Dion

Part of the show's mandate when it was commissioned to receive funding from NZ on Air (the governments local content funding agency) was to "push the boundaries of New Zealand drama" which they did with gusto. The complaints about the content not being suitable for the timeslot poured in for a few years (Until 2008 the NZ broadcasting standards authority always ruled in Shortland Street's favour) but eventually died down.

The 90 minute episode was interesting, and had what was probably the longest ever pre-episode recap as they recapped many of the main events from Kieran's run on the show. Thankfully the entire episode wasn't just about him otherwise it really would have gotten tedious watching him get kidnapped and escape several times. In the end Kieran fell off a cliff and is now presumed dead, but before that happened they did manage to resolve most of his characters arc so it was a very satisfying end to the character. The B plots in the episode were also quite interesting, with one major subplot (downgrading the Shortland Street hospital into a satellite of another) that has been brewing since the beginning of the year being wrapped up and Chris Warner (the sole remaining original character) learning that he has a somewhat SORASed son by an old love.

September, I believe.

As for who to bring back, I don't need to see anymore Brannings or Mitchells.

Yeah i'd rather see some more Beales (new or old) or some Masood relations (a son or daughter of Masood's brother)

Hopefully they start with a season return episode. The first episodes of 2005, 2006 or 2007 would be excellent starting points as each preceding season finales provided more resolution than cliffhanger. My personal preference would be for the first episode of 2005 as that pretty much was a transition period for the show that set up stories and characters that ran for several years, but that's probably a bit too long ago now, even with double bills.

The first episode of 2007 would be another good place to start as you still have 9 characters on the show from that period with no major characters leaving until the serial killer storyline kicks in about six months in.

As for Kieran's exit and the 90 minute special, well I'll have to leave that for another day as its actually 3am right now lol.

pretty easily i'd imagine...Bianca seems to just vanish into thin air whenever Patsy Palmer needs some leave. She was off air for two months last year while she was doing a play.

This story has made me realize that this show has more child abuse plots than any other soap. I didn't realize that Peggy was referring to Harry Slater, as she never mentioned him by name, which was weird. But come Sept. they'll have 3 characters (Ronnie/Whitney/Kat) living on the Square who have all be abused as a child. But, they're not going to know that about each other, so it's unlikely they'll have any scenes relating to this.

I'd love it if all three went to the same support group seperately and were all surprised to find the others there.

Yeah, I don't think Gerald has appeared in Irish episodes yet (he joined the show in August 2007). I'm guessing the clips you have seen were maybe from 2008 or 2009. Speaking of Gerald a scene he was in led to Shortland Street's first ever fine from the Broadcasting Standards Authority in 2008. This scene involved a male childhood friend of Gerald's coming to town and revealing he was gay. Gerald who was confused at the time decided that he might be gay (or rather everyone else assumed he was gay but in denial and encouraged him to try things out with his old friend) and somewhat awkwardly decided to sleep with his friend. The two hopped into bed and the friend put his head under the covers to obviously give him a blowjob but Gerald who wasn't too comfortable with this ended up kneeing his friend in the face! Not too risque really until you realise that the show screens at 7pm!

Actually the man who hated Lesbians didn't actually know that Jay was a lesbian (at first). Jay was looking for finance for some business venture and met Dylan. After Dylan had made his homophobia clear, Jay decided not to tell him about her sexuality and ended up having an affair with him. Of course Dylan ended up finding out that Jay was a lesbian and I believe he vindictively videotaped their last sexual encounter before sending it to Maia, who saw it and had her first breakdown (with the whole first act of one episode being shot entirely from Maia's POV as she had her breakdown). These episodes should be available on Youtube as Ireland would have screened them some months ago. When I get time I'll huntout the episode numbers for you.

This was not actually the first time that Jay had cheated on Maia with a man (she'd slept with another man almost a year before the civil union) despite the fact that Jay was not bisexual (but at least the first time made sense because she was trying to get pregnant, the guy was her male best friend who'd already agreed to be her donor and they were wasted after drinking too much which led them to try getting pregnant through sex rather than artificial insemination).

