G'Day Mate! (Home & Away)

Member Name: darrenaspinall

Product:	Home & Away
Date:	16/01/02 (102 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to catch up on

Disadvantages: Same storylines over and over, not enough everyday looking people

I remember the first time Home and Away hit our screens in the eighties, I think the opening scene was a scrap between Bobby(she was ace!) and one of the other Summer Bay Schoolies! I was always a bit of a "soapaholic" but I especially loved this one because I watched it from Day one!

The first Pippa, who was married to Tom, actually had streaked blonde hair in a really eighties kinda perm style. It really surprised me when her replacement was darker haired, though the perm was the same!

The Fletchers' (as they were in the start) household consisted of Carly, Lynne, Steven, Frank and Little Sally(who ain't that little any more!)

Carly was a bit of an australian Miss Piggy, she had a psychotic side and then a few years into the show it emerged that she had a twin sister(with the help of some really cheap choreography and curtains they managed to pull it off!) It left me wondering though, Was it carly we'd been watching all those years or was it her evil twin sister?

Lynne didn't get too many great storylines, In fact I don't remember her having any interesting parts, but I recall her character anyway!

Steven(stevo) was actually a bit of a dweeb, He looked upto and admired his older brother frank, He had a bit of a fling with one of his teachers and then he went to college (for a really long time it seemed!), He came back in the nineties.

Sally was only a nipper when the show first started, but even then she was annoying. I sometimes feel sorry for kids like sally who grow up playing a character in a soap. I imagine it must be difficult to distinguish which one is real life at that age!

Frank was a bit of a hunk, and a bit of a ladies man as well, He was messing with Roo(Alfs spoilt brat of a daughter) and Bobby, who was a bit of a stray at that point. I think he nearly married both of them(not at the same time) but I can't remember him ever going through with it, I think
he stood bobby up actually.

So, as well as the above and Alf and Ailsa, Ther was Alfs crazy sister Celia, who was the equivalent of a born again christian(not that there's anything wrong with Born again christians!) She used to pedal round, preaching to the neighbours. I think she went to Africa or asia to become a missionary.

The guys she preached to the most were Martin and Lance- The Nerds of Caravan land! They lived in the a shabby little mobile home thinking they were cool and being rejected constantly by women and mocked because of there lack of intelligence, Then Lance won some money and bought them both a more expensive little mobile home to live in.

Lance eventually fell in love with Marilyn(louise from Emmerdale) who was a beautician I think at first. They were the perfect couple or so I thought, Then Marilyn ended up like Rita(Educating Rita), and needing to sing a different song! She saw the light with Donald Fisher, who ended up being Bobby's Dad with Alf's sister(Morag) as her Mother.

Fisher had another son who died of a brain Tumor and fairly soon after Bobby drowned!( and reappeard as aghost in a later episode) Then he had another long lost Daughter show up(Rebecca). He really should remember the dates he has fun!

Meanwhile in the Fletcher household Pippa was changed for the third time, The perm was getting darker and the frizz was dying down to a kind of mushroom style! Then Tom dies, so pippa struggles on as a single foster mum adopting kids of all sorts, Pregnant teenage mum sophie, lesbian poet shannon, Dumber thn dumb Jack, to name but a few! Then Michael Ross marries pippa to turn the whole thing into a real modern family. With a couple of kids to him, one to Tom, One of Michaels own and a few foster ones she really was 'Mum of the eighties'!

Who can blame her for leaving the soap after Husband Michael dies also.

I must admit that since Pippa left I haven't
watched as must as I used to, but I imagine that it hasn't changed much, just moved with the times. Still full of Teen Drama's, and surfing hunks, It's the kind of soap that if you miss ayear or two, you'll catch up easily enough!!!

Nomatter what it's always good to watch when there's nothing else on the box, so I spend my sunday's watching the omnibus now, and it never surprises me how many relations of the original characters keep popping up! I'm just waiting for Pippa to come back and continue all the good work she's done, and besides, I think Sally is in need of a female role model still!

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