Dion

Three month old story but the right time to post since my earlier prediction about Bella becoming pregnant to Jimmy (though I was very subtle about it lol):

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11418588

She's due next month.

Be interesting to see if next week they start showing her baby bump which they've been at great pains to hide for months now.

Back in 2010, Scotty (director of Nursing at the time) was kidnapped by Penny, the vengeful daughter of a dead ex army colleague. This army.colleague had raped Scotty's then girlfriend (never seen on the show) when they were stationed in East Timor (sometime in the early 2000s), Scotty and his batallion then somehow caused the rapist's death in a possible fragging incident. Long story short, Penny had already killed the other guys in the battalion and was now after Scotty. Tracey (Scotty's current girlfriend) and Sarah then drove all around West Auckland Ferndale looking for Scotty. A confrontation ensued and poor Scotty ended up shot when he revealed that Penny's father had been a rapist but survived and ended up with PTSD. Penny eventually was caught by police.

After some months, Scotty and Tracey began planning their wedding, but Scotty's PTSD (combined with the stress of reconciling with his estranged mother and also dealing with residual guilt over re-marrying so soon after the death of his wife Shanti) developed into Capgras syndrome so he became convinced that Tracey had been replaced by an impostor leading to the 2010 finale where he ended up trying to strangle her. But he eventually recovered and he and Tracey eventually married.

Lol.

I don't think the show has don't think that the show has done a D.I.D storyline (at least not that I remember). Which is a surprise since they've done lesser known stuff such as Capgras syndrome and Hero syndrome.

Just realised you might have been talking about the porn industry and Curtis before, not the meth industry lol

Gabrielle was extremely popular, played by a talented actress who made the character believable (particularly important as she had aspergers), and of course she was brought back after her initial year long stint to do another year stint. I still miss her.

Harry does drive me mad too but It's been good to see him grow up with minimal sorasing (I think currently he's only about a year older than he's supposed to be). I especially like his relationship with Rachel. Interestingly back in the day, one of the first things Rachel did when the paternity test confirmed that Chris was Harry's dad was take a secret trip to get her tubes tied!

Is it just me or does Aaron look a lot like Stu Parker (without the soul patch and with a more square jawline)

I did notice that line and wondered if it was a subtle dig at Jonathan's six month guest appearance four years ago (when Jonathan came back after 15 years away and jumped into a relationship with a woman Gabrielle and viewers criticised the writers for taking several weeks to acknowledge that he'd almost solely been with men in his earlier stints).

Nice location shooting at Massey University Albany Campus tonight (has always been used as the University in Ferndale even way back when Rachel was a student 20 years ago). Its a nice campus but far away from a lot of things (except Westfield Albany shopping mall, some big box retail and a stadium - Albany is one of those weird places where all the roads are developed but everything is still mostly empty fields because development got stalled during the GFC), i'm glad I went to (both) the universities in the city.

Looks like Boyd might be in for the requisite "surgeon's hand gets injured - oh no! Can he still operate?" storyline. Haven't had one of those for a while (well there was Chris' heart problem and his eye problem - at least I think it was an eye problem - and his flying fox brain injury last year...but those weren't to do with his hands).

But the Brennan Boys are Beth's nephews!

(longstanding NeighboursFans.com joke)

But yes, it would be good to see if they could get Natalie Imbruglia back for a short stint with Ned. All they'd need to do is briefly acknowledge the same surname (and of course point out that Beth is not related to the Brennan boys lol).

Still waiting for Piper Willis though. I can understand they maybe saving her for if/when Imogen and Josh leave but preferably I'd like there to be some overlap.

Plus the length of her exchange trip has become ridiculous!

Oh and Ned should turn up at some point too.

I'm sure Curtis will be doing something dodgy sometime soon - he's already (almost) had his hand in the cash register at the IV, so it's a possibility.

A long long time ago - end of 2001 they did have a character start manufacturing P in his house. The plot culminated when his mum threw him a surprise 18th birthday party in the end of year cliffhanger and the chemicals ended up blowing up the house with half the hospital staff in it (no one died though, but Toni Thompson was briefly seriously injured and her pregnancy was revealed to the world, an absolutely catastrophic event that continues to have repercussions to this very day! lol).

