H&A Summer Break on Fiver

[cadyctslover]

i was so glad to see the Sarah Lewis stuff being replayed. i wasn't a viewer at the time, and have since read so much about this series of episodes. i actually sent an email to FIVE either last summer or at Christmas requesting that at some point they show these episodes, but i was kind of hoping that they would show the lead up to them as well, to explain whatever it is Dani is supposed to have done to Felix. and what a shame that they only played those two episodes, as although i know that Noah was the one who got shot and died, i don't know how exactly it all played out, and i would like to.

i thought both of these episodes were very well crafted, however the second more so. the constant shots by the camera through the windows created a really eerie atmosphere as though the characters were constantly being watched by Sarah. and the countdown to the shot at the end of the episode really had me on the edge of my seat.

i thought it really built the tension as we saw Flynn pleading with Sarah to let them take Peter to a hospital, and seeing the majority of the cast all in one room, holding tightly onto their loved ones as this mad woman counted down!

one thing i hadn't realised having never watched the episode before, was that along with everything else that happened in this scene, this was also the moment Peter revealed to Leah that Vinnie was still alive this was so well done, and puts shame to the effort this year with Elijiah.

and on a side note, i had never really realised how annoying and inappropriate this set of opening credits was. to have such a traumatic, depressing and moving set of scenes in the recap suddenly transition into The Chipmunks *ahem* i mean The Robertson Brothers shouting "You know we belong together.." and have all of the cast smiling like maniacs into the camera, was so jarring. although i would like to have the opening credits reinstated, i would rather have the simple title-card opening we have in 2010, rather than that monstrosity!

[alreetlike]

... I am still 2004's bitch. I laughed (Sarah showing the boys who is boss), I drooled ( Sarah) and cried (Noah ). If only they had showed the ep where she pretended to be the stripper...

I will say more about todays episode tomorrow, when I have finished girlcrushing...

Edited to add: Finally I can have some decent screencaps of Sarah to make some icons...

I think I'm joining you in the girlcrushing, I never remembered Sarah was pretty hot! I knew a girl called Sarah at the time who looked similar but uglier, and I've now realised after watching the episodes again that I've been picturing the Sarah I knew when thinking about the character. What an idiot.

Now that's over, I LOVED seeing these episodes again. I was so frustrated with Scott first time round - I always thought he should've at least bought a little time by driving somewhere random, even if it was just to say "oh they're not where I expected, let me just ring & find out where they are" or ANYTHING other than driving straight there! I do think the tension was built up so well though with all the characters just waiting for the inevitable and everyone clinging onto their loved ones and being otherwise helpless. I still think they could've all jumped Sarah when she'd just battered Peter and they all flew forward, but that's easy for me to say hiding behind a cushion on my sofa.

I'm pleased I'd seen the episodes before though as otherwise I certainly would've been scratching my head about who Felix was and what seemingly half the town had done to offend Sarah.

Just watching the next episode now. I really liked the way they did the funeral with Noah present, even if it could be seen to be a little cheesy. My boyfriend HATES Home & Away but even he was desperate to know who had died. I wouldn't tell him and I could see him mentally ticking people off in his head as they walked into view, only to end up really confused when just about everyone was present.

Agree completely with cadyctslover regarding the opening credits - would rather they'd just gone for some sombre music and displayed 'Home & Away' or something rather than the full theme tune (not that that stopped me singing along )

[cadyctslover]

and what a shame that they only played those two episodes, as although i know that Noah was the one who got shot and died, i don't know how exactly it all played out, and i would like to.

woops, didn't realise the aftermath was one of today's episodes. that's what you get for missing them yesterday and catching up on Demand Five!

