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I don't think I've ever been this angry about Home and Away killing off a character.Certainly not since Chloe.I thought Oscar couldn't be more mistreated than he was last year, when the potential of him and Maddy as a couple was completely wasted, with them getting no real storylines while they were together and him being made to look like a bad boyfriend to justify Maddy hooking up with Matt, but no, it got worse.Three months of being treated as part of the scenery and then, much like Denny, he gets a death which isn't about him at all, it's just a cheap publicity stunt: "Tune in and see which of your favourites snuffs it!" I've got used to investing in relationships only for the show to make out they weren't important, but I think this is the first time I've invested in a character, followed him for two and a half years, seen him develop from an awkward abused teenager into a basically sweet and sensitive guy only for it to be rendered completely meaningless by an exit which seemed designed to stick two fingers up at anyone who cared about Oscar. I should be saddened at the life of a decent young man cut tragically shot but instead I'm angry at the show for choosing to end the character's journey in the most inappropriate way possible.Oscar the character and Jake the actor deserved much, much better.

I just find the whole thing massively disappointing.VJ was a character too ingrained in the show to have his age messed about with but what we're left with is some very awkward halfway house.In Jett and VJ, we had two teenagers who actually looked like teenagers, rather than the usual 15-year-olds-played-by-23-year-olds, and if they were going to recast VJ, they should have carried through with that and kept a realistic-looking teen group, as they've done with the supporting characters in that age group.But no, someone thought it would be a good idea to try and turn him into the show's new pin-up. I think that, certainly in the early days, maybe even now, there was an attempt to write VJ the same.But imagining Felix Dean in those scenes just underlines the differences.If you change the face, the body, the voice and the mannerisms, then that's everything, however it may look on paper.You could imagine the old VJ going into a sulk about Leah's new relationship, but when he's suddenly towering over Leah he comes across as a lot more aggressive.Same with him punching a bully, it's a very different scene when you've got an actor playing VJ who could clearly do some damage if he wanted.In fact, I sat through the whole Tyson storyline not having a clue what the dynamic was supposed to be;Tyson looks way older than Felix Dean but with Matt Little they look about the same age, so is it meant to be an older boy picking on a younger one or not?To be fair, the scenes with Jett almost work, you can believe that they're about the same age when they bounce off each other.The problem really kicks in when he has scenes with the likes of Sasha and Matt, and this character who was like a younger brother figure to them a few months ago is suddenly acting like he's their age.The new VJ just doesn't have the right mindset or physicality to act younger than the people he should be younger than. In one of those random thought trails, I found myself earlier today recalling how VJ and Lily were born on the same day and how nearly ten years later they were able to bring her back and play with that connection.And then I thought "Well...what if she came back now?Either they'd recast her as a 25-year-old bombshell or they'd have Matt Little playing romantic scenes against a girl nearly a decade younger than him and trying not to look creepy."I'm not saying it was likely either way (and even the existing SORAS required us to quietly ignore the fact that Will and Gypsy weren't old enough to be her parents) but it's another example of how changing VJ like this has messed about with the show's infrastructure.

Not really worth a thread, so thought I'd post this in here: There's also two new locations on the site this week which are being discussed in the Location thread: Summer Bay High School (1988-96, 2000, 2008-09) Northern Districts Hospital (1994-2010)

Happy birthday BTTB! There's an even scarier anniversary for me this year... April 11th will be TWENTY years since I published the first issue of Summer Bay News online (the forerunner of H&A Source which merged with Chris' site to become BTTB). That certainly makes me feel old. I have fond memories of 13 years ago. When I hear songs from the time they always remind me of being at my job in the US, being interrupted by messages from Chris for most of the day after he got home from school, always with some new idea for the site. It's really good to be back as a contributor again after a long absence and to see how much hard work goes on behind the scenes collating facts, figures and trivia that will one day make its way onto the site. It's an incredible resource and now that the show's in its 30th season I realize how important this is. 13 years ago I, and others too, probably felt like we knew the show inside out, but now there's 30 years of history it would be completely impossible for anyone to put it all together without the joint effort we have here. It's an unwieldy beast! Well done everyone.