So Chris and Rachel get rid of the P (Meth) dealers only to be stuck with a porn director...lol.

Still, the house wouldn't have been sold that fast!

I just feel he's out of place physically...and while some teenagers of course are more grown than others, usually it's because they've always been that way. it's hard to believe the more scrawny Jett once bullied him. It's as if V.J recieved a heavy dose of steriods or something.

In the latest one we see a hint of the militarisation of contemporary life symbolised by the insistent marching beat, and the break down of order in the maximalist arrangement, teetering as it does on the brink of anarchy, two voices pleading for something, some connection in a fragmented world where a need for neighbours is undercut by a suspicion that maybe we've become strangers to ourselves.

I actually agree with this comment lol - not so much the 'militarisation' but IIRC the two singers recorded separate versions that were mixed together, resulting in it "teetering as it does on the brink of anarchy, two voices pleading for something, some connection in a fragmented world..." lmao.

Neighbours still has a more traditional opening and closing credits (and even has a longer version of the close on fridays).

But yeah, H&A (and Shortland Street too actually even though its New Zealand) has ditched its credits.

No she was more similar to Rebecca Fisher. She came on in November 1994 as an ex high school girlfriend of Rob's and began working at the schhool as a teacher, sparking the jealousy of Rob's girlfriend Roxy, who had breast cancer at the time. Donna moved in with Michael and Pippa (and the foster kids) and Jack walked in on her in the shower.

After Roxy left, it looked like Donna and Rob may reconcile, but then Donna's ex boyfriend Andrew turned up (who had previously beat her) and she reconciled with him. Andrew got jealous of Donna's friendships with Rob and Travis (who had been introduced as another high school friend of Rob and Donna's) and hit her, giving her a black eye. Andrew fled town and Donna hooked up with Travis. Donna's brother Gus turned up and caused some trouble before Travis and Donna decided to go on a whale watching trip to Canada in June 1995, but months later Travis returned alone having broken up with Donna.

I've resented Whitney from the start because she only seemed to me to be a device to show Bianca interacting with a teenage stepdaughter.

I know what you mean. I always thought it was a little contrived that Bianca ended up with the same amount of kids as Carol, with the same birth orders right down to Morgan being mixed race like Billie. Thank god Tiffany never started playing the trumpet.

Granted, Whitney is her step-daughter and Liam and Tiffany are full siblings but even so...

They kept this version of the song up until the end of 1999, changing it in 2000.

IIRC correctly they actually changed the song partway through 1995 rather than at the beginning of the year. Here's what I think is the first 1995 theme (with Sam with Rob rather than Fisher and no Marilyn as she hadn't returned yet):

Shane and Angel actually kiss for most of the year in their shot, but in the one you posted (1995, version 3) they just hug and then go back to kissing in version 4. Donna left not long after, so Irene was placed with Marilyn (who returned in version 3 in a solo shot). This style continued into 1996, with one version featuring both Pippa and Angel in solo shots as they had both been widowed (and with Kelly throwing a tennis ball at Steven and Travis) before the more famous style of the late 90s was introduced.

The poster actually had this in playlist form though I think they've mislabeled one (featuring Pippa and Michael, but Angel solo) as being from version 5 from 1995 when it actually might be from early 1996 after Shane died.

Could've sworn I read somewhere that the Hannah's had an older daughter but seems it's a son instead.

Knowing Shortland Street it's certainly possible, but at this time I think it is just as likely that they took advantage of gaps opening up in the cast to introduce a new family unit (one that's easily expandable by introducing the ex-wife and eldest sister if necessary). The size of the cast is currently at the top end of its normal range though, so if any more new characters are added, I think that will be a sign that there will be some departures (not necessarily the Coopers).

You'd think so (did they mention him when she was briefly pregnant with Alec's baby?), but the show has always struggled with how to write long-lost or long-gone kids of main characters. Hilda and Stan's kids, Audrey's son, Elsie's kids and grandkids, any child of Ken's not named Peter, etc.