The show certainly has no qualms about killing off popular characters, this was particularly evident during Jason Daniel's run as producer (hence that comment I made about him in the Home And Away thread). He was behind the infamous Ferndale Strangler storyline (and in fact, Jay's actress wanted to leave at the beginning of 2007 but Jason Daniel persuaded her to stay on for an extra six months so she could be killed off).

The show actually rates quite well (It's regularly rated in the top ten and often beats Coronation Street). The current audience ranges between 500,000 and 700,000 (which in a country of 4.3 million is amazing). The peak year for the show was in 1994 when the show peaked around the 900,000 mark, and then dropped off to around 500,000 by 1998 staying somewhat consistent until 2007 when the Ferndale strangler storyline caused a ratings resurgence which the show is still currently enjoying.

Yeah bizarrely he is quite popular in New Zealand, I'm not exactly sure of the reasons why. I partly put it down to lingering traces of cultural insecurity (the "oh look, an actor from the UK's longest running soap has decided to grace us with his presence and keeps on saying our country is wonderful" factor), the fact that much of the bad press he used to get in the UK never made it here and the fact that he is a lot better in Shortland Street than he was in Corrie (in fact most of his fans would have never seen him on Coronation Street as while both shows are usually in the Top ten, they appeal to different demographics). Even the shoplifting incident a few years back did nothing to affect his popularity.

The lesbian couple you are referring to is Maia and Jay. Their wedding on Valentines Day 2006 (actually technically it was a civil union) came at the tail end of years of debate over the civil union issue (which was passed late in 2004).

Their relationship only lasted 18 months. Merely six months after their civil union, there was this really bizarre and awful story about Jay sleeping with a man who hated Lesbians, followed by an equally bizarre but really good story about Maia and her sister's husband (a sex addict who had only settled for Maia's sister because he couldn't have Maia) conspiring to artificially inseminate Maia behind everyone's back. This ended Jay and Maia for good and Jay was all set to leave when she ended up being murdered by the Ferndale strangler. Maia then had her baby boy, left the show for six months (actress went on holiday with her boyfriend), came back, fell in love with Jay's straight best friend Alice, murdered Alice's evil boyfriend, confessed after having a mental breakdown, got off on a technicality (they ruled that her confession was invalid due to her mental instability!) and has since led a somewhat quieter life with her new girlfriend Nicole and her now almost three year old son (whom she predictably named Jay).

Gerald hasn't had much of a story this year but is featured quite regularly. Last year though he did have an interesting arc in which he married his ex girlfriend Morgan (They'd broken up originally when Gerald realized he was asexual) who was pregnant with triplets (a surrogacy deal that was going sour) in order to strengthen morgan's case for getting custody. The marriage came unstuck when Morgan had a change of heart and gave the babies to the genetic parents. Gerald and Morgan decided to try for a baby of their own, but of course Gerald wanted to do it through artificial insemination rather than sleeping with Morgan. Morgan then became attracted to another man and despite resisting temptation, she eventually realized that she wasn't willing to fore go a sexual relationship so she and Gerald ended the marriage. By the end of the year they had patched up their friendship, but then Morgan was killed in a hit and run in the 2009 season finale (Kieran, Adam Rickitt's character was the driver and is yet to be found out because his brother confessed instead).

The show seems to be just plodding along at the moment but 2007 and 2008 were really good. Most of the episodes on youtube are from the Irish broadcasts (I think every single episode from late 2003 up to early 2007 is on there with closed captioning because the uploader is partially deaf and doing it for his/her other deaf friends) which are three years behind. I don't know if anyone is doing the current episodes though.

Thought I might as well start a thread on Shortland Street since there isn't one here already.

Nothing much on the news front though aside from the fact that Adam Rickitt is

leaving the show. His final airdate is August 2 and to mark the occasion his final episode will be 90 minute TV movie.

Stacey has become so isolated from most of the characters...I'd forgotten about this scene. They should have her come back into the Lucas story before it ends.

Partly because I didn't like the fact that the show was doing two unrelated murder storylines at around the same time (Lucas as a serial killer and Archie's whodunnit) I always thought it would have been nice if (some months ago that is) Stacey, feeling guilty about Archie's murder wound up confiding in Lucas.

