Red Ranger 1

It seemed to be one step forward and quite a few backwards for Bree for much of the episode, but it seems she is willing to listen to people at least these days, as with Levi here. So she's realised that trying to will herself out of a mental health crisis isn't going to work and agreed to get help.Hopefully Dana's worry that she might not go through with it will prove unfounded. I rolled my eyes at Harper mentioning talking to Tane before his court case: That's how she ended up pregnant! Perri seemed to making progress for much of the episode before deciding to repeat past mistakes. Mali took a very long time to loosen up (and the assistant's whispered aside probably didn't help), but got there in the end.Good use of Theo trying to give him a pep-talk.

I have some sympathy for Eden and I was pretty much cheering her on when she tore into Cash for only acting like her feelings matter when it suits him. But good grief, she really did handle it in a bad way, not only going out and having sex with the nearest willing person but ignoring how messy it is as well. It's a bit odd that Tim walked Eden home from work last episode and this one she's suddenly going into work (or at least was until she found something better to occupy her time with). We don't see Mackenzie and Cash together often but sometimes someone who's not that close to the situation is the best sounding board. We did actually see a glimmer of hope from Bree here. She's obviously not right, but that talk with Alf was the most honest she's ever been about what happened and she seemed to give him the genuine apology that she was refusing to give Marilyn not too long ago.It's a shame that overhearing Remi and Xander seems to have stoked her paranoia. We got some nice teasing scenes with Mali, Mackenzie and Kirby and I was amused at Mackenzie being horrified that he put the wine in danger.It's surprising but not unbelievable that Mali would get stage fright.

Well, Cash and Eden at least managed to say a civil goodbye, although with Levi's words and that ignored phone call, it feels like there's some doubt about whether he's going or not.Part of me thinks it might be good for him, he might flourish as a country copper like Gary and if he is serious about not reconciling with Eden (and that's a big if), then some distance might not be a bad idea.It seems Levi calling Abigail out on her hang-ups has had a positive effect on her.Apparently, the production only hired that building where Tim's office was the once, because now he's only counselling her on the standard sets and locations! Of course he might have an ulterior motive for that... Cracking onto your client's sister must surely be a breach of all sorts of ethics, especially given he's advising Abigail over her feelings for Eden and especially especially when he included her in that family counselling session. And it's pretty typical that Eden decides to rebound just as Cash is reaching out... Alf's back, which even Marilyn noted was quick, but perhaps not as we know him.Has he finally had one brush with death too often? Or has something happened with Martha? Anyway, it was nice to see Leah and Justin getting on.

It was Abby and Levi (and Mackenzie) who were at Salt and Eden and Tim who turned up. And they did seem to know they were there. Episode counts this week:Rose was only in one, although she was credited on Wednesday for no appearance. Well, any credit Abigail's gained over the past few weeks was well and truly used up here, as she seemed determined to hurt Eden as much as possible.The difference in the way she treats her siblings is quite staggering and even Levi wasn't having any of it.Hopefully his words sank in and Abigail will stop being so mardy.But anyway, Eden and Tim having an awkward moment isn't going to help things. I'd have said that needing to renew your vows after only six months was a cause for concern, not something to be proud of, but there you go. (It's hardly a record though, especially in soaps.Goodness knows what was going on with Alf and Ailsa in the first season.) At least it works as a symbolic way to give Leah and Justin a full stop and fresh start, so there's that.John and Marilyn actually worked quite well as a Greek chorus, especially when they thought they were being asked to get married as well.("That ship has sailed!"/"And then it sank.") John was also offering his own unique brand of help to Kirby and Mali, and I loved his apology in advance.Kirby's request wasn't an unreasonable one and seems to have put John's warnings aside.

Well, there was a lot of back and forth with everyone trying to herd Abby around town.Eden did the wrong thing by trying to gatecrash the session but she did seem to be trying to put things right and get Abigail and Tim together.It was amusing when Mackenzie made it clear she was chucking both Eden and Levi out.It seems a rather odd tactic for Tim to propose exactly what made Abigail cancel the session in the first place, hopefully he knows what he's doing.Abigail didn't make the best first impression on Theo but fair play to her for apologising. Meanwhile, Justin and Leah are back indulging in their favourite past-time instead of talking.I don't know if Leah's final assessment, that talking isn't going to change anything and the best thing they can do is just get on with things day by day, will stick or not.