Opening titles are on the first look today!

Just dusting off this thread to reveal that BTTB turns 20 years old today...

I think one of the main problems with the recast was that everything happened too fast. I was completely ready to accept Matt Little as VJ, because recasts and SORASing happens, that's how soaps work. But it hasn't worked. He doesn't feel like VJ at all. What they should've done is reintroduced Matt Little as VJ, but given him small storylines where he was more of a supporting character, and showed us that he's still the same sweet VJ we knew and loved. Then, over time, they could make him grow up more. If they wanted him to be angry and lash out, that's fine, people change, but they should've showed us that character progress. He can't be kind and naive Felix Dean one day and big, muscly and angry Matt Little the next. They can't recast a character and change their personalities at the same time, that's where it goes wrong.

We're aiming to start on 8th December.

So I'll hold my hands up – Karen Dean should be in there ? I'd mistakenly assigned her points to Karen Thompson when I was cleaning up the results, confusing myself after a couple of people voted for "Karen Dean's mum". She actually received two votes, both as the voters' fourth choice. She scored four points, landing her in joint 139th place. Karen Thompson only got 11 points, meaning she moves from position 92 to position 109. I've added Karen Dean to the results column, and she'll be added to the actual results pages once I've double checked that everything is correct – obviously it's affected the numbering of some of the other results as well. Oops!

Constable Risotto Mk II I'd like to think her name is Angela. Certainly not the first time they're reused the name badges - we had a Constable P Corelli pop up in recent years too ?

No-one knows what happens behind closed doors? Maybe Sophie and her ex grew apart? Maybe they broke up and parted on good terms or perhaps something else happened, either way it's none of our business. When they were together she did put a lot of pictures of them together on SM, but I noticed she stopped doing so a while back... James Stewart and Sarah Roberts started dating each other at the start and they obviously fell for each other on set and hanging out off it too. Either way i'm happy for Sophie/Patrick they make a lovely and good looking couple and the chemistry between them is HOT!

Merged the Sydney thread into this one as they're pretty much covering the same topics I did find that one a couple of years back - whilst I'm informed that photographs have been taken, I don't yet have them in order to put it up on the site. In that case, today's update will hopefully be of some significant interest! These have been a long time coming, what with wanting to ensure accuracy with the info and provide decent screencaps for comparison, but two major locations have now been added to the site: Summer Bay High School (1988-96, 2000, 2008-09) Northern Districts Hospital (1994-2010) Whilst I don't usually upload two in one go, you'll soon see why I decided to add both at the same time... The photographs of the various buildings around the complex are placed alongside the relevant screencaps, so be sure to go through the gallery in its entirety if you want to see all the familiar spots. Thanks to QA as ever, who I think has taken no less than three trips to the filming location over the years as more of its buildings came to light We do have some of the other school and hospital locations, which will come in future updates.

Since the busy period with the Most Popular Character poll died down, over past few weeks we've uploaded several weeks worth of extended summaries for 1989 - which now brings the year to completion. A big thanks to RR1 and Jeremai who have helped fill in the gaps! Since I last posted in here, we've also had new character profiles for Charlotte King, Tank Snelgrove, Jackson Dunn and Dallas Phillips (with thanks to RR1 and Matt). And we've also two new locations, Dylan's Baptism which was added a few weeks ago, and today the location of the Nash/Fraser Apartment. Thanks to QA for heading out to take pics on one of her many location road trips for us. Behind the scenes we've actually been pretty manic this past few weeks, continuing work on a new section which we'll talk about soon, and also a rather exciting feature that we shall be publishing on Monday Be sure to keep checking www.backtothebay.net to keep abreast of all the latest news and updates!

Happy 13th Birthday BTTB, of course being a Home and Away fan site that probably means you're now actually 17 and have been recast with Matt Little... Thanks to the team for all your hard work.

We appear to have made it to our teenage years... BTTB turns 13 years old today!

