Character replacement

[Josh]

I'm unique when it comes to TV. Most people watch TV to switch off. When I watch it I switch ON.

As a result, I've worked out that every character who joined the cast in the last year was replacing someone of around the same age who left in the year before:

Ric and Cassie arrived a matter of weeks after Kane and Kirsty left. Kane and Ric have a similar history.

Barry arrived about a year after Don Fisher left.

Amanda arrived after Josie left, both of whom had affairs with Scott and worked with unscrupulous developers (for different reasons)

Lucas arrived shortly after Henry left.

Tony arrived about a year after Rhys left

Jack arrived shortly after Jesse left, both of whom dated Martha.

Rachel and Peter arrive in the first week of this year, while Hayley and Scott leave in the last week of last year. (Not a couple, but close in characters)

A bit of a stretch but by process of elimination, I'm saying that Martha replaced Kit Hunter. (Yes, she arrived over a year later, but like I said, process of elimination.

So now I'm trying to work out how far back this goes. Any ideas for before 2004?

[princess_jessik]

well this is kinda the same but ric/cassie & maddie/lucas reminds me of Nick/jade, Seb/Kirsty.

Then of course a few years ago there was danni/scott, alex/brodie, hayley/noah. The current group that is kinda the same is robbie/tasha, jack/martha & kim. You can't really count rachel because is is older. But I agree they same to have all the same friendships & everything. Like danni was hayley's best friend & now martha is Tasha's best friend.

[Chris H]

is henry hunter actually coming back i thought he was only away for a few weeks tap dancing lol

[shellkiss]

I think the actor who was playing Henry wanted to go back to school or something like that. By the way Josh that is a very interesting theory. It seems you have found proof and everything.

[dan]

Tasha and Robbie seem to be Peta and Edward to me, right down to the 'wedding'!

I think the cast is maintained at a certain balance of young and old and male/female so if say all the young females were leaving some more would be recruited to keep it the same.

This may not work exactly back to 88 because the family groups etc have changed, there are now more but with fewer members as opposed to 2 main familys plus some!

Thinking about it we had Duncan and Sam with Hayley and then Sam left and Hayley moved on to another group so Nick joined Duncan then Kirsty and Jade joined them. Then Duncan left so Seb arrived a bit later.

When Nick left Kane went Permanent very soon after!

[Penie]

I remember this, soon two other teenages a coming called Seth and Milo but i dont know if it is true.

[Josh]

I'm working this out based on the characters who were credited at the end of each year with some exceptions. I've started an Excel database to work this out and so far the changes are:

Rachel replaced Hayley in 2006.

Barry replaced Don in 2004

Kim replaced Alex in 2004

Robbie replaced Seb in 2004

Jack replaced Jesse in 2005

Martha (possibly) replaced Kit in 2004

Cassie replaced Kirsty in 2005

Matilda replaced Jade in 2004

Lucas replaced Henry in 2005, who replaced Max in 2004

Tony replaced Rhys in 2005

Beth replaced Shelley in 2003

Colleen replaced Ailsa (bad choice) in 2002.

Amanda replaced Josie in 2005, who replaced Dani in 2004.

Dan replaced Noah in 2004

Peter replaced Scott in 2006, who replaced Josh in 2003

And someone will probably replace Dan, Flynn and Kim later this year. I've left their spaces blank for now.

The only problem with this theory is characters like Sally and Hayley moving up in age groups. And the fact that I've only been watching sincce early 2005

[ste]

  Josh said:

Colleen replaced Ailsa (bad choice) in 2002.

Amanda replaced Josie in 2005, who replaced Dani in 2004.

Huh?

Colleen arrived in 1999. Ailsa died in 2000.

Josie arrived mid 2004. Dani left end of 2004.

But to your main point... yes obviously when they write a character out they are going to replace them, otherwise the cast would be down to 2 people now - Alf and Sally. Isn't it just common sense that they're going to bring in new people to replace the ones who leave?

[TabbyCool]

  ste said:

  Josh said:

Colleen replaced Ailsa (bad choice) in 2002.

Amanda replaced Josie in 2005, who replaced Dani in 2004.

Huh?

Colleen arrived in 1999. Ailsa died in 2000.

Josie arrived mid 2004. Dani left end of 2004.

But to your main point... yes obviously when they write a character out they are going to replace them, otherwise the cast would be down to 2 people now - Alf and Sally. Isn't it just common sense that they're going to bring in new people to replace the ones who leave?

Exactly, it's just common sense. And obviously they will try to replace characters with new ones of the same age group, otherwise if, for example, they replaced Don Fisher with a teenage girl, there would be an imbalance since there wouldn't be many older people in the show. They need to keep the balance between the younger and older characters, so it only makes sense to replace them with characters of a similar age.

[Josh]

OK forget Ailsa and Colleen, I'll figure them out later. But the point here is to work out how far back it goes. I was obviously aware that this is natural but the characters are sometimes closer than you might think. If a character leaves and is replaced by another one who starts going out with the same person as their predecessor (eg: Rachel and Kim, like Hayley and Kim; Hayley and Scott, and Hayley and Josh; or the Shelley and Rhys, Beth and Tony theory.)

And with Josie and Dani, Dani had left the credits before the end of the year, and so Josie could have been added as an early replacement.

Another problem is when a character leaves and then comes back, like Jesse. Is he still the same age group, or he his line moved into someone else's column who arrived after he left but is still there when he comes back?