I was going to say that it's been mentioned quite a few times that Perri's mum is dead but I guess the show did it for me! While Justin had a point that he and Leah aren't talking about their problems, Leah also had a point that learning to just enjoy each other's company again has value too, and they certainly seemed to be doing that! It was certainly nice to see after they've been permanently daggers at dawn since we came back in the UK.And yes, Leah managing to turn the tables on "Yarvis" was definitely a fun moment. Eden was definitely out of line reading Abigail's journal, and what sympathy I got from her being clearly upset to realise how Abigail saw her, and desperate to make up for it, was lost when she promptly railroaded her way into gatecrashing Abigail's counselling session, which seems to have backfired. A surprisingly busy episode actually with no fewer than five plotlines! Kirby seems to have thrown herself into the marketing thing and even managed to get a good response from Abigail. And it seems the senior constable wrestling match is already over as Cash gets a new posting. (I notice Rose was credited but didn't appear, so I assume there was going to be more of a follow up but it got cut.) And Xander has seemingly successfully talked Dana out of invading Harper's privacy, shame he didn't manage to talk to Eden! Anyway, they're further along than Tane and Harper are in the terms of ready to have children. It's a bit surprising that Dana's never told Xander about her past before. Anyway, it seems they've decided not to make it a roadblock at the moment.

Well, where to start with that? It would have been nice to see Tane prioritise Perri for once: Notably, Perri isn't allowed any reaction to Tane ditching helping him in order to ogle over images of his "real" son for the second time, instead just disappearing from the episode aside from a token appearance at the police station.I guess in some ways Dana brought this on herself by forcing Harper and Tane together, but I'm struggling to see any logic in Harper and Tane finding out the baby's gender and then not telling anyone.Tane's obviously just going with what Harper says, so I can't help seeing this as yet another schoolgirl attempt by Harper to make herself feel important and special by having the two of them share a secret. It's hard to know what to make of Bree here.She seemed reasonable and rational for a moment, up until the point where Remi suggested she see a doctor about her problem, at which point she suddenly switched to insisting she can handle it herself. Any doctor who thinks getting treatment for a mental health problem is career suicide has no business being in the job, but maybe we can say it'ss part of the condition. Cash being back at Yabbie Creek feels like a rather abrupt reset button and it feels like Mangrove River police station being shut down is a bit too important a detail to just be glossed over like that.What happens if someone there needs the police, does a neighbouring station have to cover? I'm not sure how I feel about his digging here. I guess it demonstrates the differences between him and Rose: She tends to be by the book, perhaps even more so when the case involves someone she knows, while he has a tendency to try and use his job to help people. Anyway, he probably has some points but the patronising way he handled it was bound to put Rose offside. That was a really random brief appearance by Kirby to get her an episode appearance!

Bree continues to stick her head in the sand and insist nothing's going on. Is it really as simple as "I've taken leave"? We get a bit more of an explanation but it feels like Bree's still in denial about key facts.Will she really just be allowed to come back to work without anything having changed? How long is this leave meant to be for? Marilyn was right to give her a serve, and Remi should probably see her threatening to break up with him as not much of a threat at all. Marilyn was irritating in her cloying attempts to push Harper towards Tane though.Maybe I'm doing her an injustice and she actually does just want to help, but it feels like Harper is looking for any excuse to force her way into Tane's orbit, so I was pleased Perri wouldn't engage with her here.The box of momentos was a surprise, although the cynic in me suspects Carl's one of those men who was proud of being a father but didn't have much interest in the child as an individual.Anyway, Perri organising the funeral is the respectful thing to do, whether Carl deserves it or not. EDIT: And hey, we got confirmation that Leah and Justin made it off on their second honeymoon without killing each other!

