Dion

No Shortland Street tonight due to NZ Labour Day long weekend (interestingly there is an episode on Monday, but I suppose everyone will be home by then whereas tonight lots of people will be fighting their way through traffic) which suggests that the finale at the end of the year will be an hour long.

I get the feeling after tonight's episode that the required male peer may have arrived.

Yep you pointed out a link to the video a few months back so I purposely went into a bit more into a bit more detail regarding Bernie's death so you'd recognise it (the full story was that Carla had left Sam and gone back to the abusive Bernie to get her hands on his money, an earthquake struck Ferndale while they were arguing one day knocking them both over and Carla hit him with a candlestick. Sam found Bernie but Carla killed him in the hospital and Sam was accused of delivering the blow to his head). Carla's many crimes included possibly framing her sister for marijuana usage, the incidents with Tiffany, faking a pregnancy and then letting her niece Minnie blame herself when she faked a miscarriage and taunting the truck driver who then went and crashed into the clinic causing Carmen's death. Grace and Sam were interesting characters to bring back, I guess it all came down to the actor's availability. Sam was mainly remembered for the car crash that killed his wife T.P and best friend Steve. I'd love it if Guy came back, I feel he got a bit of bum deal during his last stint in 2007 - 08 when he ran off with Toni and Harry and was a drug addict.

