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

[Gerard]

On 02/10/2026 at 01:09, James Martin said:

Now, I get the show needs light and shade but this whole show was built on a couple who couldn't have kids, so fostered instead.

I've heard about how the WA storyline bought back lapsed viewers.  I get why; Irene's departure bought me back into the fold after years of being very passive.

They're missing a golden opportunity here to take the show back to its roots and recover some lapsed viewers.  It's not beyond the realms of possibility at this point that you could move Mac & Levi into the big house to start a foster family.  It's also not too big of a stretch that Pippa could be some sort of voluntary adviser for DOCS, and Alf & Maz convince her to come in as some sort of mentor to help them get started.

It's hard to believe the show has evolved so much that it no longer has any teens or fostering given this was the whole premise of the series when it first started and for the first 30+ years. The fostering set-up was an absolute dream scenario for family drama where young characters could come and go, staying weeks or years. Much of the drama in H&A revolved around the young characters trying to find their way in the world, making mistakes, and clashing with the older generation.

The strange thing is that the series feels like it's dipping a toe in the water around fostering without actually committing to anything. These days a few of the 20/30-somethings seem to have been in the fostering system, yet it's only mentioned in passing and nothing is made of it. Long term characters like Roo, Marilyn, John could easily have been long term foster carers. Cash and Eden also seemed to consider the idea then put it on the back burner. The police/hospital set-up could easily be used to introduce younger characters who need looking after because their parent is sick or in trouble. Feels like TPTB are trying to dangle an invisible carrot.

We only need 2 or 3 younger characters in inject some life into a foster family, with numerous existing cast ready-to-go as foster parents. The cast seems is a bit heavily biased towards 30-somethings. Maybe next time one or two of this group leave, it could be a good excuse to bring in a couple of teens. I doubt it would happen. 

But with the 40th anniversary not far off, it would be a hugely missed opportunity not to have any teens/fostering in some form or other.

[pembie]

If Roo was around abit often they could bring back fostering 

Or possibly Mac and Levi Cash and Eden 

But the shows changed with characters like Tane Brax being the type of superhero mancho men 

[adam436]

9 hours ago, Zig said:

Leah/Miles should of been together way longer tbh I wish Josh stayed on.

  The kind of started that early on with Leah's crush on Miles, then we went through Miles/Kirsty, Leah/Roman and possibly Leah/Elijah before they got together. Josh Quong-Tart was around for 4 years, yet Miles and Leah were only together for a relatively short period of that. 

Likewise, Zac and Leah. He stayed over 4 years, yet him and Leah were only together for about 2 years, and married for just over 1 before their marriage breakdown started to kick off. In both cases, it just feels like they wasted so much time unnecessarily. 

 

3 hours ago, pembie said:

If Roo was around abit often they could bring back fostering 

The cynic in me wonders if that's why Roo is doing the fostering story. They can run the fostering storylines to appease long-term fans who want H&A to return to its roots, and then use Georgie's regular absences as an excuse as to why it can't be long-term. 

 

[Red Ranger 1]

21 hours ago, Zig said:

Leah/Miles should of been together way longer tbh I wish Josh stayed on.

They should never have been together at all: It was a terrible idea that ruined Miles' character.

It's kind of ironic that people are rewriting history and saying that Leah and Miles would have been the big fostering couple if they'd been together longer when the reality was the exact opposite: Pairing them up meant the end of Miles as the patriarch of the caravan park house playing surrogate father to teenagers, instead moving him out of there with no fanfare and turning him into Leah's latest short-term boyfriend, and leaving us with the set-up we have now, with the status quo being Alf living there with his grown-up daughters (biological and surrogate) and any attempt to change it ultimately fizzling out.

[adam436]

11 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

It's kind of ironic that people are rewriting history and saying that Leah and Miles would have been the big fostering couple if they'd been together longer when the reality was the exact opposite: Pairing them up meant the end of Miles as the patriarch of the caravan park house playing surrogate father to teenagers, instead moving him out of there with no fanfare and turning him into Leah's latest short-term boyfriend

Or they could have moved Leah into Summer Bay House when they got together and so Leah had her turn as the matriarch of the caravan park? I can't remember when they got together, so it might have been too late for though? It should have happened earlier though - after a grieving period for Dan (who died off-screen not long after Miles arrived), they could have got together instead of Miles/Kirsty and Leah/Roman and then we still could have had 3 years or so with them as a couple. 