I don't know if I'd call it pointless or unfinished. Certainly it was no more pointless than any other storyline where a character comes in and causes trouble and then leaves with no long-term effects. I didn't hear any of these wild theories which utterly bemuse me. (Long-serving recurring character Constable Devlin as the true villain of the piece? Rory as an undercover cop? I feel like it's 2011 again when people were trying to convince themselves Brax wasn't really a criminal.) I do agree though that it was a bit odd that Rory arrived in a blaze of publicity and initially seemed like a broadly sympathetic character, only for him to turn out to be a disposable villain and the most obviously antagonistic River Boy we'd had in a long time after Heath and Dean basically acted like they were boy scouts. (That said, I've always felt Rory had more loyalty to his "brothers" than Brax, who'd probably have thrown Dingo under the bus to save his own skin.) I'm actually glad we didn't have some sordid revenge plot to kill off Felicity as was being predicted. I wish they hadn't killed her at all but at least they did in a fairly respectful manner. People were trying to find a way to make out she brought it on herself as it was, it would have been even worse if it actually had been down to her making bad choices.

Alf's episode count:Suspended. Well, Bree did the right thing but possibly for the wrong reasons.The wrap-up of this was downright weird: Surely it can't be as simple as "They can't suspend me if I'm not here"? For a start, she's already suspended and you'd expect them not to let her back to work unless it was clear there wasn't going to be a repeat. She does also say she offered them an explanation and the case is closed, but if that's the case, why take leave? The most likely explanation is that Bree is just deluding herself by calling it leave rather than accepting the fact that she's in no fit state to be working and they're not just going to let her walk back into running the ED until she gets herself sorted. Certainly, for someone that was calling medicine her life not too long ago, she seems surprisingly happy with the prospect of jacking it in to go backpacking around Asia. It'd be interesting to know what'd happen if Abigail and Remi ran into each other again, given Abby seems to have decided to stop blaming the rest of Lyrik and just hate Eden instead. Not that she's giving Eden an explanation, just a lot of attitude, with Levi stuck in the middle. Eden didn't really help her cause by having to be restrained from going to "correct" her, but at least Levi's comments gave her pause. I wasn't expecting to see Tane and especially Perri back this week.There is a certain cruel irony about Perri being the one who's expected to make arrangements for Carl's funeral.I guess he has no-one else then? Meanwhile, I loved John chiming in on Xander and Dana's conversations and Dana may live to regret not letting him be the one to help Xander out...

Bree continues to live in Denial Land, but surely there's a roomful of people who can testify that she kept sending nurses away at crucial moments and that she left while Alf was in distress and never came back? It's hard to see how she can make Levi being the bad guy here stick. I was glad that Kirby recalled that Bree was like this after Remi's accident because it's what I said when this behaviour first started! Anyway, at least Remi seems to have moved beyond giving her the benefit of the very small doubt. I loved Eden being as annoying as possible to get Abigail to see the counsellor, although it seems there's a lot still unsaid between them. At least Abigail did seem to open up with Tim after initially trying to fob him off with stock answers. Kirby's back to being a bit gung-ho with Mali but at least she seems to be getting his permission to do everything now.John made the most of his limited screen time, from wearily realising Marilyn's got a list of instructions from Alf to insisting on giving his input to the youngsters' plans.

Yeah, I kind of accepted the first scene of Justin saying they're not going to solve it in one night, but then when he threw a tantrum about Leah talking to Marilyn it was just "Do you know what show you're in?!" Anyway, they've used up their three episodes for the week, so hopefully they'll spend a couple of days off screen sorting things out. So, after sorting things out with Kirby, Abigail has apparently decided to blame everything on Eden instead.There was at least a bit of energy to their scenes, even if Eden was struggling to read the room at times. Cash and Harper's scenes kind of frustrated me a bit, because they reminded me that if we'd seen more of this side of Harper, and less of her constantly mooning over and enabling Tane, then I wouldn't have gone off her as much as I have this year. As much as I've disliked Bree recently, I was kind of uncomfortable with Marilyn telling Levi to give her what for, even though I can see where she's coming from.

Not that I remember? I guess she had her moments like any character but I think she and Irene got on well in the early days.

