Classic Episodes on 5★

[Dan F]

Looked to me like three people having their picture taken by a fourth - Palmy tourists

[James Martin]

I totally forgot about that final scene on the beach until tonight where it all came flooding back from when I originally watched it on ITV as a 9-year-old all those years ago. What a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT scene.

Morag hasn't changed a bit since 1993 has she? And thankfully, as we all now know, Alf did get to patch things up, albeit nearly a decade later. She's not been consistently written for as, say, Pippa but the underlying themes are still there - she's still bitter and twisted but ultimately vulnerable.

Right, been out tonight so time to go and watch Dale's crib-based demise. If you've not watched it before, do take the time to find this episode out, whether it's on the computer or on your television, especially to fans of the current show. This really is Home & Away at its' very best.

[Ryan]

Woohoo, Luke's first episode. You could just tell from the first scene he was going to be a brilliant character.

[beau_t]

Morag hasn't changed a bit since 1993 has she?

I think she has changed since her 1993 stint. Although we don't see it in that particular episode, she is still every bit as manipulative and vindictive as she was in the 80s (complete with a big "I told you so" from Ailsa). Nowadays, she doesn't really have that scheming, selfish, snobby bay-hating side to her.

It's surprising the amount of people piping up in this thread with seemingly a wide knowledge and love for the early years, yet are noticably absent from the Early Years discussions in the Bayside Diner forum, but judging from what they are saying, would very much enjoy watching the repeats on 7Two (or the weekly uploads on Youtube).

[Skylover]

Morag hasn't changed a bit since 1993 has she? And thankfully, as we all now know, Alf did get to patch things up, albeit nearly a decade later. She's not been consistently written for as, say, Pippa but the underlying themes are still there - she's still bitter and twisted but ultimately vulnerable.

I think Morag is just as well-written as Pippa. It's great they brought her back for Bobby's death considering how volatile there relationship had been earlier. I really hope Morag and Donald return to the Bay in 2013 for Bobby's 20th Anniversary.

[beau_t]

Morag hasn't changed a bit since 1993 has she? And thankfully, as we all now know, Alf did get to patch things up, albeit nearly a decade later. She's not been consistently written for as, say, Pippa but the underlying themes are still there - she's still bitter and twisted but ultimately vulnerable.

I think Morag is just as well-written as Pippa. It's great they brought her back for Bobby's death considering how volatile there relationship had been earlier. I really hope Morag and Donald return to the Bay in 2013 for Bobby's 20th Anniversary.

I'd love that, and I'd especially love for Morag and Donald to eventually get together (not so much "fall in love", but just develop a mutual companionship as older singletons sometimes do).

[Skylover]

Great idea!

I'd love to see Morag get drunk and have a little cry about Bobby's death going to the crematorium(?) I'd also love to see Duncan Stewart (re-cast as a hottie of course) return to the current show and have a relationship with Marilyn <controversial> Duncan could pursue her and we know Marilyn isn't against age gap relationships so maybe due to loneliness she could give in?

Just watched all three 5* episodes from today. I loved (wrong word? lol) Dale's cot death, it was so sad. They chose some great flashbacks for Bobby's funeral too, shame the flashback with Pippa had to be so recent. I suppose they couldn't have had a flashback to the real Pippa. It was also another reminder of how much I loved 1988 as well. Now that we're onto 1993 the show from 1988 already feels like a totally separate show altogether. Seeing Morag come back for Bobby's funeral definitely felt like two eras colliding. It seems like the Bay had changed between 88 and 93 in what should have happened in about ten years. If you compare 2012 to 2007 I don't think it would feel as different. I think it's something to do with all those 1 year characters they seem to have had at the beginning; Emma, Grant, Viv, Karen, Haydn etc it makes it feel like there's been so many characters.

[Red Ranger 1]

Next week we head into the era of Shane & Angel, the Kane & Kirsty of their day. I remember they were a real-life couple at the time. then split. There was an interview with Melissa George in FHM (UK) a few years ago, and she genuinely didn't remember that Shane had died. So anyone wanting her back for the 25th might be disappointed.

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case. They hated each other from pretty much day 1. There's a well known story about how during their hugging scenes they'd actually each dig their nails into the other one's back.

The story changes quite a bit:Some accounts say they hated each other from day one, others say they got on okay at first but things deteriorated later on.Melissa George once claimed she didn't have a problem with Dieter but he resented her getting more publicity, which might be a rose-tinted version of events.I certainly don't recall hearing they ever dated in real life.

Hello, 1993.I got goose pimples when those credits started up, even though I didn't remember half the shots.(Sally and Fin were on the same caption?)Adam with short hair is a bit jarring and I am beginning to wonder what the heck they were doing with Ailsa's look in the early '90s, the '80s version was very down to earth but at this point you'd be hard to tell the difference between her and Morag's wardrobe.And this was the point where my fourteen-year-old self was starting to fall seriously in love with the all-grown-up, er, sort-of version of Sally.Everyone else seemed to fancy Fin or Angel but, hey, my girl stuck around for the next fifteen years.Mind you, the fact that Tug, who was older than me at the time, looks about ten to my twenty-first century eyes does make me feel very old.