They had the right idea with Zac and Leah, moving in with Matt, Osacr, Evie, VJ and Hunter, and we finally had a large "foster" family in the house again. But it took them so long to get to that point, that the family unit fizzled out pretty quickly, with Oscar being killed off and Matt and Evie moving out. I can't remember when Zac and Leah got together, but they didn't move into Summer Bay House or get married until Zac had been around for 3 years! 

 

11 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

leaving us with the set-up we have now, with the status quo being Alf living there with his grown-up daughters (biological and surrogate) and any attempt to change it ultimately fizzling out.

It's very strange - with so many young people in the show, the writers could surely find a reason to move at least one character in there as a lodger, in the same way the Matheson sisters did with Irene. Having the three of them (two of them with Roo away!) makes them very segreated from the younger cast in many ways. Does Marilyn even need to live there? They broke her and John up just to have her sit single in Summer Bay House and be Alf's "Daughter", when we already had Roo filling that role. 

[pembie]

I had a opportunity of writing a foster story for Eden being scared of having a child because of Mac 

Really unless Roo goes back to looking fostering I can’t see it being brought back 

[Red Ranger 1]

9 hours ago, adam436 said:

Or they could have moved Leah into Summer Bay House when they got together and so Leah had her turn as the matriarch of the caravan park? I can't remember when they got together, so it might have been too late for though? It should have happened earlier though - after a grieving period for Dan (who died off-screen not long after Miles arrived), they could have got together instead of Miles/Kirsty and Leah/Roman and then we still could have had 3 years or so with them as a couple. 

It never felt right to me. I don't think it would have worked if it happened straightaway, and it definitely didn't work when it happened: After years of them being best friends and surrogate siblings, them suddenly having sex just felt icky and wrong. I think the problem was that Leah had much more history on the show than Miles did: Her home had become "Leah's house" to the point that people forgot other characters lived there before her. She felt like more of an unmovable object than Miles did, at least in the producers' minds, and later years had to burn it down to move her out of it.

[adam436]

14 hours ago, Red Ranger 1 said:

I think the problem was that Leah had much more history on the show than Miles did: Her home had become "Leah's house" to the point that people forgot other characters lived there before her. She felt like more of an unmovable object than Miles did, at least in the producers' minds, and later years had to burn it down to move her out of it.

That's a good point. Leah became synonomous with that house in the same way Irene did with the Beach House, despite both being around for years before they moved in. 

When did Miles and Leah get together? If it was in 2011 (I recall Miles left in late 2011), there were probably a couple of other factors there. The Braxtons had arrived in 2011, so the producers kind of lost sight of classic H&A for a while so having Miles and Leah as "head of the main house" probably wasn't a priority for them. The second factor was Roo returned in late 2010, and she needed a room at Summer Bay House, and eventually she was paired off with Harvey and then fostered Maddie and Spencer. The third factor was potentially that they knew Josh Quong-Tart wanted to leave (in which case, I would argue why bother with Leah and Miles at all?), so they probably didn't see the point in "moving the unmovable Leah" when they knew it wouldn't last. 

[Revealed]

I'm not against teenage characters returning, I just think it's doing fine without them. Given the trend in later years of getting 20 somethings to play the teenage characters a lot of the ones that followed just felt like teenage characters without the school. That's not to mention all the teenage characters from the past who dropped out of school anyway.

I would say the characters they've made foster parents in the last 20 years have never really worked. One that stands out is Sally fostering Cassie, they always seemed more like sisters and not helped by the fact Cassie arguably looked older than Sally.

[James Martin]

4 hours ago, Revealed said:

I'm not against teenage characters returning, I just think it's doing fine without them. Given the trend in later years of getting 20 somethings to play the teenage characters a lot of the ones that followed just felt like teenage characters without the school. That's not to mention all the teenage characters from the past who dropped out of school anyway.

I would say the characters they've made foster parents in the last 20 years have never really worked. One that stands out is Sally fostering Cassie, they always seemed more like sisters and not helped by the fact Cassie arguably looked older than Sally.

Could say that about Carly and Pippa MK1 too to be fair.