Dion

Charity and Cain are cousins...the show has never specified how distant.

According to a family tree I've seen of the Dingles albeit 10 years old, Cain and Charity are second cousins, Charity being the daughter of Zak's first cousin.

http://emmerdale.org/emmerdale/tree/10june05/Dingle/Dingle.png

"The world's longest-running dramatic serial..."

Ugh.

Yes that's always irked me too. Imagine my surprise when after years of Coronation Street being referred to as the world's longest running serial/soap opera/drama/whatever in every magazine article or TV programme about Corrie, I suddenly find out that ATWT started in 1956 (and an even bigger surprise when the GL 60th anniversary edition of SOD came out in 1997, with GL having started on radio in 1937 switching to TV in 1952).

Oh I'll post it here:

Courtesy TVNZ http://tvnz.co.nz/shortland-street/shorty-street-curse-strikes-again-3417939

Cue the spooky music....

Over the years, real-life events have coincided in an uncanny way with Shortland Street storylines.

Life imitating art? Or simply testament to how good Shortland Street is at picking up on the concerns of New Zealanders?

What makes the coincidence even more amazing is that the storylines for each episode are decided over four months before it is broadcast - and unless theres a major calamity like an actor's illness, they don't change.

The phenomenon has become known as the Shortland Street curse.

Memorable examples include the nurses strike of 1992, students marrying for bigger loans, neo-Nazis lurking in the suburbs, Maia and Jay's civil union (complete with Serenity Church protestors), and last years' stories about txt and pxt bullying.

It's a result of writers looking at trends in the news and asking, if this is happening now, what will be next?

There have been one or two spooky occurrences.

In 2003 we ran a one hour episode where the hospital's back up generators failed during a power cut, leading to much drama.

There was some debate over how likely this was in a major hospital, but within a fortnight, Starship had a power cut and their back-up generator failed.

If that wasn't enough, South Pacific Pictures' studios came to a standstill the Friday before the episode went to air, due to an area-wide power cut.

There was also the time a small earthquake occurred in the Hawke's Bay the same night as Shortland Street's quake.


The latest example of this is the staging on Shortland Street of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring your Ferndale faves - and with a special guest appearance by Paul Holmes as Lady Bracknell.

From March 11th - April 3rd, the Auckland Theatre Company ATC is putting on its own production of... The Importance of Being Earnest.

Coincidence? Or is some greater force at work in the universe? - You decide!

Some notes for further context:

*Starship is New Zealand's largest children's hospital

* In 1995, Rachel married her best friend Nick (an original cast member that I still miss even though he was unfortunately axed in 2005, at the time he was the longest running cast member as Chris had left for four years) as a protest against the student allowance system.

* The Neo-Nazis storyline was in 1997 around the same time some such organizations were making the news.

*Serenity CHurch was inspired by the real life Destiny Church who protested against the Civil Union bill.

Thankfully there were no car bombings in 2006 or serial killers in 2007.

Yes with the Pixie storyline the Shortland Street curse has struck again!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11465013

http://tvnz.co.nz/shortland-street/shorty-street-curse-strikes-again-3417939 (an old article from 2010 with some info on the curse)

What did you think of him?

He was a stabilising force for the show. He was very fortunate in that by the time he arrived, the newer characters introduced under Park had bedded in. I think his most significant plots were Sally and Greg, Breaking up Mike and Alma and revealing Fred as Ashley's biological father.

While we're on that topic, I'd settle for a nice little terrace near Shepherd's Bush Green myself (Just a bit further down from Notting Hill and Bayswater), handy to the Overground, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Central lines as well as markets, shops and Westfield .

I do wish EastEnders would shoot more on location in London though. I actually prefer London location shoots to when the show films abroad.

Whose work do you think holds up better from that period - Brian Parks or Jane McNaughton (isn't she the one who replaced him and did all the social issue stories, or did someone else have a role in-between)?

I wonder if part of it is whoever was running ITV's soaps at the time. Sadly these days they just seem to be run into the ground.

David Hanson had a year long stint in between Park and McNaughton.

I think the baby will be fine as I don't think the show would have a pregnant actress or an actress with a newborn play out such a storyline (though I know of at least one show that has).

(EDIT - forgot to mention all the uneasiness that occurred when the show planned a SIDS storyline back in the 90s, two storyliners fell pregnant and the baby in question itself was played by the newborn daughter of one of the the show's medical advisors, which meant the storyline was delayed until the producers felt comfortable to go through it).

I do wonder how they'll handle everything though. This I think is only about the third time they've had to write an actress' pregnancy into the script and both of those last two that I recall were off-screen births. My prediction is Bella will leave for a little bit while Amelia is on maternity leave and come back full term ready to pop for an on-screen birth.

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.