Agree completely with cadyctslover regarding the opening credits - would rather they'd just gone for some sombre music and displayed 'Home & Away' or something rather than the full theme tune (not that that stopped me singing along )

[Pierced Musie]

Please tell me I wasn't the only one who got a chill down their spine while watching the first 10 minutes of todays ep, where they slowly revealed who died. That music and the agony on Sarah's face was just... *shudders*. I completely forgot that Dani & Rhys witnessed the shooting and it made me think about what would have happened if they had delved deeper into that. And the one element I loved about the storyline was that Sarah actually killed herself (I am not remembering that wrong am I? )

Oh how I love the whole 2004 season, from the moment Dani picked a fight with Felix to the aftermath with Kit helping Hayley to recover. I so need to speed up converting my VHS copies to DVD

[-Andrew-]

Please tell me I wasn't the only one who got a chill down their spine while watching the first 10 minutes of todays ep, where they slowly revealed who died. That music and the agony on Sarah's face was just... *shudders*. I completely forgot that Dani & Rhys witnessed the shooting and it made me think about what would have happened if they had delved deeper into that. And the one element I loved about the storyline was that Sarah actually killed herself

No, I always get chills too, the way Sarah looks at Dani, a confused and broken woman is heartbreaking. I remember a little scene in which Leah explains that despite all the horrible things Sarah had done, it's sad that she will be put to rest alone, with no-one at her funeral . I felt the same. She is imo H&A's best baddie because we could genuinely feel sorry for her, the pity wasn't rammed down our throats like it was with that despicable Hugo either.

[Slade]

I always thought they did things backwards when Kane came back. It should not have been about Kirsty & Kane being together but should have been about Kane mending things with Dani and then showing how much he cares for Kirsty. I loved the fact that he tried to protect Dani from Felix. I also liked the fact that he stuck with Beth and looked after her.

I kind of agree with this. It's funny because as much as I loved Kirsty when Kane returned you could argue she was most at fault and she was the one holding all the cards. Admittedly Kane was trying to pursue her but he didn't force her and the problem I felt was that she seemed to have very little empathy for Dani. She expected Dani to be ok with the relationship and didn't really seem to care that her sister and family were miserable. The writers were very unsympathetic towards Dani I felt.

Thinking about Scott again I take the point that people had a right to be annoyed with him for leading Sarah to Leah's perhaps initially though he was trying to keep Dani safe. Sort of ironic he made the opening speech when Haley was about to spread Noah's ashes into the sea. I though he was a bit childish at the beginning regarding Beth. He should have just left it and Kane again should have just stayed out of it although I thought he made up for it with his speech to Kirsty afterwards. Dani was very lucky to be alive because if Noah hadn't gone after Sarah (I'm not sure why he did) she would have been dead for sure.

I found it interesting that Leah felt sorry for Sarah despite the fact she'd killed someone she knew quite well but just the episode last week was being off with Jazz because Jazz was dating Miles and she wasn't.

I actually felt a bit sorry for Rhys and didn't like Alf's attitude towards him (Colleen was just being Colleen so that's to be expected). I never felt he wanted to deliberately hurt Beth and just wanted to get on with his life so I was glad Haley talked Kirsty into speaking to him and Shelly allowing them to bury there differences. I always thought Kirsty was defensive of Beth because she supported her relationship with Kane and converted Rhys to finally accept it whereas Shelly didn't.

Amanda and Belle were a great duo. I just loved the part where Amanda told her the truth and Irene buried her head in her hands and said "Oh my God. Are you sure?". Kitty was definitely to blame and if she gave Belle away for free you could maybe understand it but it was the fact she did it for financial gain. Amanda's conversation was what I was talking about last week. It seemed as though she was on speaking terms with Kelli before Kelli arrived to exact her revenge.

And at the time I though Jack getting Peter's kidney was such a waste of a kidney. I know Peter went into witness protection but was it explained regarding the whole kidney thing?

