Slade

When she first came into the show as someone said I thought she was a breath of fresh air - interesting nice, lively and feisty. I liked the chats with Charlie she had in the Den re relationship advice. I always thought it was a bit odd a 15 year old girl giving her older sister dating tips but it worked well. The problem why I felt she hadn’t improved sufficiently (compared to her sister at the time) was because (as several others) she didn’t have a major storyline and hadn’t been sufficiently integrated with some of the other characters. Her father was then diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and she started to act out of character and go off the rails slightly. She had also isolated herself from her two best friends (Annie and Jai) and it looked as though the writers had opened things up for possible storylines. Her one location of solace appeared to be an Internet based chatroom where it looked as though she’d met someone who could understand where she was coming from and empathise with her regarding her father’s condition. Although it turned out to be Lyons posing as a girl and she then went on the exact revenge by humiliating him over the Internet by making him run nude on the beach, I still thought they should have continued with that storyline. But they had to go and ruin it by making him get her back and destroy any chance of a possible romance. After she read his note and discovered that his Nan had the same condition I would rather the writers have made Lyons go back into his shell and then see he and Ruby sort things out, bond and eventually start dating but they destroyed that by making him humiliate her yet again and they ending up hating each other. To make matters worse they had to bring Xavier into the equation and make Ruby pin after him and pursue him out of sheer desperation. I’m not sure how in character that is but Ruby is reaching the point where she’s almost besotted. And I myself am now finding it increasingly harder to see her as anything other that slightly annoying although I still quite like her.

I’m so glad Leah got more screentime and an episode mainly focused around her. I would like to see more episodes like this because bar VJ going down the storm drain and Dan’s death she hasn’t really been doing much over the past year. Don’t you just love it when she gets angry like when she had a go at VJ and ran after him on the beech just before he got lost. As mentioned in my last post I loved it when she had a go at Kirsty and also when Leah wanted to get the money and give it to Brian rather than going to the police and she told Miles to back off. Did I mention that I loved the scene with her and Charlie which is a rarity in itself. I just wanted her to get up and give Charles a hug. I think I get what some people mean when they are shipping for them. I wouldn’t mind seeing that. It’s not going to happen though...

I know she left to share a flat with Kit in the city but the only other time we saw her after that was when Kirsty was due to undergo a kidney transplant with Shelly and Jade came down to the hospital to visit her. Jade was very apprehensive of Shelly but eventually they bonded as mother and daughter. She also mentioned that she had been visiting the Degroot’s to try and learn more about what her life would have been like. After that she disappeared, although Laura was mentioned quite a few times and we even got to see her when Kirsty was sitting her exams. So it seemed as though they’d swapped one twin for another.

I actually thought Bridgette’s character was ok. There’s no denying she was a con-artist pure and simple and originally she was out to fleece Alf from the beginning and take him for what she could get. But I do feel that she did care for him in the end. You could argue that she got what was coming to her because she tried to steal Leah’s savings (a character that I really like) but she came good when she shopped Brian to the police knowing full well that he would implicate her in any misdemeanours. Rather than writing her out of the show, perhaps the writers could have given her another chance and attempt at reform. Contrary to what some people have said I don’t think she was completely beyond redemption. There have been characters that have done far worse things (Nathan, Kane and Aden) and all three were given another go. And certainly Nathan and Kane became better people (I think Aden is still recovering but has certainly improved over the last three months). Regardless of what anyone thinks of the character I have to agree with what has already been said and give full credit to the actress. She was certainly one of the best people I’ve seen in H & A that could do the ‘shifty I’m up to no good’ expression.

I missed this post the first time round. I thought it was a bit odd how completely unlikeable (i.e. sending Morag the text messages, trying to intimidate her when she was off duty after Morag had to swerve to avoid hitting her whilst she was on her mobile and then when she was blatantly rude to her in the Den). Then all of a sudden she became really nice. Don’t get me wrong because she still had outbursts but she just wasn’t as bad as she was in her first few episodes. Maybe the writers changed their mind about the character and thought that she wouldn’t have been sustainable long term if she was constantly acting like that.

