gryphons_halo Posted March 30, 2006 Report Posted March 30, 2006 This is a hard one for me cos I dont watch any other soaps at all and never have. However I'd say its quite likely that the whole reincarnation storyline between Liam and Stephanie from about 1997 (?) was pretty unique to Home and Away - correct me if I'm wrong. That was such an off-the-wall and wildly ambitious storyline, far too ambitious for Home and Away perhaps, and though the writers ultimately couldn't see it through to a satisfying conclusion, it was still highly entertaining, spooky viewing while it ran. It wasn't something that just came up out of the blue as a storyline for the sake of it either (ala the Jade-not Kirstys twin thing). From the very first moment Stephanie appeared, initially as a temporary guest character for a month or so, there was a big issue made out of how Liam was drawn to her and felt as if he knew her from before. There was a sense of mystery about how they were drawn together and it was very well done, very clearly whoever came up with the storyline had it in mind from the get-go. Stephanie left for a few months after her initial stint, then returned as a regular character, and after being left settle into the Bay for a while, the story kicked in in earnest, and boy was it weird. To be honest, half of the things that happened were never even properly explained. It started with Stephanie suffering blackouts and going missing, vanishing without trace then reappearing hours later without any recollection of where she'd been. I remember one time Pippa sent her out with clean linen to a caravan. She vanished and was gone for hours, then when she eventually walked back into the house she didn't realise she'd been gone so long, to her it was only a few minutes. Later, the sheets she had brought out to the van were found in the woods, all torn to shreds. Stephanie had no idea what happened to them. There were several instances like this, and Stephanie thought she was going nuts. She started having visions of the past, visions of a ship arriving at the then uninhabited-Bay, bringing with it a load of sick people. She was haunted by visions of a fire and was convinced Liam was going to be killed in one. Then there was the earthquake that exposed an old cave or something under the caravan park – my memories of all this are hazy to be honest, but I think they found the site at which a load of people had been burnt to death. During one of Stephanie’s trances she saw the word Diogenes but didn’t know what it meant. Research showed it was the name of a ship that had landed in Summer Bay hundreds of years ago, a ship carrying people suffering from the plague. Stephanie’s visions got more and more horrifying, she kept seeing people being burned to death in a fire, sometimes Liam would appear in them. Eventually it turned out that Stephanie and Liam were reincarnations of two people who had been involved in that incident. As a twist, Liam turned out to be a reincarnation of a female plague sufferer who had been brought to the Bay on the ship, sealed up in a shack with the other plague carriers, and burnt to death at the site where the caravan park stands now. Stephanie was the reincarnation of one of the male crewmen of that ship who was in love with the girl Liam used to be! It was nuts. Once this was discovered though, the story fell apart, right at the end. The next piece of the puzzle was the ship itself. Stephanie felt that the man she used to be died when the ship sank on its way out of Summer Bay. She was able to sense – she thought - where the shipwreck was located and so she and Liam organized to go and look for it. This was around the time Shannon was dating that guy from the navy, who was the brother of someone else in the show, but who I totally forget. He organized the expedition but they didn’t find the sunken Diogenes – instead they found an unexploded mine left over from World War 2, right where Stephanie led them. I never did quite get where that particular twist came from, it would have been better, I think, if they’d just found the Diogenes and Stephanie had found something in the wreck that had once belonged to her in her previous life, something which she could then use to change something in her life now. That would have been a good end to the storyline. As it was, it ended with an attempt to draw up and deactivate the mine, which I think ended up being accidentally detonated in the end. And after that, I’m pretty sure, the whole reincarnation/plague/Diogenes thing was forgotten about, and Stephanie and Liam turned into a couple of ordinary teens, kind of like how Robbie and Tasha have changed from the interesting characters they once were to the run of the mill ones they are now. Probably the biggest flaw to this storyline was that such a broad and complex story was given to these two newcomers to the show. They weren't given any time to find their acting feet before being plunged into this thing, and they couldn't pull it off at all. Fleur Beauport (I think that’s her name) especially was very raw to acting and so her delivery of some of this stuff was very weak. Not to say Peter Scarf was any better. But they were very young and only starting out so it wasn’t really their fault. It was a crazy story and would really have benefited from a proper ending to cap it all off. The mine thing, on its own, was interesting, but was a strange way to actually wrap up this thing that had been ongoing for months. I don’t believe they ever even found the Diogenes shipwreck after that, though I could be mistaken. Sorry for the long winded post but I wanted to relive this story myself. It was unique for Home and Away, highly ambitious, and I’d be quite surprised if such a thing had ever been done in any other soap. But please let me know if it has been!
MarMar Posted March 30, 2006 Report Posted March 30, 2006 Thank you for that post. It brought back many memories!
ste Posted March 30, 2006 Report Posted March 30, 2006 That was also one of my favourite storylines, though correct me if I'm wrong... Wasn't "Steph" the one who burned "Liam" to death? And she felt really guilty about it, that's why she kept seeing his face in the flashes.
gryphons_halo Posted March 30, 2006 Report Posted March 30, 2006 Yep, thats what I wrote, Liam was the girl who was burnt in the shack, Steph was one of the men off the ship who locked the plague sufferers up and set the building alight. Sorry if that wasnt clear.
Smiler Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 Kid with AIDS - isn't that what Meg had? Very innovative, and from what I remember, brilliantly handled for the time...
Sunny Girl Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 Meg had leukaemia, and it was handled really well for the time. But as to whether it'd been done before on another programme, I'm not sure.
ste Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 I am sure lukaemia has been done on most soaps. But still, it was brilliantly handled.
gryphons_halo Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 What about Edward and the Parkinsons disease thing?Although they didn't really deal with the actual disease itself so well, it was interesting having a terminally ill character as a regular and not just a guest, interesting too that he already had the disease when he was introduced and didn't just contract it as a means of writing him out of the show. That was probably a pretty unique move for a soap, to actually introduce a character as a regular cast member who was already dying. It was a shame they didn't see the story through to a satisfying conclusion though. I don't know why they shyed away from actually having Edward grow weaker and weaker and die. I'm not a sadist or anything but it would have made powerful viewing. Whoever played Edward was a brilliant actor and he could have pulled it off. He was a well-loved character and his decline and death would have been as emotionally affecting as I'm sure Flynn's is going to be.
MarMar Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 Have to agree. Too bad he were written out when the disease was confirmed, though, and that neither he nor Peta has been heard from again.
gryphons_halo Posted March 31, 2006 Report Posted March 31, 2006 Edward and Peta were actually a couple of pretty unique characters, Edward in an "in your face" way and Peta in a very subdued way. They stand out in my mind as being very different from any other young character thats been on the show. Unfortunately I saw very little of Peta, as she appeared during the "barren years" of 97-98 when I found the show to be unwatchable. I kind of regret that I only got to see her last few months, though as far as I know she only appeared for avery short time anyway. She didn't make much of an impact on the show overall but she was a nice character. I would actually like to see her come back to the show for a visit but there's nobody left now that she has anyconnection to so I guess thats impossible. Oh well!
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