[Red Ranger 1]

Although Kane's return was badly handled in 2003, I think in the middle of 2004 they did make a good effort to show him building bridges with the Sutherlands and bringing an end to the hostilities. Not that you'd know from those episodes.I think the turning point was after Jade had found out she wasn't a Sutherland and ran off and Kane tracked her down and had a heart-to-heart with her, it seemed to be the point when he recognised that it wasn't just about him and Kirsty against the world, that there were other people she cared about and he needed to care about them too.Ironically that's probably what caused war to break out again, Beth was good to him and Kirsty and then Rhys cheated on her.Not that Kane's reaction was atypical, by the time Rhys left pretty much the entire town was glad to see the back of him except maybe Dani and Kirsty.I didn't have a problem with Alf's reaction, I remember after the second vote went against him and Rhys threw a hissy fit, Alf telling him "You've changed.You turned your back on a good woman."Although I think he did eventually become a bit more sympathetic, it's hard to remember the order things happened sometimes.I'd forgotten about Hayley getting Dani and Kirsty to talk to their parents at the funeral, a stark contrast to Scott and Kane behaving like a couple of sanctimonious jerks who committed the ultimate moral cowardice of pretending to be angry on someone else's behalf.(Scott's "Beth will be upset if you talk to them" was slightly more acceptable than Kane's "Hayley will be upset if you talk to them", which as well as being completely below the belt wasn't even true.)Shame the current writers apparently missed that episode and claimed Kirsty had never forgiven Shelley when she came back last year.

I was trying to pinpoint the exact moment when it became obvious that Noah was the one who was dead:The flashbacks seemed to make it pretty clear and Hayley's "I'll always love you, Noah" only reinforced it.I've always shared ebrett's view that Sarah shooting Noah, who she hardly knew, instead of Dani, who she hated him with a passion, made absolutely no sense...but watching those episodes again, it does seem slightly less random:She was convinced that someone in that room killed Felix and told the killer to step forward, so when Noah followed her out it must have looked like a confession to her.Certainly makes more sense than Sarah killing herself.Did she or didn't she?Well, we heard two gunshots and they sounded like they came from the same gun.But how different do handguns sound anyway?I assumed at the time and still do that the police officers we saw arriving at the end of the previous episode shot her and I've seen nothing to change my mind, especially since that's what we were told happened the following year and since if she killed herself the Summer Bay Stalker storyline would make even less sense.Leah did at least confirm Sarah was dead, I wasn't even sure about that.In fact I wonder if that whole speech was included because someone realised they hadn't actually made it clear because it was complete nonsense:"Oh, poor Sarah, I know she was a complete monster both before and after she accidentally killed her boyfriend who hurt people for fun, terrorised the town for months and murdered a guy in cold blood but she didn't deserve what happened to her.Oh, hang on, yes, she did."

Found that second episode very interesting because I actually missed it and the preceding one as the result of going on a long weekend to somewhere where they didn't have Channel 5, so I've never seen it before.I found Belle completely unreasonable, although that's nothing new, she throws a tantrum because she hears Amanda making a few comments that are both completely true and not actually nasty at all, then practically sides with Kitty, who's the true villain of the piece.Irene came across well, although I had to smile at her "Oh god, are you sure?" after hearing Amanda's news. Talking of continuity, I don't think either we or Belle saw Kitty again until...well, that episode last week, so I'm not sure what exactly happened to make Belle so anti her, given that they seem to part on fairly good terms.I guess she must have reassessed her opinion of her after she and Amanda got closer.

Oh wow, Rachel hasn't changed a bit, has she?You could practically cut and paste any of her scenes into today's show with Tony in Kim's place.She still seems to deal with crises by shutting out anyone who tries to help her, throwing herself into work and bottling it all up until she goes into meltdown. Ended up feeling really sorry for Kim when she kept pushing him away like that when he was doing everything right.And then sending him and a random collection of other residents off with a guy that looks like John Palmer...I think I mentioned this last time this storyline got repeated, but it was actually the witness protection people who provided Jack with a new liver, with some help from Doctor Green, to make their story that Peter was dead seem more convincing.Guess they must have a fridge full of them or something...

[ebrett84]

I always thought they did things backwards when Kane came back. It should not have been about Kirsty & Kane being together but should have been about Kane mending things with Dani and then showing how much he cares for Kirsty. I loved the fact that he tried to protect Dani from Felix. I also liked the fact that he stuck with Beth and looked after her.