Haven't done one of these in a while, so in light of Nicole and Vinnie's wedding I thought I'd do a "front burner to footnote" on the first person on Shortland Street to have two (successfully completed) onscreen weddings, Nurse Tiffany Pratt Warner Marinovich (the almost long forgotten Mrs Chris Warner #2). Tiffany Pratt arrived in early January 1995, a stereotypical blonde bimbo of a nurse who made no secret that her number one ambition in life was to marry a rich doctor. One of Tiffany's first acts was to raise the hemline of the skirt from her nurses' uniform from near ankle-length to knee-length, causing scandal amongst her co-workers. Predictably, Tiffany soon caught the attention of Chris Warner, heir to the Warner dynasty, who was somewhat perturbed to learn of Tiffany's comments about wanting to snare a rich doctor. Chris started playing along with Tiffany's ambitions and within weeks had proposed, partly as a joke. However, by then his game with her had turned into a real attraction and Chris genuinely wanted to be with her, only for Tiffany to learn about his initial disdain for her and dump him. After moving in with Grace Kwan, Tiffany soon found herself the centre of attraction for many men as Sam Aleni and Billy Leach also had feelings for her. One admirer was a phantom cleaner who would weirdly clean the apartment Tiffany shared with Grace. This turned out to be Nurse Otis Jackson, who quickly fled Ferndale after his cleaning obsession was exposed. Tiffany eventually hooked up with Billy, but her newfound romance was threatened by the arrival of the somewhat frumpy nurse Carla Crozier (sister of then Director of Nursing Ellen Crozier), who resented Tiffany for having the looks that she did not. As Carla married Bernie Leach (Billy's brother) after a whirlwind romance, the two nurses were set to clash with each other and had a catfight at Kennedy's (the local bar at the time). Tiffany soon fell ill and learned she had Hepatitis C. Tiffany assumed she had contracted the disease from a needle stick injury, but hadn't filled out the required ACC forms at the time thus leaving her with no way of getting compensation if she became too sick to work. Carla, who was temporarily filling in as DON at the time (Ellen has somewhat suspiciously failed a drug test and while it was never confirmed, it was strongly suggested that Carla had done it), attempted to blackmail Tiffany into quitting Shortland Street. In return, Carla would backdate the ACC forms. However, Ellen returned and took back her position as DON and filled in the forms for Tiffany. Some weeks later as her Hep C infection became fully acute, Tiffany fell ill and deliriously wandered out onto the road into the path of an oncoming truck as a smiling Carla watched. Chris happened to be there and saved Tiffany. Chris accused Carla of intentionally letting Tiffany walk onto the road, but Carla denied it and Tiffany told Chris to let the matter drop. Some time later Billy found out that he had Hep C as a result of sharing needles with a woman from his past in med school and realised that he gave Tiffany Hep C. Carla soon found out about this and seeing Billy as a threat to her marriage, blackmailed Billy into fleeing town. Chris and Tiffany soon reunited and eventually got engaged for the second time. The Boganish Tiffany struggled to fit in at the Warner's and was somewhat jealous of all the attention that the pregnant Carmen Roberts (the partner of Chris' brother Guy) was getting from her future in-laws (ironically Carmen was even more boganish than Tiffany was so poor Tiffany couldn't even claim snobbery lol). After hearing Bruce and Margot Warner gush after the soon to be born 'first' grandchild, Tiffany snapped and revealed that Chris had been the sperm donor for nurse Carrie Burton and was the father of her triplets. The Warner's quickly went to Australia to visit the triplets before a terminally ill Bruce passed away, leaving Tiffany in some doubt over where she stood with Chris. But she and Chris reunited upon his return. Chris and Tiffany married on Valentines Day 1996 and Tiffany continued to struggle with being a Warner, making the mistake of bringing Bernie Leach to a society function (Bernie was now a pariah as he had become abusive towards Carla). Some time later, Bernie was murdered by Carla (She hit him with a Candlestick in the 1000th episode, later switching off his life support). Tiffany helped expose Carla and thus clear Sam's name (he'd been accused of the crime). Chris left with Guy and Tuesday to go to the USA and Tiffany promised to join him, though she kept putting it off as she was afraid of flying. For the rest of the year Tiffany did nothing much apart from changing her hairstyle (dying her hair red and adopting the 'Rachel' hairstyle made famous at the time by Jennifer Aniston) and supporting her new flatmate Emily through her relationship dramas. Tiffany eventually left to go see Chris in the states... Tiffany suddenly returned in early 1997 and soon revealed that she'd caught Chris with his old flame Alison (who'd eventually be Mrs Warner #3 and Phoenix's mum). After a trying Valentines Day (also Chris and Tiffany's wedding anniversary), Tiffany hooked up with Johnny Marinovich. Margot tried to get Tiffany to fight for Chris, but soon learned about Tiffany and Johnny's tryst from his step-daughter Minnie. However, IIRC, Margot was somewhat understanding and accepted that Chris and Tiffany's marriage was over and so Margot and Tiffany stayed on friendly terms. Tiffany supported Johnny when his one time fling Isobel Kearney announced she was pregnant with his child and eventually Isobel left town claiming the child wasn't Johnny's (but admitted to Tiffany that the child was). Tiffany also supported Johnny when he had troubles with a stalker and was accused of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl. By this time, Tiffany was a blonde again. At the end of the year Tiffany fell ill with Hep C again and became comatose. In the 1997 finale, Johnny tearfully begged Tiffany to wake up, finally admitting that he loved her. Tiffany did wake up and she and Johnny soon embarked on a relationship. Around the time Tiffany learned she was pregnant, Isobel showed up with Johnny's son Bradley, and caused some drama, though she eventually left town again. After learning that Johnny's ex love Jenny had aborted his child and that Ellen (Johnny's ex wife) had not wanted children, Tiffany eventually began to wonder if Johnny was only with her for the baby. However Johnny reassured her and the two were married at his family's vineyard. One day the now five months pregnant Tiffany saw a suicidal patient about to jump off a building. She went up to the roof to talk him down and was successful, only to fall off the roof herself! Poor Tiffany then languished in a coma for weeks as debates went on about what to do as Johnny wanted to switch the life support off but her parents wanted to keep her alive until she gave birth. Eventually Tiffany had seizures and the baby was delivered, a healthy but premature girl whom Johnny named Maria. Tiffany then died that day. A brief custody dispute ensued between Johnny and Tiffany's parents, but eventually Johnny decided to move to Christchurch with Maria so they would be close to Tiffany's parents. Anyway, despite being frontburner for most of the period between 1995 and 1998 with a sensational exit, Tiffany was barely ever mentioned again on the show. In fact I can't think of one single instance when Chris ever mentioned her after he returned in 2000.

I think it was just for the wedding episode. Robbie Magasiva is still doing Wentworth the remake/reboot/reimagining (whatever the term is these days) of Prisoner: Cell Block H. Yeah Alex would have been my choice for a male peer, Daniel would also have the required maturity now but I think Phoenix wouldn't the backbone to stand up to Curtis.

I did think it was odd how Kylie referred to Maxwell as "VInnie's cousin, apparently". I would have thought she'd known Vinnie and Ula well enough to realise that Maxwell was Ula's (albeit non-biological) father. I did know Maxwell was going to perform the ceremony as he was in NZ TV Guide two weeks ago I'm increasingly of the opinion that Curtis needs a male peer to keep him in line...a platonic bromance.

