Classic Episodes on 5★

[beau_t]

I suggest everyone email 5* praising the episodes so that they feel inclined to do it again, soon!

[JimRRR]

I suggest everyone email 5* praising the episodes so that they feel inclined to do it again, soon!

I am with you on this one.

I only started watching "Home and Away" in Jan. 2012.

So for me, it's great to see what came before with episodes from 1988 to the present.

[Ryan]

One think that it has really emphasised for me is the length of time the show has been going on. It feels like months ago the we tuned in for the pilot.

[c120701]

Yes we were hoping to have the script on the Sally subsite, but Bevan had to follow protocol and give the official site first refusal before being allowed to send it to BTTB - of course the official site jumped at the chance and they published it instead. It wasn't until the following year that I received my own copy of the full script.

I keep trotting out stories about things that didn't make the cut of the 4000th episode and have often thought that I need to put it up on the site somewhere, so will put that on my to-do list along with these scenes from Sally's final ep (from memory I think there were a couple of minor changes in the Milco reveal ep too).

There is another change from Sally's final ep that would have been a great nod to tradition had it been kept in, but I'll keep that one for the site otherwise there'll be nothing left to read

Excited about that! I've always thought that the credits rolling to the original theme over that photo of Sally would have been a great ending

[James Martin]

£50 says the car was intended to drive past the You Are Now Leaving Summer Bay sign.

[Alison C]

Have to say that the downside of watching the old episodes is that it reminds me of how good H&A used to be compared to now.

I liked how there was much more interaction between everyone on the show. Now you only see people talking if it progresses a storyline. I mean I don't think that Ruby and Casey have even been in the diner at the same time since they broke up! And seeing the friendship between Sally & Leah shows that they don't think about that nowadays. I mean has Leah even been to the hospital to visit Bianca or did they stop being friends when Bianca moved out?

Edited to add: When the Flynn cancer storyline originally happened I think I cried every day for the full 3 months and watching these episodes now made me cry again. I don't think I even care enough about anyone now to cry about them.

[Red Ranger 1]

I think we did see Leah at the hospital while Bianca was in a coma, although it was mainly a plot device for her to meet Danny.

Ah, 2010.Only two years ago and I'm still shocked at how young the likes of Romeo and Gina look, even if they're no less annoying.(Angelo possibly looked younger than he did the previous year, he seemed to have grown his hair out a bit.)Again, I find myself paying more attention to the ordinary scenes surrounding the big event.The race riot hasn't really aged that well now it's lost the shock value, it's still nicely staged and doesn't shy away from the more unpleasant aspects of human nature but the aggressors are ciphers and their victim is a token ethnic who popped in for a few weeks purely for this storyline. (I'm not sure if the fact we're halfway between Jai's departure and Elijah's arrival is bad timing or an indicator that they were wary of having to deal with anyone important being the target of a racist attack.) Forgotten how unlikeable Mink was in the early days, I didn't really warm to her until just before she left.Her taking some of the people smuggling money is a lot easier to swallow now it means Hugo didn't get his hands on it, the "Make up for what I did with it" was forgotten about after about a week leaving it as a rather uncomfortable device they were never knew what to do with.Major plus:Miles and Rabbit!Ah, why wasn't she real?(Or was she?Or wasn't she?Or...no, lost the thread.)Love the interaction between them every time.

And Hugo being targetted by the worst hitman ever, while he takes lessons from Ruby in acting guilty so everyone reassures you.Not really a lot to say about that, again the best bit of the episode was Miles' scene, love the way he went back for his juice before going to read Jill the riot act.Charlie and Angelo's flirting was a real "Girl, you really should have stuck with him..." moment, knowing how she ended up. And John Palmer hiding a woman in his cupboard because another one's turned up.Bet that doesn't happen to him very often.

By the way, surprised we only had one episode with Aden in given how popular he was, not that I was ever a fan.Well, okay, there's two online but one's been shown about five times and the other was in the wrong section, so it's no surprise they didn't get picked.

[c120701]

£50 says the car was intended to drive past the You Are Now Leaving Summer Bay sign.

And Sal says "I forgot Milco!"

[cadyctslover]

I started off watching the first episode from 2010 yesterday thinking "Oh, what an under-rated season", but unfortunately the second episode confirms that they still had some real problems that year.

The first episode was about moving on from the mistakes of the previous season, to a lighter but still interesting format, a good example being Miles and Rabbit. However a few months later Aden's exit storyline and the return of Hugo showed that they hadn't really learnt their lesson.

Anyway I thought, and still think the race riot was a really good storyline, and that perhaps racism is an issue they should continue to discuss on the show. Again this marked the beginning of some interesting storylines for Alf and Leah as their faith in the community began to disintegrate, although it's a shame Leah's agoraphobia seems to have been completely forgotten about. A nice touch to underline Alf's feelings following the event was the memorable scene at the end of the episode where he picks up the Australian flag amongst the devastation. It's a shame that these days the sort of characters which could end up in a riot such as this, and who cause mindless destruction are glorified.

Another weird thing was that this episode was about the fifth following Hugo's 'death' and both Gina and Xavier appeared to have completely moved on.

The second episode was in my opinion one of the worst of 2010, the stunt in the water container with Gina, Xavier and Martha being totally B-movie quality. And why on earth didn't Rachel hear their screams from inside the house?

Although they must be quite difficult and expensive to choreograph, it's always a bit disappointing when car crashes happen off-screen. Then when we see the aftermath it's pretty clear that Tony's silver Honda has been swapped for a different vehicle. Not only does it have different wheels, and orange turn signals, but the bonnet had a massive rust patch suggesting that it was trashed some time before filming. But it is the same colour I'll give them that. I was also a bit confused as to why Tony is knocked unconscious, how exactly did that happen??

Luckily quite soon after Martha and Hugo left 2010 got its bearings with the return of the Walkers, introduction of Roo and the majority of the storylines.

By the way I'm not sure why the third online episode is 4995, seeing as this was actually from 2009. Surely 4996 would have been better as it went some way to explain the YLM of the year before, and was actually a 2010 episode!

[alexx]

I tend to think 2010 started off promising. They actually did increase the number of 'warm/poignant' moments, with episodes sometimes having a happy ending (like old H&A) - and they did increase the comedy and 'lighthearted' tone overall. Marilyn's arrival was great. They also started to give Colleen some decent attention and Leah was finally doing something other than toss a salad (though I don't really like what they've done with her). The sets were all looking brilliant too what with the newly introduced lighting design and the production values increased with the helicopter shots of Summer Bay. But the writing started to let things down...

I think sometime mid-year, I'd say around August with the Penn storyline and heavy, heavy focus on love and romance, nothing else - it was obvious they were taking this whole 'Bay of Love' way too far and it became really irritating. It felt like we were waiting for a big storyline to happen or they were building up to lot's of different plots that were going to reach a dramatic and character focused point - instead they all fizzled out to nothing. I also disliked the season finale. The first half of 2011 was better than the last half of 2010, but they did make a mess of Marilyn, turning a lot of board members against her (which I hated to see).