Have you seen any improvement over the last few weeks?

[Light of the Bay]

The episode you speak of was slated on Facebook though. This is the issue. Seven think the Facebook lot represent everyone and therefore think "Let's have more River Boys with their shirts off" and the truth couldn't be further away.

Yes I had a look on the Facebook page and was pleasantly surprised. Let's hope that Seven can finally take a hint.

[alexx]

I was watching the end of episode 5014 (2010 - John apologizing to Leah) and I remember being quite optimistic about the show at that stage, it was taking on a much more warm and 'classic' tone. There were 'warm and fuzzy' moments as well as comedy (with Maz's return and the episode in which Xaiver and Romeo went on a hunt for Hugo's missing money). There were also emotional scenes and drama. It was before it started to become really obsessed with 'The Bay of Love' and romance.

[jodlebirger]

I was watching the end of episode 5014 (2010 - John apologizing to Leah) and I remember being quite optimistic about the show at that stage, it was taking on a much more warm and 'classic' tone. There were 'warm and fuzzy' moments as well as comedy (with Maz's return and the episode in which Xaiver and Romeo went on a hunt for Hugo's missing money). There were also emotional scenes and drama. It was before it started to become really obsessed with 'The Bay of Love' and romance.

The beginning of that year was absoulutely awful, with just a few light moments, and the rest of the year was absoulutely completely nonsense. The worst year in H&A's history probably. It was the year when promotion of the show and the reputation became more important than the content of it/storylines. The bay of love theme was just to lead the critism away (about the police storylines and sex-storylines), but the show became even more agressive and constructive. The humour was so fake, it was impossible to laugh of. And the beginning of the year also had two of the worst departure storylines in television history, Aden and Marthas. The whole show was almost dropped here after Marilyns return and the two departures. People wrote to the channel and wanted them to drop the show and buy a british soap instead. Unfortunately the television company thought it was because they had seen the eps on youtube.I suspect H&A is cheaper to buy than British soaps. Maybe some of them had seen new eps somewhere, but not all of them. And there were a lot of complaints about the storylines. And there haven't been much new eps on youtube since 2009. Home &Away has been on air in Norway longer than any other television show, and that was the given reason why they gave the show an another chance.

They started to send two new eps on monday-thursday (and one on Friday) instead of one new ep each day. Now we are in the mid 2011, and the River boys have arrived. I see that there are a little interest in a H&A thread on a Norwegian television forum.

I really didn't like the 2010 season personally, and I didn't like the so called light hearted moments of that year, they seemed so constructed and cold. I couldn't laugh at them. I think that year had the worst storylines I have ever seen, the two departures I mentioned and the horrible Mitzy storyline and the storyline about Penn. It was really not like what light moments used to be on H&A. Even 2009 had more light moments, and the most important ones - touching moments where we can see that the characters care about each other. I think that it is more important to show that the characters care about each other in lighter or darker periods, with a few cheeky comments here and there.

Early 2011 felt better. But the show lacks characters who have a purpose on the show, I think that Sid's role as a doctor is a bit weak. And Charlie as a cop is a joke, I know you haven't got a regular replacement for her either. Miles haven't really teached since 2008 season... and I know he is gone in Australia too. But have you got a replacement for him, a good teacher? And Gina is too weak for a head principle, even SAlly was better!! The river boys certainly rocks the bay..., but what kind of other purpose do they have?I mean role in the Summerbay community.

[Red Ranger 1]

I don't want to whitewash the whole of 2010 because I think it had some good moments, the growing emergence of John as curmudgeonly prominent citizen rather than the villain that many fans expected, and possibly wanted, him to be being one of the highlights.The comedy, I think, works best when it comes out of the character rather than a forced funny situation:The Romeo and Xavier chase the money episode was totally jarring tonally, playing the people smuggling story for laughs while the people the money had come from were hooked up to drips in the hospital down the road because they'd been left to dehydrate.I think it took them a while to get Marilyn right and her relationship with Alf didn't really work to start with, things improved greatly when someone seemed to remember that Marilyn was someone that Alf was very fond of but often felt like strangling.I don't think the "Bay of Love" was as bad as some people say, it was just a hook to use in the promos and was more misleading than anything else.I do think 2010 was around the time when the show really began to get relationships wrong though and, aside from adult married couples like Tony/Rachel and John/Gina, it seemed like every couple either broke up abruptly, often after a very short time together, or got dragged through an endless cycle of break-ups, dating other people and then reuniting which left the fans who liked them tearing their hair out in frustration and the fans who didn't wishing they'd stayed with the other people.

The Penn storyline, which literally went on for about half the year, seemed like a throwback to the "psychos for hire" days of 2005/2006 and promised more than it really delivered.I didn't actually mind the Mitzy storyline, it had a certain poignancy and helped drag Dexter out of the rut he'd been stuck in during the crush on Marilyn days.I think there was some decent character work for much of the year, Miles was on top form and Xavier turned into a great character without anyone, including me, really noticing.The new characters of April and the Walkers were really good when they came in so it's a shame that they've all gone badly wrong since, aside from Sid who I think has been getting better and better in 2012.