I've been meaning to mention that James from the above video has a regular Shortland street themed Youtube channel called Shortland Street scandal.

Unfortunately the account has been terminated.

speaking of that Sarah and Roimata both got mentioned tonight which was nice (was beginning to think TK had forgotten all about wife #2, particularly as he didn't mention her when he was listing off all the people he'd failed). I'm not too surprised Pixie died so close to Sarah's death anniversary (which was Tuesday just gone in fact). The end of the winter season has become the mid year version of the end of year cliffhanger (although sometimes they used to have that at the start of the winter season, like in 2012 with the 20th anniversary). BTW did you know that Boyd's mum is Pixie's mum in real life?

Regarding the format of the episode (told in flashback through Marilyn's call to Fisher) I remember the show did several episodes like this around this period (surf carnival episodes told from Vinnie and Tom Nash's points of view and another episode that I think was something like an article/journal/essay that Shannon was writing).

Yeah I know (I refrained from posting about it til I was sure you'd seen it).

I hope so, too. I was also hoping Kylie did blame TK and maybe someone like Wendy got hurt in the crossfire so others would blame him, too. I wanted him to suffer, all alone. Maybe that's coming. I had to laugh when Boyd and Harper announced plans to have their wedding near Christmas. These people never learn. I also forgot to ask before, but does New Zealand not have regulations about pregnant women flying. Surely Bella was far too gone to go to Fiji? Yes he didn't suffer enough IMO. Air New Zealand's policy on flying while pregnant is here: http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/special-assistance-travelling-when-pregnant As Fiji is only three hours away and Bella is less than 37 weeks and has had a relatively trouble free pregnancy (well physically trouble free) it's ok for her to fly.

The end to the Pania storyline last night was a bit anti-climatic. Hopefully it's not the end and she comes back to terrorise a bit more at the end of the year.

KJ Apa is also going to appear in a six part NZ sci fi family series The Cul de sac

I'm sure Connor and Whitney had a tryst in the Arches...

And we're back after a downtime lasting several days while they updated the forum. Well Thursday's cliffhanger with poor Clementine's hand certainly got people talking. I'm glad she turned out to be alive though. But now it looks like she may be permanently paralysed.

Part 3 in my ongoing series "From frontburner to footnote". This time we look at a relatively recent character, that being Nicole's long forgotten half-sister Morgan Braithwaite. Morgan was introduced in 2008, towards the end of the Ferndale strangler story as new nurse that also happened to be an old girlfriend of Joey Henderson. She popped up for a few episodes basically declared her love for Joey and then disappeared from the screen, returning several months later as the purchaser of Joey's drawings (interestingly it was implied that she'd been working at Shortland Street all along just off screen). Gerald bullied her for a while, but the two eventually became friends and slept together. Unfortunately for Morgan, soon afterwards Gerald discovered his asexuality and after trying celibacy for a while, Morgan slept with Hunter McKay. Gerald and Morgan broke up. After a brief flirtation with another guy who also happened to be asexual Morgan eventually took up with Hunter again. Morgan faced money problems and entered into a somewhat dubious surrogacy arrangement with her friends Trent and Cindy (Commercial surrogacy is forbidden in NZ and couples must also go through ECART - Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproduction Technology if they want a legal surrogacy arrangement - this explains the details http://www.smithpartners.co.nz/library/articles/family-law/what-is-surrogacy-understanding-the-process-and-law-in-new-zealand/). As ECART (or merely the ethics committee as it was referred to on the show) had turned down the surrogacy attempt due to Morgan never having given birth before, Morgan impersonated Cindy and had an IVF plantation and was soon pregnant with triplets. Hunter couldn't handle all this and soon split with Morgan. After Trent and CIndy suggested aborting one of the triplets so the other two would have a better chance, Morgan decided to keep them herself and married Gerald partly so as to be in a better position to keep the triplets (as surrogacy is pretty much treated like a normal adoption anyway, it was not strictly necessary for her to marry Gerald as Morgan had all the legal rights to keep them) and partly as they still had feelings for each other. In the end though, Morgan gave birth prematurely and give the triplets to Trent and Cindy anyway. Gerald and Morgan seperated, and Morgan soon found herself a new friend in the form of Nicole Miller (A character who of course would end up being totally insignifcant ). Both Gerald and Hunter were suspicious of Nicole and thought she may have had romantic feelings for her as Nicole's bisexuality was established early on. However, Nicole soon revealed she was in fact Morgan's half sister (Leanne's husband had cheated with Morgan's mother). Kieran Mitchell's brother Sean (posing as the other mitchell brother Sid for reasons that I forget) showed an interest in Morgan as Christmas approached. Meanwhile Nicole had wanted Morgan to join her family for christmas, but this was turned down by Leanne (then an offscreen character of course). And so Morgan wound up at the fateful 2009 Shortland Street Christmas party. Chasing after Tania who was upset that her ex boyfriend had hooked up with her mother, Morgan had the misfortune of being run over by Kieran Mitchell as he desperately raced to stop Sean from burning down the IV. Kieran, who had a passed out Rachel in the car with him, put Rachel in the drivers seat and took off. The last episode of 2009 then ended with the chilling close up of dead Morgan. While the storyline dealing with the aftermath of Morgan's death did occupy a fair chunk of 2010, once Kieran died it seemed that everyone else forgot all about her. Even Nicole does not mention her poor deceased half-sister all that often. I was hoping that Nicole might name her baby Morgan (it's even a gender neutral name), but alas that was not meant to be. The nature of her death (and that it was only five years ago) does mean that she does mean she has a place in some fans memories, but honestly that's more to do with the fact that Kieran killed her.

