Skylover

18 minutes ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

What is it with them on Neighbours new season and getting American actresses lol First Misha Barton and now her? I liked her on AMC but why? And how did they even came up with that idea pitching a character idea to her? Like did they watched selling sunset and thought: yo we need her immediately?!?!?

Neighbours didn't air in the US previously, and now it does. So presumably they want to appeal to the American market.

This was a great scene in the aftermath of Den's death.

8 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks!

No worries, do share your thoughts if you watch!  

53 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

A few. I keep meaning to watch more.  Any favorites of yours on there?

Madge's death, the Lassiters fire and plane crash are probably the best ones I think.

6 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

A few more are on the Youtube channel I posted a few hours ago, but you're right - they are hard to find, especially in good quality. Too bad Amazon didn't put more up.

Hopefully they will in time, you never know. But I doubt it! Have you watched any of the Classic eps on Amazon?

7 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

This Archive channel has a number of Neighbours episodes, along with parts of Home & Away, Flying Doctors, Young Doctors, E Street, and A County Practice.

https://archive.org/details/@flemishdog2

Thanks! I have some of the old years on a drive, but the 80s especially is pretty poor quality visually, I guess due to how old the episodes are. 1995 and 1996 seem to have survived pretty well, so I've watched all of 1995 now and did start 1996.

That's a good quality recording! I wish I could watch more old Neighbours episodes.

8 minutes ago, Manny said:

I know this is probably unpopular, but I LOVED Zainab  

I think Zainab was great too. 

8 minutes ago, Manny said:

I loved young Ben too, played by Joshua Pascoe as well as Harry Reid

I agree that Joshua Pascoe was good. I really don't like the Max Bowden version at all.

9 minutes ago, Manny said:

I also loved the Brannings... obviously Dot..  But I loved how messy Max and Tanya were. I loved Lauren and Abi and Bradley.. that whole family was so chaotic and dramatic

I really like Lauren, so I'm glad they brought her back.

Pat and Frank's dynamic was really interesting.

22 minutes ago, Manny said:

Who are your all time favorite characters?

Ooh, that's a difficult question! I've pretty much watched all the characters now having seen the Drama repeats. My favourite character of all time is probably Janine Butcher. My top 3 are probably:

1 Janine Butcher
2 Ben Mitchell (Harry Reid version)
3 Carol Jackson 

I really enjoyed Janine's 1999-2004 stint, and she was also very troubled even as a little girl on screen. I wasn't so keen on her later stints. I also really liked the Harry Reid version of Ben Mitchell, but the recast to Max Bowden has pretty much destroyed the character for me, because he's now nothing like what Ben was supposed to be at all. I think Carol is a brilliant character, mainly because the actress was very good. I think Pat was a great character, and Peggy. I also feel like I appreciate Pauline more as a character now, having seen her entire stint. I'm also a big fan of Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf's version), and I really liked Chrissie Watts. 

Here are some of my favourite characters in action!

I wish I had some better clips of Harry's Ben.

7 minutes ago, Manny said:

Oh I miss Ronnie and Roxy too!! More so Roxy. Ronnie, I had an on/off relationship haha I found her boring at times. I recently watched their death on Youtube... So sad.. 

Ronnie always attracted tragedy, I definitely liked Roxy more.

I liked Bonnie's version better too, and would like Delta to sing the theme. The current version just has a cheap production, and the vocal isn't very good. My favourite is the extended Greg Hind theme from late 1994 to 1998, and the Janine Maunder theme from 2002 to mid 2007. 

1 minute ago, Manny said:

I think I started watching around 2008. I watched Emmerdale around the same time and it was the first time I ever switched from US soaps into UK soaps. And I loved it. 

2008 was a good year. In fact I think it was mostly good from 2005 to around 2010. In this Drama repeat, I'm looking forward to the arrival of Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell.

4 minutes ago, Liberty City said:

Ah yes, those late '90s/early '00s openings... thank goodness we have the format we have now!

Yes, although I'd happily get rid of the current theme tune for something a lot less cheap sounding! I really liked the 2004 opening titles.