Nice pic of Norman posted on Instagram today:

They do seem to be trying to take Andy down the same path as Heath…and it’s not going to work. Because they’ve forgotten what worked with Heath, or perhaps never knew. For me, Heath’s relationship with Bianca was almost the least important part of his redemption, it wasn’t what made him a good person, it was what he could be once he became a good person. The change came when he learned he was a father and was determined to be a good person for his daughter, and with the catch-22 that once people started treating him like a human being, after even his brothers initially didn’t think him worth much, he became one. And they so nearly got it right with Andy. He did a lot of bad stuff when he first came in and continued to do so. But again, he began to change when people began to treat him as though he’d changed: Brax and Casey gave him chance after chance, more than he deserved, and it meant a lot to him, that they thought he was worth more than he himself thought. And then Casey died and it affected him and he was determined to be a better person, to make up for his part in it. And how did he do that? He murdered Jake. Ruthlessly, cold-bloodedly, without remorse. And damned himself forever. I know some people can excuse that but I can’t. It wasn’t noble, it wasn’t necessary, it wasn’t finishing him off when he was as good as dead already. It made sure that Andy was past saving. If it was a genuine act of sacrifice, if Andy had turned himself in instead of Kyle protecting him, if he’d actually saved Brax at the cost of his freedom and maybe his soul, then maybe there’d be redemption of a sort there. But it didn’t. It didn’t save Brax and it didn’t harm Andy, he just got on with his life as if it never happened. And where are we now? Brax is in jail and Andy isn’t, even though Andy’s the one who’s a murderer. And that just points to the true inequality of justice on the show: Brax gets charged with Dean’s murder because the police make the evidence fit, but there’s no homocide investigation into Jake’s murder, just a bunch of local uniform who give up. Josh becomes an accessory to murder by telling a blatant lie that could have been broken by mininal cross examination and Emerson just accepts it. Yet a few months earlier, Oscar tries to make a statement clearing Zac of the hit and run and is telling the truth and Emerson basically tells him to go away. He wants to put Zac away more than Andy? So what have we now? The resurrection of Andy’s shallow and twisted romance with Hannah, because if he’s got a girlfriend that must make him a nice guy. Desperate attempts to portray him as a caring big brother who looks out for Josh, after months of him trying to keep Josh in the gutter and keep him away from Maddy, Summer Bay, school and anything else that would have given him a better life. Andy pressuring Nate into letting Hannah go home when she’s not ready, moving himself in with her family and making her utterly dependent on him, to the point that Denny has to put aside all the harm Andy has done to her family (cutting Zac off by letting him be blamed for his drugs, getting Evelyn kidnapped by his enemies) and beg him to help them. He’s not a nice person, however much people might try and convince themselves he is, however much he might want to be. And ultimately, he has to pay for his crimes or the show really has lost its way.

If the writers in the last year had remembered that Bobby was meant to wear glasses maybe she would have seen that log

Though you're leaving out the fact that he's the only one to have played him for nearly 7 out of the 13 years VJ's been on the show, not to mention that all those before him (with perhaps the exception of Cooper Scott briefly) were non-speaking babies/toddlers with no particular prominence. It's not so much the fact that he's been recast that people aren't happy about, we all know it happens all the time, but more the suitability of the replacement and the rather transparent reason for casting him. Around 95% of the comments I've read both on here and various other places on the net all say the same thing, he simply looks too old (and yes, even when you do take the silly SORAS into account).

