Home and Away 2004 Cliffhanger/Noah's Death - 10 Years Ago

[CaptainHulk]

I reckon This is what lead to show to become what it IS today...

[alexx]

I reckon This is what lead to show to become what it IS today...

In a way, I agree with you. It was probably an inspiration for the 'Summer Bay Stalker' storyline the following year. Whilst 2005 was when I really see that the show's format changed (from character driven to plot driven), 2004 was actually the first time I noticed quite a shift in the way the show was being produced, it was starting to feel different. I don't know if that was because the incidental music changed that year (Mike Perjanik left at the end of 2003) or whether the HD/cinematic look had started and I disliked it at the time.

Having said that, they did do a couple of holdups back in the 90's too and that didn't alter the way the show was written overall. But I definitely think that the writers wanted to top the Sarah Lewis storyline and then they probably felt like they had to keep topping the last big 'event' until we get what we have these days when a 'big event' happens every few weeks and it's lost all of it's impact.

[jodlebirger]

Right did Hayley visit Peter in hospital while he was in a coma?? I can remember watching this scene.

Yes she did Sarah in episode 3808 (three episodes after the shooting).

She was accompanied by Noah's 'ghost' as well.

I admire when people remember the details so well. As I said in my previous post, I saw this two years later than Australians/Brits/NZ and I still can't remember the details, just the big lines.

This storyline really had a lot of impact on the characters and how they developed from there. Wasn't this when Peter "died" and suddenly was in Witness protections 3 years later? Or have I messed up different storylines?

[alexx]

Right did Hayley visit Peter in hospital while he was in a coma?? I can remember watching this scene.

Yes she did Sarah in episode 3808 (three episodes after the shooting).

She was accompanied by Noah's 'ghost' as well.

I admire when people remember the details so well. As I said in my previous post, I saw this two years later than Australians/Brits/NZ and I still can't remember the details, just the big lines.

This storyline really had a lot of impact on the characters and how they developed from there. Wasn't this when Peter "died" and suddenly was in Witness protections 3 years later? Or have I messed up different storylines?

Yep, I agree that the aftermath was handled so well. It was classic H&A, really emotional and character focused.

Peter was in a coma for a few months, after revealing to Leah that Vinnie was still alive. But he woke from the coma and was a major part of the Summer Bay Stalker storyline in 2005. He 'died' during the barn/wedding explosion in 2006 and then we found out he had been in Witness Protection a few months later once Drew had turned up.

[CaptainHulk]

To be fair, Felix was the original stalker followed by Sarah who was bat-s**** insane and then ZoEve who took it to a next dimension.

That period felt like CSI Summer bay, which I dubbed the "Emergency Era" not so long ago

[jodlebirger]

Right did Hayley visit Peter in hospital while he was in a coma?? I can remember watching this scene.

Yes she did Sarah in episode 3808 (three episodes after the shooting).

She was accompanied by Noah's 'ghost' as well.

I admire when people remember the details so well. As I said in my previous post, I saw this two years later than Australians/Brits/NZ and I still can't remember the details, just the big lines.

This storyline really had a lot of impact on the characters and how they developed from there. Wasn't this when Peter "died" and suddenly was in Witness protections 3 years later? Or have I messed up different storylines?

Yep, I agree that the aftermath was handled so well. It was classic H&A, really emotional and character focused.

Peter was in a coma for a few months, after revealing to Leah that Vinnie was still alive. But he woke from the coma and was a major part of the Summer Bay Stalker storyline in 2005. He 'died' during the barn/wedding explosion in 2006 and then we found out he had been in Witness Protection a few months later once Drew had turned up.

Oh, yes!! Now I remember...

I fell out of the show for a little period in 2006... around the heights of Martha/Jack, around their wedding... But I watched when Drew found out that his father was alive, and Dan had a problem with the whole thing.

[Pierced Musie]

The reason that the Sarah Lewis storyline was great and can never be topped is because the baddie was not a baddie at all. She was so messed up by drugs (thanks to Felix) that even when she killed someone she was still sympathetic.

Wow, I can't believe it was 10 years ago.

And still can't believe that 2004 is still probably my favourite year of H&A.

(And yes... the fact Noah & Kit never happened still annoys me).

[Red Ranger 1]

I seem to remember it got shown over Easter in the UK but I may be totally wrong.I don't think they even tried to hide the reveal here:As soon as it was shown in Australia, the soap mags were all "You know we told you Noah and Hayley got married?Well, make the most of it because he just got shot."You had one of those wonderfully schizophrenic magazine previews that was like "The episode starts with a funeral and you don't know whose it is, then we find out it's Noah."So...we know who it is now then.

