Quick Questions

[adam436]

On 17/08/2025 at 14:10, Old H&A Fan said:

Think back to Alsa's death. That was never revealed, we had to wait till the first episode of 2001 to find out about this. Nothing in the TV Week previews about that!

Judy Nunn's exit was highly publicised and I think the promos for the finale week said "it's time to say goodbye to Ailsa" or something like that.

I remember the mudslide though - the details were never revealed and I remember being convinced Ailsa would die because we knew Judy was leaving and at the time, but it turned out to be guest character Gavin. The same for the Sarah Lewis cliffhanger - we were all genuinely shocked when it was revealed Golden Boy Noah had been killed.

[CaptainHulk]

On 17/08/2025 at 05:10, Old H&A Fan said:

I know. What I'm saying is, even the most detailed TV Week previews and stories don't tell the whole story of what actually happens in the actual episodes. I mean

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do we really know how Irene is leaving Summer Bay?

Think back to Alsa's death. That was never revealed, we had to wait till the first episode of 2001 to find out about this. Nothing in the TV Week previews about that!

That's back when things could kept under wraps make things all the more shocking.

 

[cymbaline]

There's so much coverage of soaps these days, you could probably follow most of them without ever watching a minute of them. It's a real shame but that's the world we live in now. The last soap shock I had was probably when they killed Philip off. That was followed closely by Pippa's head swap! I found out about Tom's death when I opened up the latest issue of the TV guide and looked at the episode synopses for the upcoming week. The words "coming to terms with Tom's death" are still burned into my brain over 30 years later. 

[adam436]

On 21/08/2025 at 06:26, cymbaline said:

There's so much coverage of soaps these days, you could probably follow most of them without ever watching a minute of them.

And that's without the media officially confirming departures months before they happen. In the 80s, 90s and 2000s soap exits were usually confirmed in TV Week and the like would reveal comings and goings months before they actually occured onscreen, often before the actors had even started/finsihed filming. The producers try to keep such things under wraps, but it's impossible these days with social media and forums like this one. 

 

On 21/08/2025 at 06:26, cymbaline said:

The last soap shock I had was probably when they killed Philip off. 

I can't remember the last H&A one for me. Probably when Noah was killed off to be honest, since I was shocked that the producers did that to their darling golden couple (Bec and Beau were dating at the time too!) and his exit was kept relatively under wraps at the time. I was kind of expecting it to be Kane - dying the hero and therefore atoning for his sins - or Dani, since we knew Tammin Sursok was on her way out.

Hollyoaks still pull out all the stops with their shocks - the reveal of Robbie Roscoe's death a few weeks ago was unexpected. I knew things weren't quite right and Jez was likely hallucinating, but I assumed Robbie had skipped town and didn't see his death coming at all. I can't really comment on any other soap except Neighbours, but they've always been completely predictable in recent times. 

 

[cymbaline]

The best the producers can do these days is try to hide how a character will leave. It's a far cry from the 1980s. Famously, the outcome of the Deirdre Barlow/Ken Barlow/Mike Baldwin love triangle on Corrie was flashed up on the scoreboard at a football match in England. Ken 1 Mike 0. 

Home and Away has quite a long gap between filming and airing. Is it more than other soaps? 

[adam436]

10 hours ago, cymbaline said:

Home and Away has quite a long gap between filming and airing. Is it more than other soaps? 

I think Neighbours was around 5 months during the Amazon era, but in the Channel 5 era, it was around 3 months.  

Hollyoaks is only about 7-8 weeks I think. I can't speak to any other soaps

[c120701]

51 minutes ago, adam436 said:

I think Neighbours was around 5 months during the Amazon era, but in the Channel 5 era, it was around 3 months.  

Hollyoaks is only about 7-8 weeks I think. I can't speak to any other soaps

I think Home and Away are the longest now. Doctors used to be about 6 months between Production & TX at times, I think.

[Dan F]

Scenes for Corrie and Emmerdale are filmed differently to Home and Away, over a larger number of weeks, but they currently run at around 8-12 weeks.