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

[Homeandawayfan.]

On 16/02/2026 at 23:12, CaptainHulk said:

Yep Edna Birch supposedly lived in Beckindals/Emmerdale for Donkey's Years as did the Dingles, Glovers and Feldmanns (the latter 3 just lived on out-of-the-way farms ala the O'Neales and Hunters on H&A)

And Johnny Allen in EastEnders was said to have grown up in Albert Square, and Big Mo Harris, Kat's gran said she knew Reg Cox, whose death opened the series. Donna Bishop in H&A also grew up in The Bay I think. 

Neighbours also had a woman who was said to have lived in a house at the end of Ramsay Street which never featured in the show until the last few years. Vera Punt I think. 

Edited February 20 by Homeandawayfan.

[CaptainHulk]

30 minutes ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

And Johnny Allen in EastEnders was said to have grown up in Albert Square, and Big Mo Harris, Kat's gran said she knew Reg Cox, whose death opened the series. Donna Bishop in H&A also grew up in The Bay I think. 

Neighbours also had a woman who was said to have lived in a house at the end of Ramsay Street which never featured in the show until the last few years. Vera Punt I think. 

Partial Credit. Vera was the sister of Valerie Grundy who had lived there for a while. Valerie made her only appearance on Christmas Day 2018. She died of a mild heart attack and Piper and Toadie found her. She had like 30yrs+ of moments in the house (Jim's funeral programme, Wedding invited, etc) Vera took over the house.

Mo knowing Reg tallied because she and Pat were thick as thieves in the 50s/60s as young women and lived in Walford. Dot remembered Johnny as a naughty child.

 

[Red Ranger 1]

3 hours ago, CaptainHulk said:

Valerie made her only appearance on Christmas Day 2018.

Not quite. She was in the 8000th episode, shown on 21st December. The Jim-Robinson-in-a-bauble Christmas Day episode was two episodes later.

[James Martin]

On 16/02/2026 at 22:59, Revealed said:

Admittedly I can think of a number of reasons to switch off such as the rubbish music that keeps appearing but I haven't. Looking back around 10 years ago they got it seriously wrong with some of the casting. Some only turned out to be bad decisions in the long run but this was a period when some of the casting decisions were terrible from the word go.

If all these other shows are casting LGBT characters then why does Home & Away need to? I stopped watching all the other soaps more than 20 years ago but I do recall LGBT characters on some of them in the 90s.

In fact in the early 90s there was a short lived British soap called Eldorado which had a gay character throughout its duration. 

The truth be told had I started watching Home & Away at various points over the last 20 years I may not have continued watching. There has been at least one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch most of the time. I'm not talking about dull characters like Tony Holden I'm talking about ones that completely ruin the show. I won't mention names but you know who they are.

They have somehow got to the point now where there are no bad apples which is very difficult in this day and age. Not to say none of the current cast will be bad apples in the future.

This is where Eldorado can hold its head up high. It's frozen in time, a much better time to be alive. Because it flopped the younger actors disappeared and for different reasons many of the older actors are now dead. A show like that would never work in this day and age, just walk around a Spanish resort full of Brits and you'll see why.

The point is Home & Away is doing a surprisingly good job given the current climate. 

I watched Eldorado, start to finish, when it was rerun this time last year.  Once they got Corrine Hollingworth in as showrunner, it was actually a Hell of a better show than folklore would have you believe.  God knows how radical the gay storylines were (predating the lesbian relationships on Brookside and Emmerdale by a good year plus!) at the time, but boy was I hooked.

But the 'Rado actually owed a lot to the OG sunshine soap, our very own Home & Away!  This was a time when it and Neighbours genuinely gave the British soaps a proper run for their money.

I go to the Costa del Sol several times a year these days, and honestly if you rebooted Eldorado with H&A's production values but set it in a thinly disguised Marbella rather than a thinly disguised Mijas, it would work.

[CaptainHulk]

7 hours ago, James Martin said:

I watched Eldorado, start to finish, when it was rerun this time last year.  Once they got Corrine Hollingworth in as showrunner, it was actually a Hell of a better show than folklore would have you believe.  God knows how radical the gay storylines were (predating the lesbian relationships on Brookside and Emmerdale by a good year plus!) at the time, but boy was I hooked.

Emmerdale was a bit more shocking as it was a long-runner wand even had a sombre theme over the credits(same one used when Seth told Turner and Co he couldn't wake Meg)

[Homeandawayfan.]

I remember when Neighbours and H&A were huge in the UK in the late 1980s and well into the 1990s, and were always giving CS, Brookside, Emmerdale and EE a good battle. By about 1997 this started to drop away for some reason for the 2 Aussie soaps. 

Edited February 21 by Homeandawayfan.

[adam436]

That's interesting - I remember we had the storyline filmed in the UK with Marilyn, Irene, Steven and Selina around that time. Was that an attempt to boost viewership/generate interest again? Although depending on how far behind the UK was at that point, it could have been up to a year before UK viewers saw those episodes. I wonder why viewers dropped off - we did have a bit of cast turnover around 1996 (likely airing in 1997 in the UK?) with characters like Shane, Angel, Michael and Jack going and a bunch of newcomers like Casey, Steph, Joey Liam, Rebecca, Jesse etc.

[Dan F]

5 hours ago, adam436 said:

Although depending on how far behind the UK was at that point, it could have been up to a year before UK viewers saw those episodes. 

Aired in Oz in March '97 and in the UK four weeks later 

[Revealed]

On 21/02/2026 at 03:26, James Martin said:

I watched Eldorado, start to finish, when it was rerun this time last year.  Once they got Corrine Hollingworth in as showrunner, it was actually a Hell of a better show than folklore would have you believe.  God knows how radical the gay storylines were (predating the lesbian relationships on Brookside and Emmerdale by a good year plus!) at the time, but boy was I hooked.

But the 'Rado actually owed a lot to the OG sunshine soap, our very own Home & Away!  This was a time when it and Neighbours genuinely gave the British soaps a proper run for their money.

I go to the Costa del Sol several times a year these days, and honestly if you rebooted Eldorado with H&A's production values but set it in a thinly disguised Marbella rather than a thinly disguised Mijas, it would work.

Completely agree that Eldorado was inspired by the Australian soaps because in England we couldn't compete weather wise.

Did you watch Eldorado the first time round? If not do you remember 1992?

I think we'd peaked as a society then. Much of the 90s was good but its all been downhill ever since. I remember a moment in the year 2000 when I took a look around and thought we have a serious problem here and it's only going to get worse. It has indeed got worse and to a greater extent than I thought it would.

I don't think Home & Away had this problem until maybe 2008 though it did have the problem retrospectively for a few years prior. 

We now have young adults who weren't born until the year 2000 who have never known any different.  

[Homeandawayfan.]

The sunshine of Australian Erinsborugh and Summer Bay for an hour combined in the afternoon and that evening was what helped get us through gloomy and dark UK winters. Even in the spring and summer, our weather can be abysmal.