Had never seen that first episode of Lynne as Irene before.Actually, I missed the last episode of the old Irene so maybe that's not as jarring as it came across:Given what a nasty piece of work she was the previous year, unless she did some major backtracking before she left and they parted on good terms, I don't quite understand why Pippa, Damian and everyone was so pleased to see her.Despite people remembering her nastiness towards Blake, it actually doesn't stand out, everyone seems to be incredibly judgemental at this point.No-one apart from Nick and Bobby are willing to give Shane a chance(okay, he didn't do himself any favours in the past but he'd clearly reformed by then)and I remember being pretty annoyed with Pippa's treatment of Sophie at the time, then missed an episode and found they'd both had an abrupt change of heart, so glad Bobby called her out on it here.And the debut of Luke Cunningham.Aside from expecting Bobby to say "You remember the caravan park, you stayed there back when you were Ben Lucini's friend", his main contribution is smiling a lot and showing off his chest, but I don't think he's as bad as most people claim and I did find him instantly likeable.I remember Alf's snap judgement of him here was used by a Christian group who visited our school that Christmas as an example of how not to treat people.(Then they got him mixed up with Coronation Street's shopkeeper Alf Roberts.Maybe they thought he was married to Irene?)I remember shipping Blake and Fin at the time, then it's new season and...they've taken Blake off the credits, so it's obviously not going to last.In the end, they got together about six weeks before he left, which feels like a very familiar story.(And...given Michael's helping rescue Fin in the recap, where did he go?Guess episode counts were a problem in those days too.)

And Bobby's funeral.I thought the flashbacks were well-judged:People have complained about the Pippa one but, while I think there were better clips of Debra Lawrence(who, to me, will always be the real Pippa), I disagree with claims that she wasn't as close to Bobby as the Vanessa Downing version, having seen a lot of their interaction, I think it's one of those myths like "Tom wanted to foster more than Michael did."Don actually looked older in the flashback than in the present day sequences, he must have a hard couple of years coming up.I remember at the time Michael being the only one willing to stick up for Adam and being impressed with him as a result.Had completely forgotten they took Greg off the credits at the same time as Bobby, that's another one we can add to the spoiler titles thread.Someone mentioned in another thread a while back that Sally wasn't at the funeral and I assumed the "She's looking after Christopher" explanation was an excuse to not have her in the episode.But instead, she's there and it's a decent if slightly forced character moment and I quite liked her and Fin's scenes.I remember Greg's comment to Morag perfecty but didn't realise it was at the wake;at the time and even now, I can't work out whether he was being deliberately cruel or if he was just so caught up in his own grief that he just didn't realise how hurtful he was being.The scene between Alf and Morag was one of two moments in that episode where I felt myself welling up:I agree with the comment about Morag being written consistently, however nasty and manipulative she was until relatively recently(I always see 2004 as the turning point for her character), deep down she's always been a very lonely woman.And even though she managed to alienate everyone and get driven out of town again, nearly twenty years on the possibility of her dying alone and unloved seems a lot more remote.The other point where I had tears in my eyes was that last scene between Don and Sam:Like someone else said, I'd completely forgotten about it but now it seems very familiar and it was a beautiful moment.

I think if you looked at 2007 and 2012 they'd be very different, maybe even more so than 1988 and 1993.If you look at people that are still there, there's Alf, Irene and Leah and...that's it.The Diner's been rebuilt three times, the surf club's been rebuilt once, Roman's house, introduced that year, has vanished off the face of the earth already.If you plonked, say, Peter Baker down in the current show, I think he'd feel as much a part of a different era as Morag does.

Far too late for me to sit down and watch Dale's death now, I think I'll probably stick it on after lunch tomorrow, whem I'd normally be watching the lunchtime episode.Feels kind of appropriate.

[alexx]

By the sounds of it, the Fisher/Sam scene sounds like typical H&A of the past, full of poignant moments. I can't remember it at all.

Red Ranger, I'd like to know if you prefer the 90's and 80's stuff to the current H&A? Or do you view it as the same? Or prefer the current show? I remember at one point you suggested we may have rose tinted glasses on (I think it was in response to me going on, yet again, about how much better the show used to be back in the 90's).

[Red Ranger 1]

Red Ranger, I'd like to know if you prefer the 90's and 80's stuff to the current H&A? Or do you view it as the same? Or prefer the current show? I remember at one point you suggested we may have rose tinted glasses on (I think it was in response to me going on, yet again, about how much better the show used to be back in the 90's).

Tricky one.I'm always worried that I'm as guilty of looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses as anyone.I look back on these episodes being shown with a warm nostalgic glow but I wonder how I'd feel if it was the current show with the same cast and storylines.I see characters and storylines that annoyed me at the time and think I'd be jumping on here to sound off about it.I remember in the 2005 episodes being bored by the constant stream of psychos and the fact Sally seemed to be put through physical and emotional trauma on a weekly basis, yet my younger self always admired the HA villains and may well have been lapping it up.It was around 2008 that I began to get annoyed at the show's habit of having characters repeatedly commit serious crimes without any consequences, yet looking back that wasn't a new phenomenon and my '90s self may well have sympathised with characters like Aden, Brax and Jett.I chuckle at Adam's antics in the older episode but I wonder if I'd be starting a hate thread if he was a current character.Yet, I do see a community feel around the show in the early days;as I think Blaxland pointed out, a simple event like Sophie giving birth is used as an excuse to bring a lot of characters together, which still happens occasionally on the current show(Charlie's funeral for instance)but seems rarer.Yet some people feel the show lost its way in 1990, so there's always been a feeling that it isn't the show it used to be.I'm worried about saying the show isn't as good as it used to be, even though sometimes I think it's true, and however much I might moan about it there's something about the current show that keeps me watching.

As for the Sam/Don scene:I'm worried a description won't do it justice but Sam asks Don if he thinks Bobby's in heaven and neither of them are really convinced it's true.Don says there's a theory that when someone dies they come back as an animal and likes the idea of Bobby as a free spirit.Sam sees some seagulls flying and wonders if Bobby could be one of them and Don agrees, saying she loved it there.It really is a beautiful moment and you kind of need the performances and the music to get the full effect.