Does the show need an injection of life, if so, then what?

[Gerard]

I agree, you see the same characters interact with the same groups over and over again, and a real lack of "community".  Also the "20/30-something" characters like Cash, Tane, Eden, Harper, Dana etc seem to be at the forefront, while characters like Alf, Roo, Marilyn, John, Leah, Justin (those two to a lesser extent), seem to be in more supporting roles much of the time. It's still watchable, but certainly is far from the best it could be.

I can't help thinking that introducing perhaps 3 teenage characters and bringing the focus back to Summer Bay, rather than Yabbie Creek (less crime and medical storylines, more focus on families and community) might be the injection of life that is needed.

[adam436]

On 02/01/2026 at 13:04, joany208121 said:

Catching up on recent eps, it blows my mind how little some characters interact. When did Mack and Maz have a scene together, or Abby and Jo, or even Mali and Leah. The show is split into a few groups with very little crossover now, which it never was like.

Alf, Marilyn and Roo feel very much segregated. Marilyn has incidental interactions with Diner customers (and Roo and David during the Cohen story!), but otherwise they really only interact with John, Leah and Justin.

The writers have definitely made more of an effort to integrate John since Irene left, when the temptation must have been there to just throw him into the Alf/Marilyn/Roo clique.

There were certainly pockets of characters who little to do with each other. A twentysomething like Kelly Watson or Jesse McGregor had little interaction with someone like Donald Fisher for example, but it was less noticeable because overall, the different age groups interacted well, rather than being segregated.