. Nick's exit felt far-fetched - never acted before and suddenly he's cast in a Hollywood film. Beth Hunter's exit was an odd one too - it made sense for her to die, but she was absent for months beforehand. Did Clarissa House not want to die onscreen? Were the producers hoping they could win her back after some time away? Did Clarissa take some time off and decide not to return? Was it a timing thing for the storyline (i.e. the same day Kit's baby was born)? Jasmine's exit was subject to Sam Frost's immediate exit, but I agree they probably still could have done something better than reuniting with Robbo's family. I've got no strong opinions on the others you mentioned, either because I was never keen on the character (Harry, Maddie) or I don't remember much about their exit (Miles, Hunter). I wonder if that was part of the 2000 story - a response to feedback from 1998. Pippa's exit felt weirdly temporary too - she was going on a roadtrip around Australia, and then we find out via Ian later that they've settled. That would have contributed to her low-key exit in 1998 - when all the kids were still living in the house with new caretakers, it doesn't have the same impact as Pippa walking through an empty house reminiscing etc. The Early Years was launched in 1998 too, so the producers' were at a place where they wanted to celebrate the past in 2000. Maybe had that attitude been around in 1997 when the writers were crafting Pippa's exit, we would have seen the likes of Jack, Carly, Sophie, Frank and Steven back for her exit.