It’s been a while since I last posted in here (mainly because it was on Mod preview then and I didn’t want to encounter any spoilers). Anyway at UK pace I’m a week into 2009 and my thoughts on Charlie haven’t changed that much other than the fact that I absolutely love her at the moment. I’ve been looking through some previous posts (mainly on other threads) and can see that some people didn’t like the way she conducted herself by having a go at Belle at Roman’s place regarding her treatment of Angelo. My view is that I was glad she did that as it was good to see someone stick up for Angelo as everyone was against him at the time. Yes he shot Jack but in my opinion that event (and anything happening immediately after his break up with Belle) is completely irrelevant in regards to her actions towards him beforehand. Belle absolutely deserved it. The only issue I had is that I don’t think it was the appropriate time or place for her to raise that particular point. Regarding Roman I was in two minds about the whole thing. When he first started going out with her he said he wanted to keep things casual because at the time he had too much going on to commit to her fully and she agreed. Even then I felt she always liked him a lot more than he liked her. I remember one episode where she was over at his place making dinner and he was pretending to be asleep and she told him that she thought she was falling in love with him (the way he rolled his eyes when she went into the kitchen was priceless) and I guess the signs where there from then. Shortly afterwards she went on a date with Angelo (who treated her far better than Roman did up to that point) because he was totally neglecting her. He annoyed me when he uninvited her from the memorial for his unborn child. I could almost feel the hurt she displayed (and even Nicole who wasn’t her favourite person at the time could too). It was only when she finished with him then he found on the beach did he tell her that he actually wanted a relationship and even then I felt his heart wasn’t fully in it. They then started going out properly and most of the time things seemed ok. As someone that really wanted things to work out with them I started to worry when Martha came round to Roman’s to visit Morag and she got sick and Roman went after her on the beach. Charlie spotted this and got the wrong end of the stick as when Roman got home she went into mega defensive mode and accused him of wanting to spend time with her rather than his own girlfriend. She then felt like a complete idiot when he told her that his main reason for spending the day with Martha was so that she could help him by a gift as he didn’t trust his own taste. When she sought him out in the Den and they made up at this point he looked as though he’d had enough and I guess that was the beginning of the end. Going back to her outburst at the dinner that evening, I actually thought that was an excuse to break up with her rather than an actual reason. And I was a bit surprised that Charlie didn’t put up more of a fight to keep him. Perhaps in her heart of hearts she knew that he was never really into her. I was a bit annoyed with Roman because I thought Charlie was the one doing all the legwork in their relationship and he was just going out with her because he wanted someone to sleep with on a regular basis. But you could argue that he did the decent thing and if he was in love with someone else what was he supposed to do. I can understand why people don’t like her. She’s high maintenance, judgmental (the way she had a go at Nat regarding her parenting of Nicole), sanctimonious and at times seems to adopt a shoot first ask questions later approach. During her time with Roman I felt occasionally she was a bit immature. It was almost as if she hadn’t been involved in an adult relationship before. However a lot of her negative traits can attributed to one thing – insecurity. So when she reacts it’s almost like a defence mechanism. Ironically I like the fact that she isn’t perfect as I feel it makes the character a lot more interesting and aside from that I feel she is a warm hearted, loyal and deep down a good person that desperately wants love. And there have been quite a few times when she has done things to genuinely help other people, such as arranging for the helicopter to find Nicole and Geoff, letting Nicole off when she was driving without a license, sticking up for Angelo and risking her life to save Annie. I remain undecided about her and Angelo but that looks as though it's over before it's even started. Ideally I would like her and Roman to get back together but that’s never going to happen so friends it is.

Extremely frustrating and after not seeing any for more than two weeks the IPS driver errors are in full force once again.