Head writer Shane Isheev has shared some pictures of what were alternate designs for the Neighbours opening titles over the years; in particular 1996, 1999 and 2002.

Here are the real titles from those years, for comparison. The 1999 ones that didn't make it to air were better than the ones that did!!

38 minutes ago, Manny said:

I fully stopped watching sometime after Bobby was revealed as Lucy's killer... was that a live episode back then? I think so, no?

Yes, it was the the episode of the infamous 'How's Adam?' scene  I'm currently watching 2005 on UKTV play and Drama. 2005 is when I first became a fan of the show, so it's interesting watching it back.

3 hours ago, Manny said:

For sure! I am sure I would have felt it more if I actually watched during the entire 16 years. But I was there in Whitney's beginnings and now this last year.  And it was sad. Seeing her say goodbye to all the friends and family. 

Which years of EE have you watched? I took a break from about 2011ish to 2015 I think.

17 hours ago, Vee said:

I don't even want to know.

9 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

I've heard people say the poop story is classic Neighbours. That may be the case, I don't know, but it just felt endless and unpleasant to me - I know Karl is meant to be seen as an idiot, but I don't enjoy seeing people, including his supposed friends, humiliating him over and over.

I don't see it as a classic Neighbours storyline, but I've heard people say that too. I can see where they're coming from, in the sense that Neighbours can be quite silly and very idiosyncratic, however I think there's good silly and bad silly, and that was definitely the latter. I would not have allowed something like that to go to screen. But Neighbours does have an issue where it doesn't know where to hold itself back sometimes, especially the modern show. Anyway, if that was a classic Neighbours storyline, it would be funny for a start!  

10 hours ago, Manny said:

Do I wish Whitney was getting a happier ending? Yes. I wish the affair never happened and Zack and Whit left town together. But it is what it is. I just hope Zack and Lauren don't get together now. 

I kind of like how it's been written, I think Whitney did get a happy ending in a sense. I feel like her having a baby and fostering a kid was her happy ending, and that she didn't necessarily need to have a man to have a happy ending. I guess they were trying to emulate what happened with Biana taking on Whitney in a way, even though the difference is that Bianca was with Whitney's dad. I like how Whitney started reflecting on her behaviour and how men have always treated her badly. They even touched on the abuse again. I kind of liked Whitney because of how things never went quite right, but I do think it's nice she's finally had a baby.

10 hours ago, Manny said:

As someone who never really loved Whitney, I really did get teary eyed seeing her leave.

I'm the same. Was never a huge Whitney fan but I did feel emotional seeing her leave. 16 years is a long time so I guess we're bound to feel something unless we have hearts of stone! I didn't see Whitney ever leaving until it was announced.

2 hours ago, DRW50 said:

If it works, I'll be glad...I just genuinely don't know who some of these choices (like the months spent on Toadie in closeup looking like he was passing a kidney stone) were meant to appeal to.

The Karl poop fake out in particular has been an awful storyline. I've heard people defend it because it's apparently 'based on something in the news' but I don't think that makes it any better.

The Toadie/Mel/Terese/Paul thing is just devoid of any genuine character moments which makes it suck.

I wish there was some more eye candy in the show.

22 hours ago, DRW50 said:

If it makes it any easier there's a lot you can skip (namely, pretty much anything featuring Chelsea/Paul/Terese/Toadie/Melanie, Haz, or the months-long saga of Karl being blamed for shitting all over Erinsborough).

Amen to all that.

I just caught up on 28 episodes and I'm really enjoying the show at the moment.

19 hours ago, DRW50 said:

I think it started around 2016 or 2017.

Yeah, that sounds about right. EE's last compelling period ended after the Lucy saga around 2016.

2 hours ago, Manny said:

Wow, it's been a long time since I even checked out UK tv ratings, so I had no idea that Emmerdale had better ratings than EastEnders  But I hope they do go back to being higher than Emmerdale. Even though I haven't watched Emmerdale in ages and have no idea what their quality is lol

I'm sure it must have been that way for a good long time, I'd say 10 years, possibly 7 at the least.

I'm really behind, but Yolande is pretty much singlehandedly keeping me watching this show. I'm so glad she's not just back as a regular, but really in the spotlight.