I Am A Swede

Great episodes. In one of the 1978 episodes I did spot a possible mistake when Reverend Hinton and Annie were discussing his children. He referred to his daughter as Christine, but when she appeared on the show a few years later she was called Barbara.

You're definitely not a bad person. Robert is a fascinating character, worthy of much better writing than he gets. I've always felt more sympathy for Robert than for Andy. It used to annoy me how Jack always sided with Andy and always seemed to have more affection for him than for Robert, his biological son. Technically Sarah wasn't Robert's mom, only Victoria's. But his biological mom died when he was only 4-5 months old, and Sarah was the only mom he'd ever known. It must have been so hard for him when Jack did everything he could for Andy after Sarah's death, but almost seemed to forget Robert.

She also married Jack Sugden, a serial adulterer, not to mention the fact that her daughter is an adulteress, and her sister committed adultery with her then husband.... I agree that it's horrible writing when they have characters do and say things that make them seem so hypocritical. Had it been Victoria it would have made more sense. She has been terribly affected by adultery throughout her life.

For those interested in Emmerdale Farm during the 80s this site has a lot of material about that era. http://emmerdalearchive.blogspot.se/

Lovely to see it again, but I agree, it was a bad choice to end the episode with Chris and Kathy. They really should have ended with Annie and Amos. I do think it's a bit odd, and I remember thinking so at the time as well, that Marian, Henry's daughter, didn't come to the funeral. I realize it's a long way to travel from Rome, but Spain is also far away and Amos came. If neither of the two actresses who had played Marian could make it I'm sure a recast would have worked. It would have been better than not having her there at all.

It's possible that the little girl with Andy and Robert is Victoria. It's hard to tell, but it looks a little bit like Hannah Midgley who played Victoria at this time. The guys with Scott are Adam Forrester (played by Tim Vincent) and Carlos Diaz (played by Gary Turner). Adam was a vet who worked for Zoe for a while. I think he arrived in the village around the time of the bus crash, and stayed about a year before he was sacked for giving the wrong injection to a horse. Carlos was a chef who worked at Kathy's diner. He was in a relationship with Nicola, but at the same time he had an affair with Bernice. She became pregnant and didn't know if Carlos or Ashley (her husband at the time) was the father. This all came out at his wedding to Nicola, who in turn had pretended to be pregnant to make Carlos marry her.

James would be almost 19 now. He was born in September 1996.

I guess she could return because of Noah, Charity's son. He is her nephew through Chris after all.

Tara left together with Sean Reynolds. I don't think they did anything special, they just moved away to start a new life somewhere else. Even though it would be great to see Zoe again I don't think it's gonna happen. She's been gone so long now, and there's really no reason why she would move back to the village. She didn't grow up there so she doesn't have that sentimental connection to it, and she has no family left there either.

Maybe they could cut down on episodes? After all, it worked great with two episodes a week up till 1997. I realize they can't cut down that much, but maybe down to four episodes a week. At the very least make it five, like the US daytime soaps.

I bet that not a single Dingle will be among the casualties, even though the show could benefit from losing one or two (or three!) of them. Compare that to the Sugdens and their extended family, they drop dead on a regular basis!

I think I've guessed it.

It started here in episode 527, which originally aired in May 1979

I'm so grateful that you, and some other kind souls, have been uploading old episodes. It's been such a treat to watch them. And compared to today's soaps the difference in quality is immense. Yes, it was slow-moving, and maybe some of the acting wasn't always of the highest calibre, but the stories were realistic and interesting. Stories like the collapse of Joe's marriage to Christine Sharp, or when Seth's son Jimmy and his wife visit Beckindale, and Jimmy tries to hide that he's been in prison. Character-driven stories that didn't rely on plot but told the stories from a more human perspective.

Sickening! I don't understand why they have to do this to Robert.

The Hughes family felt a little like a new version of the Merrick family, and in a way as a replacement. Pat had of course died a few years before Kate, Rachel and Mark turned up, but within a year after their arrival both Jackie and Sandie Merrick were also gone from the show. I never really felt that Joe and Kate were right for each other, but looking back now that was the case with nearly every girl Joe got involved with. He really didn't have much luck in love.

I can't speak for anyone else of course, but I never thought that Kim was dead. I think Kate's friend Fran was with her in the car when she hit Pete Whiteley (Rachel's married lover), so that must be close to these episodes.

Thankfully Emmerdale has never resorted to the back-from-the-dead scenario that is so common on American soaps. Even though there are characters I wish they hadn't killed off I'm still glad they've never gone down that road.