Well, it’s hard to believe but as of today, 14th January 2014, ‘Back to the Bay’ is 10 years old! There’s an article on the main site detailing some of the history of the site, as well as some pics of days gone by, but I thought I’d give a personal perspective in this thread. Whilst it’s a bit of an old cringeworthy cliché to say it’s been a “life changing experience”, my own involvement with the site has certainly had a huge effect on mine. In 2003 I came across Jeremai’s ‘Home and Away Source’ website, it stood out as one of only a couple of sites that actually provided original content rather than copying and pasting stuff from the official site (the latter of which is a practice that still continues to this day sadly!). As I’d spent a week in Los Angeles with a few H&A cast members a year earlier, I contacted him to see if he’d be interested in some pics and a report of the trip. Jeremai’s H&A site merged with Chris’ existing Aussiesoap site & forum in September 2003. The forum later turned into EverySoap, which as the name suggested had a subforum for soaps from the UK, Oz and also the US. The main BacktotheBay site was created on 14th January 2004 alongside a long-gone Neighbours site. The Everysoap forum continued until September 2004 when that was finally rebranded as BTTB, with all accounts and H&A related forums moved over. Whilst it’s quite a struggle remembering the forum that far back, I do remember a rather bizarre Games Arcade built into the board software which got rather competitive. I’d only got around to re-registering to the Everysoap forum on 12th January 2004, and I slowly got involved in helping out with features for BTTB, alongside Ryan. In June 2004, a day I remember due to it being the day of my college graduation ball, we were both asked to join the staff - Ryan as a Contributor and myself as a Moderator. Only a couple of months later I made my first month long trip to Palm Beach, and from that came our very first location photographs, alongside a small behind-the-scenes feature and video. 2005 brought about another interesting year with having the pleasure of conducting two phone interviews with former cast members - one of whom kindly invited me along to the H&A cast party in London’s Leicester Square, and who remains a mate to this very day. At Christmas 2005 after a couple of ‘guest stints’ whilst Chris was away, I was made an Admin permanently. In 2007 I headed back to Palm Beach for a longer stay and spent 6 weeks stalking a very welcoming H&A crew, and travelling around NSW taking hundreds of location photos (a task now undertaken by QA until my return!). Whilst some other planned activities never came to fruition due to internal politics at Seven, I did have the pleasure of meeting with Bevan Lee and discussing some of the outstanding storylines that were going to feature in H&A’s 20th year, as well as receiving genuine gratitude for all the support that both BTTB and its members had provided the show with. The previous year we had also run a story on behalf of North Palm Beach Surf Lifesaving Club advertising their upcoming open day, after which they were able to increase their number of members by over 70%. As a result, on my arrival in Palm Beach I was graciously given a bag full of merchandise and an honorary membership to the club. The Surf Club were also kind enough to donate more goodies for our Scriptwriting Competitions in the years following. The competitions were head-judged by former H&A Script Producer Coral Drouyn, who had herself been an active member of the forum in previous years. In its final year, the competition was held in honour of one of our forum moderators Frankie (also chief whip of the previous competitions), who had passed away six months earlier. The past few years we've concentrated on trying to build up BTTB as a one stop reference site for the show, something which I hope will continue long into the future. I know updates have been a bit far and few between in recent months, but I've had plans for some major revamps for some time now - I'm just lacking the technical ability so have to wait until Chris is available to help. I know I’m not the only one for who the forum has had a big effect - whilst I won’t name names I know there’s been friendships formed; fledgling writers at the start of their careers testing the water in the Fanfiction forum & scriptwriting competitions; discussions on the forum that have later manifested themselves into the show; and even a bit of real life romance between members! Sadly we did lose the first year of posts after a forum crash in early 2005 and a few other glitches, with some gems such as the first ‘BTTB Big Brother’ and an infamous discussion about cabbages being forever lost. Our last statistical milestone came in July 2012 when we reached both 900,000 posts and 19,000 members on the same day. So once again, a big thanks to all the staff who have contributed to BTTB over the past decade (which are listed on the main site but also copied in below), and most of all to all the members who have helped create such a thriving H&A community! Thousands have come and gone, but there are still a small amount of people who have been with us since the first years of BTTB’s existence – so an extra thanks to you ‘Golden Oldies’ (remember that back in the day?) for sticking around! Administrators Chris Jenkins, Dan Foster Forum Moderators Dean, -Karen-, Nick (Foxy), Jen, John (john003au) and Meredith (Mez83) Contributors Barbara, Red Ranger 1 and Ryan Librarian Quiet Achiever Former BTTB staff members: Anaya, Andy, Bttb-rox!, Cal, Cat, Cerise, Claire, Edward Skylover, Eli, Emmasi, Frankie, Jackieleanne, JameyMaria, Jeremai, JosieTash, -Kirst-, Lisa P, Liz, MarMar, Melmarshall858, Nicom, NuttyNeighbour, Scandal-01, Si-Co, Skykat, Theresa and Valli. Please feel free to share with us any of your own memories from over the years, whether you're a long term member or a relatively new one!