My memory is a bit hazy but many years ago (1997ish) I used to watch (or rather listen to as I was only able to recieve the audio signal for that particular channel - i'll explain if anyone's curious ) some reruns from the late 80s. I seem to recall that when Bet was pregnant she did in fact refer to her other child in a conversation with someone (probably Betty as Alec apparently didn't find out about Martin Downes until later but Betty was actually there when Bet found out that Martin had died and had been told about the later pregnancy that Bet miscarried).

You're right about the show never being able to write for all the long-lost children characters had. Heck I think the show even went more than eight years without a main character giving birth! (must be a soap record, I think only Neighbours has come close).

Lol, it didn't even occur to me that they were brother and sister until you pointed it out!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11431309

The above article got me a little concerned so I did a little more digging and found this article from two months ago in throng, who post a lot of NZTV ratings info:

http://www.throng.co.nz/2015/02/shortland-street-rating-days/

So ratings have definitely fallen after reaching a peak in 2012 - early 2013 with the show having some of its worst ratings in years (Even the episode screened on the day that Christchurch had its main earthquake in Feb 2011 rated higher than a lot of the episodes screened in the first few weeks of this year).

Part of this drop is probably to do with things such as time-shifting and on demand services (on these platforms Shortland Street is doing quite well) and of course the Cricket World Cup which went on and on for weeks (and of course we had some matches held here since we were joint hosts with Australia and our team was on a bit of a dream run until being beaten in the final by Australia). TV1's current affairs show Seven Sharp has also gotten its act together, though I suspect it probably eats into rival current affairs show Campbell live's audience rather than Shortland Street's. Storylines this year have also been somewhat low key.

Will be interesting to see how the show performs over the winter (specifically whether any of the big 'event' episodes can get to the.levels seen in previous years). Daylight Savings ended a week ago and with Shortland Street airing at 7pm it does tend to have a dramatic effect on the number of casual viewers.

I do recall 1996 having its fair share of problems, particularly because some of the characters (eg Deirdre, Gail) that had previously led successful stories for years all had a really quiet year at the same time or were stuck in banal storylines (eg Des and Claire involving Claire's late husband's army pension).

Departures also hurt the show, Post-marriage Curly and Raquel were stuck in a holding pattern until she left him, the Duckworths being in charge of the Rovers after Bet left got stale real quickly, Steve was in prison and Vicky left, Maureen and Maud floundered after Reg left, Ken was left holding the baby after Denise left and a lot of time had to be spent on developing all the new characters who were being introduced for the shows move to four episodes a week (many of whom were promptly axed by Brian Park when he took over, though those newer characters who did survive did eventually become classics themselves eg Fred, Maxine, Ashley, Roy).

Other storylines seemed to lack effective follow through (Jim beating Liz) or were merely set ups that wouldn't pay off until the following year (Don Brennan vs Mike Baldwin, Kevin taking over the garage)

I actually warmed to him post New Years when he was left holding the baby while everyone else was upset about Ronnie's coma.

But Chas is his cousin!

Oh wait...these are the Dingles we're talking about!

How far have Marlon and Chas gone in the past? (I know they kissed once but was there more?)

New Zealand does have national healthcare but it is not entirely free. There are charges for going to see a GP- (for under sixes this is free and this will be extended to under 13s in a few months time) though I would have thought Pixie's family would qualify for a community services card which would reduce the costs somewhat (though would require her parent to go to the doctor with her).

A visit to an ED is free though, hence why there was no problems with payment the week before. I think Pixie could have just gone back to ED for free treatment but she would have had to wait hours before seeing an ED doctor. Harry was trying to impress her by paying for the GPs appointment so she could be seen by a GP right away, but she didn't appreciate his charity.

I wonder how long Caleb will be around. Pania seems to have sub-consciously set her sights on TK and I suspect she up his relationship with Kylie to keep him occupied until such time that she's ready to be with him herself, perhaps thinking Kylie (who said she was just after some fun) would be less of a threat to her than Harper (too strong for Pania) or Lucy (too vulnerable, thus Pania may have thought TK would have stuck by her).

Bella and Jimmy - I think I have a fair idea where this is going. (I can't remember how to do spoiler tags! lol)

To be fair on 'Tor' she is still basically a student, so I'll cut her some slack for that. Though somebody needs to offer her some cheese to go with all that whine .