Talking to Lucas and re-examining her behaviour in the months beforehand (specifically the Trina incident) would somehow make Stacey realise that her delusions about Ryan killing Trina weren't so far-fetched, she just had the wrong person. Lucas would explain it was an accident and Stacey would keep mum about it (especially since she wouldn't know that Lucas also killed Owen and there would be the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction).

Of course, with the current events, Stacey would figure out that Lucas is responsible for everything, but not be able to say anything because Lucas would know about Archie.

Collinson's big announcement on This Morning was about an upcoming stunt...

In December the viaduct is going to collapse over the street, and a tram is going to crash into the street, causing deaths, "loosing some well loved characters."

So they will actually be going through with it this time? Rumors have been popping up since about 2005 about this.

in fact Claire was rumoured to become a tram driver for the Manchester Metrolink Light rail system and then be the driver who crashes off the viaduct into the street. Understandably Metrolink were not happy about this and then Corrie bosses later denied that there were any such plans.

Claire became a bus driver instead and ran over into Schmichael instead!

There were some great Pat/Janine scenes leading up to Janine's arrest for Laura's murder, too.

My fave is the one where Janine tells Pat that she once spent hours scratching her name into the wall with her nails until they bled. Of course Pat doesn't believe her and applauds her for her Oscar winning performance! Then later as Janine is being led away we get to see that Janine did indeed scratch her name into the wall.

I hated Janine with a passion right up until those scenes. now I quite like her but I do think she is being wasted.

Then four years later Janine was able to show Pat the carving on the wall

No lol Colleen's been a regular since 1999 and before that was a recurring character back in 1988/89 as she was the mother of one of the original characters, Lance who (in a role reversal) now recurs from time to time (and speaking of Lance I believe Marilyn was initially brought on as his girlfriend, but stayed on after he left).

It's actually quite weird that they decided to bring on a recurring character from the 80s back to the show as a regular ten years later but at the time H&A was going through a bit of a nostalgia phase that actually lasted for several years (from about 1999 - 2005 you'd often see old characters return for brief stints for events such as Sally's failed 2000 wedding, Summer Bay's 150th anniversary, Sally's surrogacy storyline, Sally's wedding to Flynn, Alf's 60th birthday for the 4000th episode etc).

Anyway, a storyline from about two years ago revealed that Alf and Colleen were half-siblings (conveniently ignoring the fact that Alf once dated Colleen's long lost daughter whom she'd given up for adoption, though they never actually had sex or anything and it only lasted for about a week or two).

oh he should be quite good for the show...his run on Shortland Street as producer was one of the best periods in the show's history (particularly 2007 and 2008)...although he does seem to have a bit of an obsession with murder and mayhem! lol

Yes that's a very good point. In fact it took many years for Neighbours to recover from that point in the mid 90s when noone in the cast (except Anne Haddy's Helen) had been on the show longer than three years and while its not likely to get to that point again in the next few years, the departure of long term characters like Steph is always a concern asI don't think there's not that many in the current cast (long time cast members excluded) that will go the distance.

Speaking of pasts, I wonder if Mark's death will be something they keep a secret for a long time or something that will come out relatively soon. If this were Bill Bell, we'd have to wait 5 years, at least. LoL

How about never? lol Louise never got done for Ray's death and there is still that question mark over what really happened to Eric Pollard's second wife Elizabeth.

I sort of liked Ash and Kareena -- I thought there was something natural about her, when she wasn't crying or whining. I thought Ash had the potential to be a good character and also something different for Eastenders.

I liked Adi myself, I couldn't wait until he finally snapped and did his father in (which was where they were going before Dilip Tahil's visa problems mucked everything up).

Pauline Quirke should be quite good on Emmerdale. I liked her on Birds of a Feather. Though I would have actually thought she'd be more suited for EastEnders lol...but then again just because she's a Londoner and has mainly worked for the BBC in the past doesn't mean she can't do Emmerdale.

I had forgotten about her tragic loss, last year. Was her summer hiatus the reason for this? I seem to remember her barely being used before the summer, as I'm sure she had time off during the spring. Either way, I don't think you can say she's been used heavily at all - she had that fling with the handyman guy (or whatever it was he did); disappeared; popped back up for Tony being revealed as Liam's killer; had a few scenes with Ryan; became the crush of Ryan's best mate Ben, and has since disappeared again.

oh wrong tense there, I meant to say begin to use her heavily again not began to use her heavily again.

