cymbaline

Another one I'd forgotten about Sally and Gus: Sally briefly went out with Donna Bishop's younger brother. He was a mouthy brat who had gone off the rails and was on the verge of being sent to a juvenile detention centre. Pippa and Michael were against Sally going out with him, which of course... Sally began to behave like him, though she stopped short of setting anyone's guitar on fire or throwing rocks through windows.

When Curtis left, they sent him off with Laura's doppelgänger. That was a bit weird but maybe they did live happily ever after.

I think there's more to be read into her turning 30 and clocking up 20 years of being Sally. If she wanted to compete for other acting roles or to try something else, then it was time to do it. Being Sally seems to have been a double-edged sword for her. Hopefully she can get her life back on track after her recent troubles.

In comparison to the more colourful Diner and Surf Club sets, the Macklin ones were very beige and soulless.

I never liked Lance or Martin and feel they should've been written out long before they did. But hey, it'd be a very dull world if we all thought the same! They quickly ran out of ideas for Matt and Adam as well. I think staying on Home and Away for so long put the brakes on Mat Stevenson's acting career. I mostly remember Adam for the scruffy clothes and stupid scams now. When he was given something to do, you could see that Mat was a good actor. Jack wasn't the most likeable of characters, but I like that he never totally reformed. Unlike most of the other teens who were fostered in those years, he desperately wanted to go home and continued to be hurt by his family's rejection of him. Even though he matured and became a nicer person, causing trouble was never off the cards. Interestingly, when he came back for Sally's wedding a few years later, he apologised to Pippa for being such a pain in the you know whats.

If this interview from a few years ago is anything to go by, leaving was something Kate needed to do for herself.

That's terrible news. 56 is no age at all. When people discuss former Home and Away actors who have achieved success in the USA, Julian is only ever mentioned on that list intermittently. Perhaps it's because he left so long ago (1991) and because Ben wasn't a particularly likeable character. When you look at his resumé, it's pretty solid stuff. Amongst the guest roles that most actors accumulate on their CVs, he was in some long-running TV series. Another World, Charmed, Nip/Tuck, those FBI shows. He was also Dr Doom in some of those Marvel movies. He even got to be Prime Minister of Australia in The Residence . I'm sure his casting in that role wasn't a coincidence.

Shannon and Eric: In 1995, Shannon briefly went out with Eric Philips. He looked good in a tank top but that's where the praise for him ends. He was a creep who sold steroids to Jack and attacked Shannon. Exit stage left. I was surprised to read that the actor who played Eric ended up in America and was in The Young and the Restless for years. Now he's on General Hospital. That's not bad going for someone who I thought was a poor actor on H&A.

True. I'm just spitballing really

That's true, but she was still talking about David when she reconnected with Blake. She also called their son after him. I don't think that's healthy TBH Another relationship that came to mind: Karen and Revhead: Karen's journey from ordinary schoolgirl to jailbird was entertaining for viewers. The collateral damage stemming from her relationship with Revhead and the actions she took...now that was another matter entirely. I like that they laid the groundwork for this toxic relationship early on and that you could see why she ended up with Revhead. As an aside, I'd love to see Les Hill and Belinda Jarrett come back to see Alf, should they decide to give him a happier ending than Irene.

Adam became a businessman in the Summer Bay afterlife, so it isn't beyond the bounds of possibility that he might've had a proper job with the Macklins. It would've been a better path for him, when you consider what they did with the character for the next couple of years.

Without going into the morality of Sophie and David, it's a relationship which probably held her back in the years after she left Summer Bay. David remained frozen in time and grew a halo and wings in her mind. How could any man measure up to that? She was single in 2002 when she reconnected with Blake. I've only seen snippets of those episodes so I don't know if she had had any relationships after moving to Perth. Anyway, when she and Blake had baby boy, she called him David (note I didn't say "they").

Stacey and Nicholas During a separation from Philip, Stacey found the time to get engaged to city slicker Nicholas. As we all know, Stacey and Philip were never meant to be but Nicholas was yet another bump in the road.

Mods: feel free to merge this with the 'Favourite Relationship' thread if tumbleweed starts drifting through here. Again, I'll give credit where credit is due - this thread in General Discussion Here are some main cast/guestie relationships I didn't care for Marilyn and Phil Over the space of 3 weeks in 1992, Marilyn met, fell for and got engaged to widower Phil Bryant. He was smarmy, old enough to be her father and had a teenage daughter who wasn't enamoured with the thoughts of a youthful stepmother. To the surprise of nobody, the marriage didn't make it to the 3-year mark. To the surprise of anybody still watching in 2022...Heather..WTH??? Sophie and David Arguably, this controversial storyline looks even worse in modern times. To quote the late, great Smash Hits magazine, "Bleeeurrgh. See also Steven and Jennifer and Tug and Beth Angel and Simon I never cared for "Shangel" so I have no dog in this fight. Having said that, it was hard to watch Angel pretend to warm to the charisma-free Simon. So Angel, what attracted you to the very wealthy Simon? Bobby and Geoff Bobby had terrible taste in men, didn't she? She briefly got engaged to the drippy Geoff after discovering she was pregnant with a married man's child. Grant and Jane They went from 0-60 and back again in no time at all. Was anybody sorry to see her go? Nick, Lucinda and Ryan I never liked Nick and Lucinda as a couple, so I'm adding Ryan to the mix as a technicality. All three actors were badly served by this lurve triangle nonsense.

