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Not if the character had still been axed.

Despite not really seeing what the Bait Shop added to the show, Alf having the Caravan Park bookings in there makes so much sense. I think he could actually do with a bit of a grocery store too, milk, bread etc… It’d be a good location for the much loved Coffee Cart actually. The curtains at The Beach House really don’t go with any of the decor. I’ve never really realised before now, but the sound effect the show still use for a fridge door opening is the sound of glass milk bottles rattling, but we tend to see cartons or plastic bottles.

They also used her relationship with Lance to connect her to Colleen. I agree, I felt the same, but they’d taken her from being ditzy and naive to being a little more Worldly wise and more ‘alternative’ with being vegetarian, into tarot etc… so because of that and that her friendship with Irene was forgotten, it wasn’t really until her relationships with John & Jett I started to like her again, but I still don’t really connect the Marilyn of today with the Marilyn of the 80s & 90s. I appreciate this is a woman who has lost a child (and apparently given another up) and gone through cancer, but if they could bring back a little bit more of the Marilyn who’d pick up a box and have the contents fall out the bottom that’d be good. Marilyn & Leah both used to speak a million words per minute, but that’s been lost too.

I wonder if they can’t, maybe there’s something in the length of life contract as it pre-dates 5Star.

I wonder if the difference is that whereas UK soaps seem to think they need a cast of 60 to deliver 4-6 episodes a week, Home and Away do it with less than half that. I’ve never understood that need aside from when Corrie had a 10-strong aging legacy cast so probably needed 30-40.

New closing credits too to go with the new title sequence. Sadly not a return to the closing theme.

Is Kirby’s medical background brand new information?

My 5Star signal is shocking recently so I keep having to switch between the app and my recording. I like that I’ll be able to watch when I like, particularly with Neighbours ending again.

Roo saying she’d had a caravan moved off the slab where the Bait Shop was going to go made me laugh, they’re all just plonked on the lawn!

I wonder if the Astonis had given him a long term lease on a peppercorn rent before they sold it.

What does the Bait Shop really add to the show? Alf has the Caravan Park to run and the Surf Club, maybe we could just see the Caravan Park or Summer Bay House a bit more and have some people stay at the park.

Ahh, ok. I guess Good was better than Wonderful, but yeah…

Didn’t the 2008 premiere go from the Fletcher house flashback to Ric’s birthday cake saying TWENTY WONDERFUL YEARS? I doubt it was referencing Ric’s traumatic childhood.

I find it really odd seeing characters like Remi at Summer Bay House, there was a time when almost everyone went there fairly frequently, but now it’s so disconcerting, almost like Remi had gone through a portal to a parallel universe.

Was the development that Alf & Michael fell out about linked to The Sands?

Ah thanks, maybe similar architecture or something. I was thinking around that time period, although initially thought it was Belle’s rehab, but checked that episode and it wasn’t. Leah & Justin’s skinny dipping and aftermath seemed very old school Home and Away, so much so that it just felt really out of place.

I feel like the location of Abigail’s counselling session has been used before, but I can’t place where. @Dan F, any ideas please?

Without seeing screenshots I’d make a guess that it was down to studio space, we’d have had the Drop In Centre by then as another large & prominent set, shooting closer up might have meant they could have even smaller sections of the modular set up in the studio.

Kristy Wright feels a bit like the odd one out in this line up, I feel like they’re missing a strong crossover link between the eras like Adam Willits or one of the more long term cast members.

I feel like they brought Gary in just to do the heavy lifting with Felicity’s funeral, otherwise it could’ve been offscreen with the memorial in the Bay. Cash had very little to do other than the usual relationship fare.

Copying over to this thread: Today’s episode was probably the closest to an old school Home and Away episode I’ve seen in years. The way the news of Felicity spread by word of mouth, into the Diner, rather than just mobile phones, it reminded me of Shane’s death.