Emmasi what have you started? I don’t particularly like Rachel and have to agree with some of the previous posts that portray her as selfish, self-centred and totally into herself however (I can’t believe I’m saying this) objectively speaking I don’t think she’s entirely like this. I remember how she went out of her way to help Reverend Hall when he tied her up and she would have invariable ended up the same way as some of his previous victims. And I personally couldn’t understand why so many people were so annoyed with her during the whole kidnapping/”breakdown” thing. Aden had just committed two very serious crimes so it was understandable that she felt traumatised initially by the whole thing as she was one of his victims. Furthermore she was the one who talked Roman into letting Aden stay with him in the first place. Initially he was very reluctant. Oh and I disagree with the comment regarding Dani. Letting your sister date your rapist so she could be happy is hardly what I would call selfish. This thread has got so much more interesting all of a sudden!

Freezing and snowing. In fact there seems to be snow everywhere. You can't even see the road markings on the road.

Oh wait a minute! So it’s kind of like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. Ric’s purpose was to save certain people in the alternate Summer Bay universe?

Sorry I haven’t replied sooner. I did notice the updates but I didn’t really have time to sit down and read them (as I at least wanted to try and read the story properly). Anyway I’ve read the rest of the chapters and I enjoyed them. I presume that the pyramid is still at the warehouse. Doesn’t Ric feel he has a moral obligation to dispose of it or at least hide it somewhere, where it will not fall into the wrong hands? If the story had gone on for longer I would have liked to have seen the alternate Ric cause trouble and run amuck in the current universe’s Summer Bay. Perhaps he could have performed a robbery and made life hell for some of the locals and left the normal Ric to deal with the consequences when he returned.

I respect that people don’t like Kirsty and I’m not going to try and convert anybody but I just want to raise the point in regards to her lying since she came back that was mentioned earlier on (and this is a reason not an excuse). If you cast your minds back, there was an episode shortly after Miles found out that Kane had gotten in touch with her where he was confiding in Irene at the Den. Whilst trying to get him to see things from Kirsty’s perspective she used the argument that she was like this because in a way it was kind of forced due to the strong hold Kane had over her. She had been lying ever since she had been in school. She lied to her family because of what he did to Dani, she was on the run for three years constantly lying about her identity, so in effect she had become so used to lying it was almost like second nature to her.

^^I actually think Kirsty should have returned a lot sooner than she did. I don’t think it’s plausible that she remained on the run for so long without being caught considering that Kane was wanted in almost half a dozen states and I can’t believe it has taken three years for them to go to the hospital. Also most of her friends that were there around the time of her departure (such as Flynn, Sally, Beth, Tasha etc) were gone by the time she arrived. I think it would have been better to bring her and Kane back a year to a year and a half after they left. By doing that some of the other Sutherlands would have been more likely to return for guest roles and most of the characters mentioned previously would have still been there. I have to agree with you about finding Kirsty a bit boring. And my main concern is that she will eventually become like Leah – Criminally underused, simply part of the furniture and playing a support role to some of the other characters. In her heyday Kirsty did have quite a few storylines but to be frank it would appear as though she (like Leah and Irene) has been superseded by some of the others bigger/younger characters.

If people are posting spam to boost their post count would an alternative (that has already been suggested) not be to simply remove post counts altogether or at least not display them in various places but still show the pips? If people cannot see how many posts they’ve accumulated then they would maybe have less reason to post simply for the sake of posting.

Finally we get to see where the “alternate” Ric ended up. I guess it’s a space displacement sort of thing. Kind of like the Terminator but no actually time shift as such. Although in saying that I’m still wondering about the pyramid from the first chapter which was still present after the big switch. Presumably he could still use it to get back to his universe. Interested to know where it originated from? Sorry…irrelevant.

Happy Birthday BTTB!!!!!!! Well done for maintaining such an awesome site.

I always liked Cain and really enjoyed some of his storylines. Quite a few women took a liking to him if I remember correctly too. And I still remember his final episode when he pretended to kill Sadie to scare Tom into begging his sons to obtain a large some of money then in the end he double-crossed her. Did the police ever catch up with her or did she escape?

Wait a minute. If Cain and Eli are cousins and Cain is Debbie’s dad doesn’t that make Eli Debbie’s second uncle? I actually quite like Debbie and Jas together.