I kind of agree with this. It's funny because as much as I loved Kirsty when Kane returned you could argue she was most at fault and she was the one holding all the cards. Admittedly Kane was trying to pursue her but he didn't force her and the problem I felt was that she seemed to have very little empathy for Dani. She expected Dani to be ok with the relationship and didn't really seem to care that her sister and family were miserable. The writers were very unsympathetic towards Dani I felt.

I'm really not sure I agree with this. I mean Kane didn't technically "force her" but he came pretty damn close. He basically stalked her and she did tell him to leave a couple of times, but he just wouldn't leave her alone. She's to blame in the sense that if she'd kept on telling him, he would have eventually got the hint and left again, but still, he's the one who came back even though he knew she'd be better off without him and he's the one who basically refused to take "no" for an answer (which, I guess is what got him into trouble with Dani in the first place). I also disagree that Kirsty didn't really care about Dani. It seemed to me that most of their scenes in 2003 / early 2004 involved Kirsty complaining to Kane about how hard it was for her family and Kane basically shrugging her off and telling her it didn't matter and trying to get her to leave her family and to run away with him.

As to whether the writers were unsympathetic to Dani, I'm not sure. As I've said before, I really disagree with the view that they made Kane into the "hero" of the story. But they didn't do Dani many favours either. They totally threw out her 2002 character development. During the mediation, she looked Kane in the eye the whole time, didn't get rattled by any of his offensive and inappropriate comments and made him realise he was in the wrong by using his flawed and twisted "logic" against him. It was great stuff and my favourite Dani scene ever. Then when he came back, that was basically ignored and she was right back to how she (understandably) was right after the rape, when she was basically a simpering wreck who was teriffied of the very sight and thought of him.

[Red Ranger 1]

I've got a feeling these helicopter crash episodes are more enjoyable out of context than they were at the time;coming on the back of the second(or was it third?)Summer Bay Stalker storyline and the barn explosion, it did feel like one disaster too many.But fair play for them for having those onboard missing for more than a couple of days, even if it was all wrapped up in a matter of weeks.

Although, as it turns out, Ric and Sally were perfectly right to be worried about Cassie going back to Macca, I did think Ric was out of line guilt-tripping her about spending time with him instead of the rest of them, it was his sister that was missing.It always throws me to see how young Mattie used to be and again, this was when she'd been on the show two years already.Have we seen Alf lose his temper like that in a while?He can still get angry and raise his voice but he doesn't tend to raise his fists that much these days.Mind you, I actually wished they let him hit that guy, he was a thoroughly worthless individual who practically laughed at the idea of their loved ones still being alive.

Rachel continued to frustrate me.Whilst she was certainly deserving of sympathy, having just lost her mother and seemingly lost her fiance, I found her persistent refusal to interact with her friends or react to what had happened hugely annoying and she probably did just as much harm as the scumbag journalists with her ill-timed speech about how impossible it was for anyone to have survived, although she did back track when she realised how upset Tasha was.I do find it unlikely that Jack could sort Tasha out when Irene and a group of trained medical professionals couldn't but I suppose it was all about them bonding together.Not sure if anything was ever made of the close friendship that sprang up between them once Robbie and Martha got back.Wonder if Jack ever told Martha about buying a farm with her, given she didn't actually get around to doing that until after he'd died.(Also had to laugh at his "I wonder if someone's trying to tell us something" line...)

Oh-and literal cliffhanger!

[cadyctslover]

I do find it unlikely that Jack could sort Tasha out when Irene and a group of trained medical professionals couldn't but I suppose it was all about them bonding together.

yeah i thought exactly the same thing. although it probably is all about your state of mind in that situation, and Jack's monotone voice could calm anyone down.

in fact, these episodes have not only allowed me to relive some of H&A's best cliffhangers, they've also reminded me just how terrible Paul O'Brien's acting was for the entirety of his time on the show