2004 Season Finale

[alejandro5000]

I've been a fan of both shows for as long as I've been of an age where I could remember things (ie. circa mid-90s - i remember Michael drowning for example) to be honest because of family influence when I was young. I've always preferred Neighbours more personally but I don't know why just one of those things. Last year I enjoyed H&A more cos Neighbours was fairly dire in my opinion but this year I've enjoyed Neighbours much much more. Generally I just think Neighbours manages the balance of pleasing both long-time and newer viewers (after all, isn't that the point of a soap opera) a lot better than H&A does but that's just my opinion. I wouldn't have a go at anybody else for thinking the opposite. To me, the action that revolves around newer characters doesn't detract from the action of older characters in Neighbours whereas in H&A I think it detracts massively. Just look at that Most Popular Character poll - like it says, Alf hasn't really done very much for ages apart from the Penn Graham storyline. Irene's only important storyline in recent time involved her not doing anything and being glum (which is understandable when you have cancer).

I think the fact that Ailsa and Fisher did so well in the poll says something too - i've never forgotten how much I enjoyed watching them but obviously a lot of people who've been watching the repeats on SevenTwo had! Although obviously I haven't seen from 1988-1995ish period before the repeats started. Their characters had so much more depth to them than current characters it is ridiculous. Whilst I don't particularly dislike the Braxtons, I wouldn't be at all bothered if the likes of Heath and Casey left tomorrow.

Although, with the (in my opinion) couple of fairly dull characters that are leaving, along with the couple of returning characters and a return to the roots of H&A, I think 2013 will probably be one of my favourites for a while. But Neighbours has a whole host of returning characters next year so H&A will have a lot of work to do on me...

[CaptainHulk]

Agreed. People,You can knock Neighbours all you like and Even I, a fan of 20yrs+, have found the show very hard to defend at times (1995 and parts of 2002 and some of 2011), but it's stayed somewhat true to its roots instead of chasing the joneses.