I dunno, maybe familiarity breeds contempt but even at the time I could see massive flaws and they've only become more obvious over the past decade.Having heard the behind the scenes story recently, the fact that it's an unnecessary dogleg added to someone else's story by a new writing team becomes painfully clear:They'd made a big deal about Sarah's apparently final fate, her life destroyed by drugs, locked up in a mental institute for the foreseeable future because she'd so lost touch on reality she killed her boyfriend without even realising it...and then suddenly she was back for a repeat performance with better aim.The storyline writes itself into a corner by putting everyone where Sarah could never find them but the plot requires her to find them and it also requires someone to be free to alert the police.So the episode has Scott knowingly lead Sarah to his friend, a massive moral awkwardness than was never addressed:The script seems to insist he had no choice but the moment Sarah left Dani behind she had no bargaining tool, yet Scott carries on doing what she says anyway.It's one of those frustrating situations when if they'd tweaked it slightly it would have worked, if Sarah had taken Dani along as a hostage so Scott had a reason to co-operate, and the police had actually bothered to check on Peter after he went to check on the safe house instead of needing the main characters to let them know something's wrong.(And the way that Sarah took everyone hostage but Dani, her prime target up until that point, and instead started waving her gun at people like Sally and Leah who she'd never met before felt like an abrupt change of motivation.)I'm afraid I don't think it really stands up to repeat viewing.Or careful analysis of the first viewing.

[beau_t]

(And the way that Sarah took everyone hostage but Dani, her prime target up until that point, and instead started waving her gun at people like Sally and Leah who she'd never met before felt like an abrupt change of motivation.)I'm afraid I don't think it really stands up to repeat viewing.Or careful analysis of the first viewing.

While I completely agree with what you are saying, I don't think any actions of someone who's brain has melted under the influence of Crystal Meth stand up to careful analysis. Her change in motivation from targeting Dani, to waving her gun randomly at a bunch of strangers, to me just made her seem all the more messed up and made the effects of Crystal Meth all the more scary. Let's not forget that to Sarah's warped mind, what she was doing made perfect sense.

I do agree though about Scott, he had other options and it would have been interesting for the writers to have explored this in the aftermath of Noah's death. But as I've never had a crazy person pointing a gun at my head asking me to do something I don't want to, I'll reserve judgement on how easy it would have been for him defy Sarah.

I also agree with Alexx's point than episode like the siege wouldn't stand out as being as special in today's show as it was back then.

As a side note, I remember reading that whole cliffhanger was Bevan recycling one of the first big cliffhangers he wrote for the show back in 1988, with Sam Barlow, Kerry, Steven and Ailsa fighting over Sam's gun, and we cut to outside and hear a gun shot.

I also agree with Pierced Musie, Sarah was sympathetic. Even during the siege, she kept saying "please don't make me do this, i don't want to do this" and she looked like she was in genuine turmoil. She actually didn't want to shoot innocent people and it was cutting her up inside, but she felt like she had to, in her warped logic, to avenge Felix's death.

All in all, a very good storyline!

I have to say that I felt the Stalker storyline of 2005 kind of cheapened the 2004 storyline in some ways. Even though I enjoyed both stories very much, in different ways. And I did like how it actually explained how Sarah escaped (something that had never been addressed before). And I liked how they cleverly inter-cut footage of Sarah and Zoe/Eve together. I wonder how early this storyline was planned. I mean, Bevan knew he was only coming in temporarily until Daniel Bennett took over in 2005. And Daniel was (I believe) working on the show, in a lower-ranking position, up until then. Was the entire thing planned between the two of them?

[jodlebirger]

The reason why I never quite liked the Sarah/Felix storyline, was that it really wasn't a good portrayal of Sarah's drug addiction. And there was very little about her past, just a mention about the institution. She was just an another maniac, maybe the real first one, that crystal meth was mentioned to be the reason doesn't change that. I think that we should have seen more of Sarah, learned to know her better. And there were several wholes in the whole shooting episode, as RR1 points out.

But I think the aftermath of the shooting was really good, as I said it had a huge impact on everyone. And that is the difference between those times and today. When there is a disaster or shooting/bomb or whatever, today, it doesn't have a huge impact on the characters. We do see some hospital scenes for a couple of characters, and then it blows over.. But there is no impact on the community as a whole. Even in the cliffhanger of 2008 the disaster had a impact on several characters, and different sets of characters. It probably changed from 2010.