What would you like to see in 2013?

[jodlebirger]

I don't think that the (Australian) 2010 season was about romance and humour at all... Studying this from a distance (as I live in Norway and read news and gossip on the net) I think 2010 was all about the reputation and perfect surface. In 2009 the show got a lot of negative press down under and I think what got important for the show's producers and writers was to get back a good reputation, and that became more important than the storylines. The commercials and the promos got more "aggressive" towards fans and more slicked produced. Yes, I watched them on youtube something that probably isn't quite right, but I didn't put them there... but they made me think. The bay of love promo had nothing to do with the storylines at all... It was only to give the public a perfect view on H&A. These kind of promos (which had nothing to do with the storylines) are totally unusual in my country, so I reacted on them. In my country we would have concentrated more on character building and the storylines, I think. We did have the same problem with Hotel ceacar (a Norwegian long running soap) some years back, but the character developement got more important after the complaints. Sometimes I think that H&A is too good at making promos... they are far better than the storylines.

For H&A in 2010 when it became more important to get rid of what was wrong, they gave the popular characters the worst thinkable exits, and just took new characters in and had some returns just for the sake of it (with a lot of promos of course) without thinking about the character developement and the storyline arcs. The storylines went nowhere and had no depth. What was the point with Penn, who was really his father? It could have been a really touching storyline! The storyline about Romeo and his mother seemed to be used just to put the recent departed Aden in a even worse light, the return of Marilyn was just done to bring an old face back to silenced the critics about moving to far from lighter stuff and the storylines about rabbit, Mink, Mitzy were just brought on to bring in somekind of an contrast to the recently departed characters and their storylines. And for the romance - they destroyed every good relationship they had (also friendships) and the new characters were introduced without character bulding storylines. I know that the show had a real dip in ratings in 2010 in Australia and here it was a discussion about dropping the show when that season was aired.

I think that this kind of storytelling has continued, but from the River boys arrival in the 2011 season the show became faster again and a bit more exciting for some. But the characters are still cold, I have a feeling that this hasn't changed in 2012... The couplings seems random and without no building, and things just seem to be done just to create a buzz... I think that 2005-09 were different from this even with a lot of stalker storylines. The characters seemed more defined, they had more a purpose in the summerbay community, the community sense seemed more realistic - more school storylines, more friendship units and better family-units, even if there were fosterfamilies in that time and not a real family as the Walkers. Irene was far better as a fostermum to Belle, Geoff and Annie than she is as a house keeper and as an advisor to Bianca and April. And Alf has been totally lost since Martha departed. I think they are writing Roo in a wrong way, she is not a teen anymore and all Alf is doing is throwing out advices... Roo should have been more an integrated in the bay community - returned with a kid instead of being portrayed as a grown up teen.

The 2013 season is far away from me, even the channel that airs H&A now is giving us two new eps each weekday (mon-fri)... But I would like better community building storylines in 2013 season, better character building storylines, especially for the new arrivals and giving the storylines more shapes to the community. More decent school storylines, there haven't really been one since 2008 season. More storylines at the diner, I miss the days in the Diner Den when Leah, Belle and Irene solved their problems in the kitchen. Give Irene and Roo some foster children (which are teens and not around 30..). Give Alf some grandchildren to care about like he did with Martha, have Morags back for stints with a good reason like she did in 2003-2009, not like she has been treated in 2010 and 2011.

[alexx]

^I agree with most of that. I do think that 2010 was mostly revolving around romance and humor though. Where most of the screen time was spent watching characters 'fall in love', build a romance, fall out of love, kiss him, kiss her, make up/break up - and then we had the more comical strands coming from Marilyn, Alf and Miles in SBH. They also started creating these slow burning 'drama' storyline that all lead to nothing and fizzled out. It made the show frustrating to watch.

The Bay of Love promo's were horrible and to me H&A came across as shallow and boring in them rather than exciting and 'perfect'. The Penn storyline was boring and meaningless. Aden's exit was terrible and rushed. And I agree that this is the season where characters started to become cold and that has continued. The drama has picked up but again they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Now it feels like the same show as 2010, but with the River Boys. This is why I say they need balance in 2013 and going forward.

[Jezz]

I want to see a good balance between drama and light-hearted moments on the show in 2013. I love the River Boys, but even I admit that they get too much screen exposure as opposed to characters such as Alf and Irene. If there was a balance between the new and old, the show would already be better. It would be great to see more school-related storylines, fostering storylines and just your typical soap drama like it was back in 2004-2008.

I started to lose interest in the show after Aden left in 2010, and I had high hopes for the Penn Graham storyline, but it turned out to be a real let down in my opinion. The River Boys have kept me interested in the show, but the show hasn't been very exciting in the past 3-4 years. If you watch the 2004 episodes as opposed to the 2012 episodes, you'll see a dramatic contrast between the two when it comes to good drama and it's more character-building oriented. These days the show is quite dull, and I only like the show for the River Boys.

The teen characters these days aren't great. I only like Sasha and Casey. Romeo and Indi are just repetitive and boring. Bianca and April annoy me greatly with their constant whining and issues, Liam almost seems like a pointless character, even though I do like his character. The Walkers are good as a family, but individually each character annoys me somewhat apart from Dex and Sasha when they're not interacting together.

I'll still keep watching the show out of the sake it improves, but the writers need to be aware that the current direction it's heading in won't improve the ratings too much, unless it makes some necessary changes.