This thread caught my eye in the General Discussion forum so I thought I'd start one here. Blake and Meg It's the doomed romance from the early years, isn't it? I find it hard to watch now because of what happened to Cathy Godbold but it is iconic. Andrew and Stacey Technically, both were guesties but I'm going to add it anyway because it's my thread! It's a pity they cut Andrew and Stacey's relationship short because I think it would've been fun to see such different characters spark off each other. Curtis and Laura You could never file this relationship under "healthy" but it was entertaining to see sensible Curtis losing the run of himself for a while. Laura was as mad as a box of frogs and not the sort of girl most parents would like to see their teenage kid hanging around with. Note to self: don't wear distinctive clothing when doing madcap things. Pippa and Ian After losing two husbands and dedicating so much of her life to the teens in her house, it was nice to see Pippa find happiness again. Much as I like Pippa & Michael, it felt like that relationship operated at his pace more than hers. This one felt more organic. Selina and Nelson This was a fun, short-lived teen romance between two very different people. Nelson was nice but dull, but he was a good foil for Selina.

If that's what he said, then I'll happily put him in the same ungrateful bucket as Melissa George. He might not have had the opportunity to pursue his acting career if the H&A producers hadn't taken a chance on him.

I can't remember which episode he mentioned Matt being gone, but it wasn't straight away. Matt might have been gone a week or two before he briefly mentioned it.

Even so, her life wasn't going anywhere really.

Danny King Pippa's wheelchair-bound brother was a memorable early guestie. Seeing him finding a new purpose in life as a wheelchair athlete was heart-warming, but it's a shame he never came back for any of the big events which occurred in Tom and Pippa's lives. Maybe he might have if John Clayton (who played him) hadn't been so busy elsewhere. Barbara Stewart Fisher's ex-wife is an underrated early years guest character. If you look back at those 1988 episodes when she's living in Summer Bay, you can see how good a foil she is for the family she has around her. Even now, it'd be lovely to see her come back to visit Alf (the sane version of her, not the loopy psycho who briefly resurfaced in the 90's). She's interesting enough in her own right. Patricia Coleman was a substitute teacher who briefly taught at the school. She and Donald were on the verge of getting together when she lost her job and had to transfer to a school nowhere near Summer Bay. I still think she would've been a good match for Donald. They had chemistry, she was the same age as he was, and she was sane. Wendy McFarlane To the best of my knowledge, Irene's country & western singer sister hasn't been back for a visit since 1995. Although she wasn't the most likeable of characters, you could buy into the idea of her and Irene being sisters It'd be fun to catch up with her in 2025 and to find out if she's still in denial about her singing career. It goes without saying that she'll be nowhere to be seen when Irene bows out this year, but it's a missed opportunity in my book. It'd also be nice to find out where her son Nelson is these days. He was last seen being transferred to a burns unit in another hospital. Mark McGregor Mark was a friend of Blake Dean's and briefly became part of the 1991 teen gang when Haydn Ross was away. He had more charisma and potential than Simon Fitzgerald, who was later drafted in to replace Haydn. David Croft This one comes with caveats. I wish they hadn't created David as a brief love interest for Sophie, and all that that entailed... Leaving that part aside, he had the potential to be a good extended guestie. It's beyond question that Guy Pearce would've soon moved on anyway but we can only dream.

In the new year, Adam said that Matt had joined the surfing circuit. I must've missed him making reference to Matt moving out later on. By then, most of the viewership would've forgotten about him anyway.

It's impossible to tell if there was any long-term plan for Carly and Ben as a couple. My guess is that they signed Julian McMahon up because he was a good-looking young man and they always like good-looking people on Home and Away. They also needed to do something with Carly. If Julian hadn't decided to leave so quickly, Ben would've become a love interest for other "lucky" ladies in the Bay. I can't see how that marriage to Carly would've lasted if they hadn't moved away. Sharyn probably would've left, no matter what else was going on. And much as I like Carly, she's not someone I could see as a foster parent in the early 1990s. I wouldn't inflict Ben on them either, but that's another story. Although the show had lost Tom, I don't think they were planning on sending foster kids to anybody other than the established older adults. They'd already expanded the fosterverse in Summer Bay to include Fisher and the Stewarts. Perhaps there's something to be read into Bobby becoming a foster parent after they'd steadied the ship at the caravan park. I don't have any strong feelings about Carly and Ben's timeline for leaving. Having said that, his reputation would've improved if they had sent them off into the sunset straight away. There were times when Ben was either downright awful, or an idiot. That foray into farming is a bit cringey at times, even though it's clearly a build-up to him re-enlisting. Carly, too, would've suffered. As has been mentioned many times here, the early 1990's wasn't a good time for young adult characters. They'd painted themselves into a corner with Carly. She hated working in the diner, she wouldn't be going on to further education, and she'd aged out of being a foster kid. It's better that she and Ben moved on,

Pippa's exit was more drawn out, yet there are people who don't like how she went.. Let's not forget we're living in the land of television, where certain shorthands are accepted. Someone going househunting and putting things into boxes for a month doesn't make for good TV. I have no problem with characters moving away within a few episodes of the idea being floated. It's nice for the actors to have a goodbye scene, and for the audience to close that chapter on them. I never watched Byker Grove but am aware of what it was. I hate the idea of characters just randomly vanishing. Matt and Rob weren't the most memorable of characters, so I daresay most people only noticed they'd gone when they vanished from the opening credits.

They could still bring him back on a Zimmer frame when Ada finally decides to leave. Nobody will remember or care that Vinnie is supposedly dead.

I've just been reading the synopsis for Vinnie Patterson, whose heyday was after I'd stopped watching H&A. His exit and off-screen deaths are pretty messy as well. Were they hoping Ryan Kwanten might come back?

I'm surprised they went to the trouble of taking a wedding photo of Marilyn and Phil! Was Emily's departure a big deal at the time? I remember Marilyn got a big send-off in her final episode, and Bobby stayed in touch. I know she definitely went to the wedding, and I think she also visited her before that.