Hollyoaks: Discussion Thread

[Winchester91]

I'm here for Sienna. I know she's done a bunch of crap, but she's so endearing.

[Chris B]

I stopped watching around when Sienna arrived and I didn't care for her. Can't believe she's a nut now. I haven't seen her yet in the episodes on Hulu. I DID see Teresa's exit which was very interesting. I LOVED the conflict with Carmel and the misunderstanding that led to her arrest. This whole story is a good use of history. I wonder what the future holds for Sonny. Although he was avenging his brothers death, he went a bit vigilante about it so I didn't feel anything sympathy for him. I thought he was a jerk as a teen and he's still a jerk.

[DRW50]

Such pathetic, lazy writing on this show, they are so desperate to make Sienna beloved that they demonize the people she held prisoner, manipulated, put in the hospital, etc. And I'm sure most viewers will lap it up. Oh someone is throwing eggs at her. She is a saint and they are evil.

[Winchester91]

Sienna is sorry about what she did. What else does she have to do to prove that? Besides, she's going to find her daughter (hopefully) soon.

Spring Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K064afZi_DU

Edited March 19, 2014 by Winchester91

[cassadine1991]

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

Too bad I'm completely over John Paul and don't care anymore. He's over there taking crack from Ste and the next moment he'll be kissing the lips of the guy who's married and who's wife has been so supportive of him (even though he's been acting completely idiotic for months on end)....

[DRW50]

Another reason this story is offensive, dangerous trash. The message of this story is that if you report a rape, you will go to jail; the other message is that if you have an affair, then you will be raped and you will deserve it.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

I don't think the affair led to it. I think his mishandling of Robbie and Finn did. I think he was stupid to lay a finger on him given what both of them have said to him both in front and behind his back.

The affair is just more evidence of how utterly dumb JP has become. But that stupidity is what led him to allow Finn to spend the night. And it's that stupidity that has allowed them to make fun of and bully him for months on end

[DRW50]

When this was hyped as a social issue story which was supposed to shed light on an important topic, then everything has a message. And if the message here is that JP is an idiot and as a result you have to be the "right" kind of rape victim to get viewer sympathy, then the story is sending a horrible, horrible message.

[Winchester91]

JP has always been an idiot even before the rape. It's not gonna suddenly change now. He carried on with a married man, used poor judgment using classified school resources to track Finn down, and the less said about his absolute stupidity in how he handled the Craig situation years ago, the better.

It's like you demand he turns into a saint.

[DRW50]

It's not about him being a saint. It's about going on to the press about this story being about educating people, when it's really just more of the same "shocking" affair stories that everyone has already seen a million times. Instead of any fan caring about the rape, they will just yawn at the same old contrivances. Or they will believe the story is saying that if you are a cheater, you get what you deserve.

There was zero point for the rape story. Less than zero.

[Chris B]

I'm now in the second week of February and I'm not really enjoying Hollyoaks. As I'm watching I'm starting to see that every storyline seems dark or depressing in some way. I find it hard to believe Bryan Kirkwood is writing as this isn't how Hollyoaks was during his first stint. There is no comedy, the pop music is mostly gone and the look of the show has lost all the colors and youthfulness for a typical, gloomy British soap look. Instead of the families created through the bond of going to college, you have a lot more family units now. That would be fine if there were more diversity in the way these families were portrayed.

Paul Marquesses' stint ruined the show IMO and it looks like the show is continuing more in that vein than anything Kirkwood did before. I'm also surprised so many of his characters survived. Diane, for example, has seemed useless for years and now seems thrown into a relationship with Tony just so they have something to do. Compared to his previous love interests I'm not feeling it. Most of all, the most disappointing aspect of nuHollyoaks is the mob influence. I HATE that. It's so overdone on soaps and it just doesn't work here. Grace is no Claire and Trevor is boring. The only interesting one of the lot is Frasier and from what I've gathered he has been killed off.

How is everybody else feeling? Is my opinion rare?

[DRW50]

Well, the ratings are good, but the show seems to get very little talk at Digital Spy, and what it does get is mostly negative and complains about what you mention. There's isolated support for a few characters, like Sinead. (Ste used to be their pretty pony but I guess most of his fans quit the show after his abuser went to jail)

[Chris B]

Ste seems as directionless as humanly possible. John Paul's story is also an abomination. I don't understand Finn's motivation for raping John Paul. I don't understand the purpose of the story in terms of advancing either character. And I really don't find it believable that John Paul would be so afraid of these kids. I feel the rape aspect was done for shock value and they don't know where to go beyond that.

[DRW50]

Ste only had a purpose on the show when some fans could get hot over the idea of him being beaten up by the man he loved. Other than that Kirkwood just used him to bring in the Lomaxes (who seem to have no real fan support that I have seen), and he will probably pair him with JP for more of the "shocking" father/son triangle.

I agree that the rape story was just done for shock value. The sad thing is that if Finn makes sad panda faces I gurantee you that a vocal group of fans will pity him, root for him, and say JP got what he deserved.