I think Rose has, for the most part, always found a balance between professionalism and compassion.She did, after all, let Mali and Harper off the hook in similar circumstances (although Theo did more than they did), but when it comes to a potential murder charge, she's not going to have the final say, just be the one to gather evidence and pass it on to the prosecutors.Anyway, it did at least bring Justin and Leah together.It irks a bit that Theo takes all the responsibility while Tane dodges punishment again, although looking at it objectively, Tane confessing wouldn't do Perri much good. I'm glad Tane admitted he was wrong about Jane, who's cleared the first hurdle.Sadly, we still get silliness like Tane giving Harper all the credit for getting him to fight his own charges, when her involvement seemed to largely consist of acting like an idiot in court, giving him a sympathy boink and repeating some stuff Felicity told her to say. I'm sorry but killing Felicity to give Harper a free run at Tane killed any support I might have had for the pairing, and making Cash chief shipper on deck for them doesn't help. I did like the stuff between Mackenzie and Xander; I still feel like she was let off the hook a bit much but I'm glad to see them on friendly terms anyway.There was an echo of her first scene in her "Mine, all mine" moment at Salt, except now she has a friend to come out there and share the moment with her.

The more the personality vacuum that is Harper becomes involved in a storyline, the less interest I have, which has been the problem with Perri pretty much from the start.It doesn't help that we still have Tane griping about the police not putting Carl away and ignoring the fact that it's partly down to him abandoning Perri in court to go running to Harper's side just because Dana was being melodramatic.Anyway, for all Tane's grumbling, Perri's lawyer does seem professional if nothing else.How competent she is remains to be seen.I do agree that the "accessory to murder" thing (and, indeed, the way people are throwing the word "murder" around) is rather overblown, although they're guilty of assisting a fugitive and lying to the police at least. I've been on Justin's side up until now but ye gods, he really was looking for something to object to here: Leah makes perfectly innocent small talk and he treats it like an accusation. Marilyn was being pretty annoying as per usual.So, sounds like even the characters didn't know Alf was going!

Alf's episode count:Four.And it seems that's the last we'll see of him for a while! So, despite Tane repeatedly claiming that he'd tell the police the moment he knew where Perri was...he didn't. I can understand him not wanting to have Perri dragged to the police station against his will, but he took a heck of a risk just leaving him alone like that.Theo did what he had to do to break the impasse.It didn't go as well as they'd all hoped and things might have gone better if Perri had managed to tell his story before the evidence came back.The police are being rather picky here: Do they really expect Perri to have gone rushing to Carl's side when he was likely in shock and when there was a good chance Carl would have attacked him again if he'd had the chance? Harper continues to alternate between annoying and bland. I can only assume her high showing in the poll was because fans of the even higher placed Tane are fans of her by default, given she's pretty much just a plot device to give him a family these days. Fair play to Abigail, she did seem to be being polite to Kirby until forced to confront her grudges.It's to be hoped that Mali's word had some effect.I assume that Abigail's recount of events was a simplification, given that Kirby and Remi knew Levi when he turned up so must have already known Eden when the family split up.

So following on from three episodes of Leah being up herself, we get three episodes of Bree doing the same.They really are spoiling us with this first week back.She seemed to be on a quest to treat everyone as badly as possible here, using Remi as a convenient punchbag while trying to manipulate Levi and Dana and then turning on them when they wouldn't play ball. It's all right her saying medicine is her life, but people's actual lives were at risk. Meanwhile, Abigail is in the running to take the obnoxious prize away from her.I felt a bit of empathy for her when she was chatting with Levi about her counselling but she's soon taking liberties and sniping at Kirby and Remi over manufactured grudges.Mali really needs to pull her into line. How on earth did Xander end up being the one apologising to Mackenzie? Mackenzie was in the wrong for going behind his back and cutting him out of the deal. I guess he's decided he's not interested in Salt anymore so that's okay, but Mackenzie doesn't even seem to have acknowledged she did the dirty on him. Meanwhile, the more Dana whines about how much trouble Perri's causing poor ickle Harper, the more I want someone to shut her up. Is she seriously moralising about hiding from the police? (Okay, Dana was hiding from people a lot more threatening than Rose, but she didn't know that at first.)