Clementine is following in the hallowed footsteps of Shortland Street's original young receptionist archetype Kirsty Knight, spreading the gossip when it suits but also having a switch that turns to detective/secret keeper mode. The incident with the thieves several months ago was classic Kirsty, as was her confrontation with Pania when Pania was bullying Bella.

Switching the bodies and having Caleb cremated was quite low for Pania (though obviously not as low as murder lol), taking into account traditional Maori cultural beliefs concerning burial. How long will it be before Margaret lands herself a job at Shortland Street....

I think she suffered post-natal depression after giving up her son Adam (which led to her running over Ringo which led to her prison sentence) then a breakdown whilst in prison, and upon her release stopped taking her medication, which led to a (somewhat poorly depicted) psychotic breakdown, resulting in her kidnapping Lucas and Vanessa's child.

Oh yes, lately I've been wishing Brooke was still around.

I don't recall the show ever dealing with SARS - possibly because the outbreak was contained pretty quickly (within a year). CJD is a different story as its been more of an ongoing thing. Yeah you are right about Frank. I didn't like Daniel much either - a bit too Chris lite for me. I guess Chris is Rachel's best romantic pairing, though part of that is due to longevity. However, Rachel's best pairing overall I think was with Nick Harrison, which was interesting because it was completely platonic except for a three week period after Rachel got struck by lightning (After being struck by lightning Rachel suddenly decided she was in love with Nick and pursued him, despite Nick trying all sorts of methods to turn her off. Nick finally caved and the two got into bed but Rachel got another electric shock and came back to her senses before they could do anything much to Nick's relief). I liked it when Rachel started mentoring Evan Cooper because Nick and Evan are a lot alike so it made sense to me. After Chris, Rachel's best romantic pairing was probably with Rangi Heremaia. I'd go so far as to say that it was also Rachel's most passionate pairing. They were on-off for over a year back in '96, constantly breaking up and getting back together. But ultimately they were too toxic for each other. After Rangi was temporarily paralysed in an accident, Rachel felt obligated to stay with him and began drinking heavily for the first time. Rangi eventually left Rachel and she spiralled out of control, eventually resulting in Nick intervening and calling her father (also an alcoholic) in to help.