Me too. Amanda and Belle were one of the reasons I started watching Home and Away on a regular basis again (which is one of the reasons why I find myself unable to hate her). As I’ve said before I loved those scenes. When Belle looked under Amanda’s rug for the key, the whole tit for tat thing was just so childish but so funny as well. And Belle had the gall to blame Amanda for leaving her key in such and easy place to find in the first place. Do you remember the episode before where Amanda was moving into her new house and Belle was handing out the fliers in protest to Amanda’s plan make a film and she almost ran her over with her Audi TT in her driveway, “Get of my property you little insect”. I really liked Belle during this period. And she always seemed quite perceptive, always the detective. She figured out that Kelli Vale was the one who arranged her kidnapping when she recognised the guy who kidnapped her and saw a bag that resembled one her aunt had in his car. She was also the one that kept putting pressure on Peter to investigate the whole business with Kelli, Amanda and Ethan when she spotted them together in a photograph she took. So I suppose in relation to the development site storyline that is something they have kept consistent.

So when you say Viv you mean "the Gov" i.e. the person who handed her memoirs over to Dani to write a book. I didn’t realise she was Ric’s Grandmother (or am I missing something?). Matilda is really dodgy isn’t she?

I’ve always disliked Sean intensely although his recent behaviour has been more understandable (in the sense I can see why he’s doing it as opposed to whether it’s right for him to do it). However Thursday night’s episode highlights exactly why they need to lock him up and throw away the key. The guy’s a psychopath. After trying to kill Roxy she should have got the message but no she was still pining after him when he left - unbelievable. I guess as the old saying goes “love is blind”.

I like this Matilda better than the character in the actual show. So she’s a thief and a liar. It will be interesting to see what Ric’s next move is. I’m also wondering at what point did this universe start to deviate from the other one.

I haven’t really had much time to watch this lately but I thought the scene between Marlon and Donna was really good and quite emotional. The fact that he suspected beforehand, his denial, the realisation and then his world came tumbling down. If it hadn’t been for the murder would she have bothered telling him? It’s a shame as well but oh well.

Ok Mr Red Ranger again you have made some very interesting and telling points. Some of them highlight the reasons why she has fallen out of favour for some of the people who liked her previously and why I personally don’t understand why she is so popular at the moment. I’m going to play Devil’s advocate. Anyway I get the impression from this that your dislike of her started from their final scene at the Rockpool, mainly because of you know who. Indeed I remember you stating on another thread how disappointed with her you were and any character associated with him gets the life sucked out of them. Now I actually think this is unfair because as you’ve already stated Tony already knew and Geoff even admitted to him earlier on in the episode that he was a witness. He actually could have stepped in and stopped him. Had he done so then perhaps Axel might not have needed to go to hospital. Yes I know he sought him out in the Den and he was angry about what he did to Melody but he had enough presence of mind to admit to Tony afterwards that it was wrong for him to just sit back and observe from the sidelines. Moreover he is supposed to be a devout Christian. Very Christian behaviour, don’t you think? Also based on what you said do you not think that both of them had a duty to go to the police (as they both tried to convince Melody to do the same thing regarding the incident with Axel in the same episode)? Failing that perhaps they should have at least alerted Roman to the fact. Furthermore earlier on in the episode, Nicole overheard Aden admit to Belle that he beat Axel up and she used his trust (of her keeping quiet) as an excuse to arrange a date with him. So you could argue in her own way she was just as bad. Finally Belle was the one who found Axel and practically dragged him to the hospital by herself (although I’d assume it must be pretty close because Jai took Annie there a while back). So she can’t be all bad.

Something else that struck me when I was on the train - If Ric got transferred to an alternate universe then it would be consistent and plausible (in regards to the storyline) if the Ric in the alternate universe was in turn transferred to the real Summer Bay universe. It would then transpire if this Ric was not such a nice person he could potentially wreak havoc in the place we know and love. If they were both transferred back somehow to their respective universes then our Ric could have some clearing up to do. I’m not sure how long this fic is going to be (perhaps the same length as your previous one) but I have to say there is a lot of potential here.