I think Eden was absolutely right to handle things the way she did. I don't believe she meant to hurt Cash but she could see Cash was hurting Michelle and it couldn't go on. And once he'd stopped lashing out, Cash understood that, even if he was still a bit cold towards her. Bree continues to be a couple of steps away from a padded cell with her warped sense of reality. Even Remi doesn't seem willing to take things on trust, especially now he knows she's lied to him. I'm still not sure how Alf missed Bree abandoning him but Marilyn's filled him in now.Bree being shut down by first Marilyn and then Mackenzie was very satisfying. I don't think Alf's really helping things by providing Leah with a convenient bolthole to avoid her problems in.I'm glad Justin was blunt with Leah about why he didn't feel able to be honest with her about Claudia.I do want Leah and Justin to make up in the long term, but for the moment, I can't say I'm disappointed at Leah getting a taste of her own medicine.

Weirdly, I was the other way round. I was 25 at the time and, to me, Ric and Cassie looked young. I was shocked to learn Sharni was 22 in real life and that 22-year-olds looked that young to me. Mind you, I was the same with Peta, who was actually older than me in real life, about five years earlier, so maybe I'm just not the best judge!

Incidentally, since when does the Parata/Newman house have a drive like that? It almost looked like a different location!

Alf handled things better than I expected, although it's not clear how much he'd have enabled Leah if she hadn't had a rapid change of heart: He was quick to question her complete lack of evidence that Justin had cheated and to try and get her and Justin talking. Marilyn seemed to have snapped back in her old "My husband cheated on me so everyone else's does too" stance from 1995 (except we now know she was lying about most of that, so who knows!). Anyway, Leah saw sense eventually and I'm glad Claudia wasn't the person Eric painted her as. I can understand Justin being hurt at how quick Leah was to take a stranger's word over his but he seemed to fixate on the wrong thing: Didn't Leah only meet Eric because she was trying to get hold of him and/or Claudia? I sympathise with Rose, who's trying to do her job when other people aren't making it easy and are treating her like the enemy. Tane doesn't get any sympathy, and Harper quickly being needy and clingey leaves me wishing more than ever it had been her and not Felicity that had something horrible happen to her. So yeah, Cash just can't let go of Michelle and it seems only Eden's looking out for her. When Cash did his usual thing of blaming her for everything, Eden really should have pointed out that he's the one interfering in Michelle's life.

I believe it was Paula's decision to leave and the original plan was to have Rhys and Shelley stay together, hence why their marriage suddenly ends over the course of about two episodes at the end of the season. I'm not so sure about Michael Beckley. I seem to remember Coral Drouyn had big plans for Rhys and Beth, but when Dan Bennett took over all of that got thrown out and Rhys, Dani and Max all got written out in quick succession, leaving only Kirsty to survive into 2005.

We also saw her when Kirsty and Kane split up for a bit and Kirsty came to stay with her. She didn't really leave until about a year and a half after she stopped being a regular, she was always popping up.

Welcome back and, given that Lyrik seem to be what lapsed and disgruntled viewers are fixating on to hate, was it really the smartest idea that the UK's first sight of the characters in 2025 is Theo and Remi jamming together? Guess we'll start with Perri, and maybe it's because it's been so long since we saw what he's just been through, but it was hard to have much sympathy for him as he does everything he can to make things as hard as possible for himself and everyone else.It was hard to have any sympathy for Tane either, since I still think none of this would have happened if he'd actually given Perri the support he needed instead of fawning over Harper, what with abandoning him during the court case and then failing to pick up on everything that's been happening since. Even here, he decides to wander out of the house and leave a traumatised youngster on his own. I can understand Theo supporting a friend but he's not making things any better for everyone. Rose was pretty reasonable right up until the point Perri did a runner and changed the whole situation, although I do think she's being a bit blind about his likely reasons. Another year and Leah's still being a mardy cow. I take it we're meant to deduce the scene of Justin and Claudia making out was a dream, even though it wasn't remotely clear given that we then cut to Leah sitting asleep: The usual television grammar is to cut from a dream to someone waking up. (And how would Leah know where Justin was anyway?) I'm glad that Claudia has snapped back from her rather erratic behaviour last episode. I know how I want Alf to deal with Leah's dramatics but I don't expect he will. I'm surprised Alf was so friendly to Bree as well: Does he not remember her walking off and leaving him in distress? Marilyn was absolutely right to give her that serve. The way she gave a self-serving version of events to Remi shows she's still not taking responsibility.

It's a few years ago now since I saw these, but definitely after he married Ailsa. We weren't given an exact date or anything, and I can't quite remember what he said about how things were between Roo and Ailsa at the time.