Part 2 in my series of characters that went from frontburner to footnote, this time we look at Dr Frank Malone. While not as overly dominant in storylines as Anne was, Frank was on the frontburner for most of his time on the show, even though his storylines (besides his relationship with Rachel) ultimately had no long-term consequences. Frank joined the show in mid 1997 during an era of the show that can now be defined by the absence of one character (Chris Warner). Fulfilling the role of 'doctor with a social conscience' (a role filled by TK now) Frank was first seen running his own community clinic and was hesitant to join the private clinic that was Shortland Street then. A brief flirtation with Grace Kwan led nowhere as she soon departed (but not until after accidentally chopping her own finger off whilst on the phone with Frank - "FRAAANK I've chopped my finger off!" and having it stiched back on). We soon learned more of Frank's past when his ex lover Bridget Hastings arrived. They had split up after Frank's sister had died (I'm a bit hazy on the details, but IIRC Frank had caused his siter's death in a drink driving accident). Frank and Bridget eventually reconciled, but split soon after as Bridget was more interested in David Kearney. A one night stand with Donna Heka also went nowhere (beginning to sense a theme here!) but by early 1999 Frank was embroiled in a love triangle with Rachel and Daniel Buchanan. At this time, Shortland Street clinic had been defrauded of $1 million by Oscar Henry and Frank (acting CEO while David was away) brokered a deal with Central CEO John Harlan (Played by Matt Chamberlain who now plays Murray!) that almost made Shortland Street into a satellite of Central. Rachel and Frank clashed over this deal, but in the end David returned and put a stop to it meaning Shortland Street would remain a private clinic (for another two years anyway). Daniel eventually left town and Rachel and Frank got together. Like Rachel, Frank had a drinking problem, but whereas Rachel had already admitted this to herself and been sober for about two years at that point, Frank stubbornly refused to deal with it. Eventually Rachel received a job offer in the US and decided to take it, marking the first of her exits. Frank then drunkenly hooked up with Aleesha Cook. After learning Rachel had reconciled with Daniel and married him, Frank made plans to move to Antarctica, but these plans fell through when Aleesha turned up in the 1999 cliffhanger saying she was pregnant to him. Frank turned out not to be the father after all and a will they - won't they developed with new clinic boss Sofia Martinez, a former hotel manager who was now running the clinic on behalf of it's new owners. Frank was initially suspicious of Sofia, but was convinced she was working in the best interests of the clinic after she used her own money to buy new premises after the old clinic succumbed to liquefaction after the 2000 earthquake and had to be condemned. The two finally hooked up, but despite the writers spending months of building their relationship, they were over within weeks. During this time, Christopher Hobbs (who played Frank) was also joined on the show by his two sisters who were playing characters totally unrelated to Frank. Another attraction between Frank and Dr Cassie Moore then developed, but in the meantime, Frank had become involved with a married woman (I forget all these characters names so please bare with me). Cassie found the woman's husband bludgeoned and was briefly accused of the crime, but it was the wife who was guilty. However she quickly died of CJD (commonly referred to as mad cow disease). Cassie and Frank hooked up soon after that, but he was attacked by the son of a deceased patient and left for dead in the 2000 finale. Cassie tried to help Frank but he suffered from mood swings as a result of his brain injury and quickly cast her aside for Rachel when Rachel returned. Daniel then turned up wanting Rachel back and Rachel cast Frank aside. Frank then left town, telling Rachel never to bother her again if things didn't work out with Rachel. Rachel soon decided to dump Daniel and stayed in Ferndale, eventually growing closer to Chris...

I don't think it's a real show. It sounds like it's something along the lines of Scandal or Revenge. Maybe it'll become a recurring reference like 'Tides of the Heart' in the 90s

I'm guessing you're not counting Mo's court appearance as they didn't actually show him in court (only in the waiting room). But yes, the show has done several court scenes over the years: 1995 - Hone Ropata goes on trial for murder after punching his nephew's gang member friend, causing his death in the 1994 finale. He was acquitted. To be honest, Hone should have been charged with manslaughter and I think today would have definitely received a short prison term. 1997 - Caroline Buxton goes on trial for murder of her friend Annabel Lustwick. Caroline had helped MS sufferer Annabel kill herself in a euthanasia storyline, but was accused of murder and convicted in the 1997 season finale. Evidence later proved that Anabel had been planning on killing herself for some time, thus corroborating Caroline's story. She was released from prison. Like Hone, if Caroline had been charged with a lesser crime (Assisted suicide in this case), she'd have gotten approximately a year's sentence, but the crafty writers got her out of this situation by having her being accused of murder rather than euthanasia. 2004 - Victor Kahu faced his second murder charge in less than two years when accused of killing Geoff Greenlaw. Highlights of the trial included Judy Brownlee leaking his name to the press (in revenge for the way he'd treated the now dead Anne) and Li Mei Chen perjuring herself to give Victor an alibi. Victor was found guilty, but was released on CHristmas Day after it emerged Dominic had killed Geoff. 2009 - Maia had confessed to killing Ethan Pierce. However the judge decided that given Maia's recent mental instabilites, her confession was unreliable and threw it out of court. Thus the case against Maia collapsed. I don't think we saw any court scenes while Chris was in prison, we mainly saw him in prison on remand.