I guess Her summer hiatus would have been around the time that she was supposed to take maternity leave and she may have decided to take it anyway.

She was placed on the backburner for the majority of the summer - they shipped Michelle off on some tour with a band, while I presume, they figured out what to do with her. Now, she hasn't been on screen for a couple of months.

I think that Kym Marsh's personal problems last year might have something to do with Michelle being backburned for a while too. She did after all tragically lose her baby shortly after birth last year, suffer from depression, split with her partner (though they are now back together) etc etc so the producers probably decided to keep Michelle low key for a while until some time had passed before they began using her heavily again.

Unfortunately though Michelle has never actually had a really successful storyline. The triangle with Sean and Sonny wasn't too great, The baby switch was a complete disaster and she was upstaged by Becky who took Steve McDonald away from her and left her adrift so they really have a lot of work cut out for them if they want Michelle as a central character. The only thing that seems to save Michelle from the chopping block is Marsh's high profile status.

Home & Away is a show that seems to be able to survive by constant upheaval, but I thought that show and Neighbours almost had to stay on the air, regardless of ratings, because of some Australian law.

(Sorry to go off topic but I felt I had to answer this)

You're thinking of the local content quota laws which were first introduced in 1989 (several years after Neighbours was axed and then brought back). Since 1996 (between 1989 and 1996 it was 35%) 55% of programs broadcast on Australian commercial free to air TV between 6am and Midnight have to be Australian or New Zealand made (Australian court ruling in 1996 said that NZ programs could be counted as locally made because of the Closer Economic Relations treaty but understandably the Australian TV industry kicked up a massive stink about it and as a result there is I believe a gentleman's agreement amongst the networks not to count NZ programming).

The quota especially benefits Neighbours because Network Ten would have to find a replacement for it and so far Network Ten's attempts to launch other soaps have failed (Echo Point, Breakers etc).

Anyways, back to Hollyoaks...

Whitney is basically Bianca's de-facto step-daughter (as Bianca and Whitney's dad were never married I don't think) whom Bianca has been raising for nearly eight years.

The back story for Bianca and Whitney is that a few weeks after sleeping with Ricky during the Ricky and Bianca spin-off in 2002, Bianca met Whitney's father Nathan who was a trucker. Whitney was only about 9 at this point and Whitney's mother Debra had abandoned her and Nathan some years previously. Bianca soon learned that she was pregnant, but wasn't 100% sure if the baby was Ricky's or Nathan's. She decided to make a go of things with Nathan but Nathan ended up being killed in a Traffic accident when Bianca was seven months pregnant. After Nathan's death, Bianca became Whitney's legal guardian.

Soon afterwards Bianca gave birth to Tiffany, who was assumed to be Nathan's daughter and thus Whitney's half-sister, although last year Bianca finally did a DNA test which showed that Ricky was Tiffany's father not Nathan. Whitney did not learn of this until several months later and was angry at first but came to terms with it.

And just to add, Ryan is Whitney's half-brother. He is Debra's son.

Thank the soap gods! While I always liked

Kat more than Alfie, I'd rather have them both together than apart. So in light of the fact that its already been announced that Alfie was to return I'm glad that Kat is too!

What I found most interesting was Eric Pollard going around asking "have you seen my wife, Elizabeth Pollard?' over and over again. It's either...

A; Shock over the plane crash and truly not knowing where his wife is (ie: he didn't kill Elizabeth, the plane crash did)

B: Shock over the fact that he'd killed his wife and then then witnessed a plane crash on the same night, causing him to forget he killed Elizabeth.

C: The biggest con that conman has ever pulled (he's killed Elizabeth and is now using the plane crash to conveniently account for her disappearance)

Its a mystery Emmerdale has never resolved.

Just got done watching the infamous Emmerdale Plane crash. As to be expected the special effects are a bit dated (though would hold up well against more recent special effects on US Daytime shows) but it was still a good storyline nonetheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx5TtIwy01s

The disaster starts in part 2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5V_R_H9Gt0

lol that reminds me of when the cast actually did SGT Peppers for Children in Need in 2007...wonder if that is still on youtube?