Teenage Groups/Storylines

[Ryan]

One of the things I read quite often from certain groups of posters on here is they are not interested in "teenage" storylines. I do watch scenes nowadays and I simply can't be bothered. Ruby, Romeo, Indi, Dex, April, Casey, Sasha etc.

When I look at my DVD's, they are not clear of teenage angst. In fact there's quite a few and generally before going to sleep, I like to stick a disc on and watch a couple of episodes and make my way through a series. There's Degrassi, Dawson's Creek, BH 90210, Gilmore Girls, Everwood, Greek, The OC to name just a few, so obviously I'm not completely against watching youngsters and they're troubles and they are all slightly different as well, from ensemble casts to shows that focus on just a few people. Watching The Early Years, I enjoyed Roo, Carly, Bobby, Frank as well as Steven, Viv, Emma. The current lot at the moment I'm finding Rick Astley and Karen slightly weak and perhaps the writers do to becuase neither stick around for much longer.

I feel I've seen enough to believe that I enjoy the 92-95 bunch as well as the 94-96/7 bunch and then getting into the group that started in 98-01 as well. There was the Band of 4 storylines that featured the twins, Nick and A.N. Other from 00-03 and I did enjoy some Robbie, Tasha, Kim stuff, especially during late-04, so I'm pretty sure I'm not against what you'd call "teenage storylines".

So back to the current day, I simply can't find any interest in what you could call the teenage group. I use group loosely because I don't think they are a group, they actually seem like a random bunch of interlinked acquiantances and I feel the reason that I can't get into these storylines is because a bunch of people I think that they are in the main badly written. The characters seem to be thrown into the show without any real thought of what they are doing. Every month they all seem to have a new partner and a lot of the time it feels their storyline is either getting together with or breaking up with someone. With a few exceptions, I can't actually remember if any of these characters have had storylines revolving around issues or perhaps it's because when they did have these issues it was because it was theme of the week and actually has no relevance to the characters they are today. Another issue appears to be the schools terrible record of getting pupils through the HSC, meaning we have no idea of who is supposed to be in what year.

I always thought that they could put Lily and VJ into the show and build on that group for around five years until they too are ready to leave for University, with ideas of where you want those 2 characters to be at the end of it as well, with ideas of the sort of storylines and characters you would build around them. I sometimes have ideas that go round and round in the windmills of mind, some are possibly good (or stolen from other shows), others are maybe only legends in my mind.

So, yeah, what's your opinions on how the teenage groups are being written?

[c120701]

I think you're right, it's not the teen storylines as such, it's that the characters aren't very well developed. Take Casey for example - he seemed to be developing a friendship (and I assumed it was leading to a relationship) with April, then they suddenly seemed to switch April for Sasha who is now his confidant.

Then you have Xavier and Dex who are apparently best friends, but I can't remember the last time they actually had a scene to do with their friendship - again, Sasha was the reason they shared a scene. Ruby has no friends her own age, because she's either dated the males or slept with the female's boyfriends and Indi has had little to do with anyone but Romeo and Ruby out of the people her age (who aren't her siblings - and even then she has little to do with Dex or Sasha).

Looking back, compare it to Shannon & Selina or Nick & Duncan/Seb - they were friends, they had their own relationships as well, but the characters were well developed, they had established 'family' relationships, their friendships and their romantic interests, all of which would crossover at points, be it Shannon stopping by the Beach House to walk Selina to school and saying hi to "Mrs Roberts" (I think I remember her being called that) or just Irene. Selina would be Shannon's confidante regarding her latest beau (or belle) and the romantic interest would be her sounding board about a falling out with Selina.

On top of that they had their own issue based storylines, but you knew they had their support network to help them out.

Now we have Roo, Marilyn, Leah and Irene taking it in turns as to who offers advice in the Diner, because no-one has any friends to talk to anything about. Remember that we used to have storylines where the teens confident in their friends and kept things from the adults? That doesn't happen now.

I also agree about the ridiculous HSC failures or drop-outs. I know the World is probably different now as it's almost expected that everyone will go to University, but I think they've done that quite well with Indi - there's the Uni in Yabbie Creek, yes we don't see her doing a lot of coursework, but we've seen the challenges of mingling in different circles and the social aspect. Wasn't part of the reason the Department gave Sally the push the poor HSC marks? Bartlett & Gina haven't done any better.

That said, I have enjoyed the Jet & Lottie storylines, which have almost paralleled each other, with Roo taking Lottie in and then Gina taking in Jet - along with mentions of DoCS - at last the show is actually showing some legal fostering.

[alexx]

I have to completely agree with both posts. But this shift in direction and change in writing methods is just yet another reason the show no longer feels like Home and Away. It isn't H&A any more, its a brand new program, new direction. This is also another reason as to why everything feels so cold and heartless in 'Summer Bay' these days. No sold and reliable friendships, no community themes going on.

I used to really enjoy the character driven stand along storylines each teenager used to have. Like when Shannon struck up her friendship with that Irish poet, or went off to Uni with Kye - whilst Jack struggled to find his place in the world and Selina was getting caught up in cults. As said above, they would then hang out with each other realistically and discuss their lives with each other (as friends do). It wasn't only about who slept with who. Making up/breaking up... its all so shallow. And 'professionals' are getting paid thousands to come up with it. I literally hate this sort of 'drama' and yet it takes up 45% of the screen time (Braxtons taking u the remaining 65%).

[Ryan]

This may be slightly sappy as well, but I think when you look at the way with the interchangeable relationship situation we've had for numerous years, well possibly since the show began, it feels ages since we've had a proper love story. I was hoping Romeo and Indi would turn into something interesting, a case of two relatively young people trying to build a life together. Ultimately that's not what we go. They stayed at Indi's dad and now we've got the relative rubbish going on with Ruby as well. I know if try to hard to make it (such as they did with Martha and Jake) some people just don't buy it.

Alexx, at least they're writting an action packed show filled with 110% of screen time!