Shortland Street

[Bright Eyes]

Rachel: Lucy, my brother Jonathan is gay. He tried heterosexuality for a time and it didn't work. Now he's gay all the time.

This show just kills me sometimes.

[Dion]

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).

Edited May 25, 2015 by Dion

[Bright Eyes]

The same Gabrielle that had an affair with Chris and was my beautiful Lana's sister? She was before my time. Were you a fan? Was she popular?

I forgot to tip my hat to you for your previous post and the "catastrophic event that continues to have repercussions to this very day!" There are points I just want to go mad, but whenever he reads Chris like a book it almost (very, very slightly) makes up for it. I also thought it was a nice small moment when Pixie (I think) asked him if he wanted to be a doctor someday like his Dad and he replied with an unsure, "Maybe." Already setting the seeds ... Soaps don't do much of that anymore.

[Dion]

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!

[Bright Eyes]

That's why I love Rachel. She is a true modern woman. Not wanting kids of her own, keeping her maiden name after getting married, being a fabulous boss QUEEN. If this was a US soap she would be a psycho villain or some such trash. Shorty is just such a breath of fresh air. Even now with this Alex story. It's being told so delicately and honestly. It's made me think what this show would do if they ever tackled a D.I.D (Dissociative Identity Disorder) story. Have they ever before? It would certinaly be much different then what we're used to getting as soap fans.

And yes, I was talking about getting Curtis into the porn industry. Sorry for being such a shameless hussy.

[Dion]

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.

[Bright Eyes]

The Hero syndrome story with Josh has been my favourite since I started watching. One of the best stories I've ever seen from start to finish.

What are the details about the Capgras storyline?

[Dion]

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.

[Dion]

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.

[Bright Eyes]

Wow, Dion. I was wondering what your hinted speculation was about, but unlike in Emmerdale, I never clued in to Ameila Read being pregnant. I'm glad you didn't post that until now, because it left me to be surprised by today's episode. Considering this is poor Bells we're talking about, I have to fear that her baby is not long for this world.

[Dion]

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.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Dion

[Bright Eyes]

I just watched an Amelia Reid interview and she said basically what you thought. She'll have her maternity leave and when she comes back Bella will still be pregnant.

The show is very on point with the story beat of giving Pixie weed to help with her pain. Another reason to love this show.

[Dion]

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)

Edited June 15, 2015 by Dion

[Bright Eyes]

That just goes to show how on point Shorty truly is. Unfortunately, the 2010 article won't fully load for me.

So happy to have one hour Mondays back. The Winter season hasn't disappointed me yet.

[Dion]

Oh I'll post it here:

The Shorty Street curse strikes again!

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

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.