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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 406433" data-attributes="member: 22">Ah, this is interesting: I had pretty much the opposite reaction. To me, Heather was the one who came off worst in this scenario. I'm not saying I would be able to adapt to the amusingly self-obsessed Scott suddenly ruling the roost in my own home any better than she does, but I did think she would have given some prior thought to what it might be like to have a couple of teenagers under her feet, and attempted to roll with the punches a bit more. As it was, it felt to me as if I were being encouraged to identify with Nick and Scott (easy-going, laid back, amused) against Heather (the inflexibly uptight outsider). It seemed as if the writers were lulling us into a false sense of security about the new characters, before revealing the darkness that lies behind their relaxed exterior.Yes, to begin with there seemed to be something strange and furtive between Nick and Ruth. Now it's between Nick and Charlie, with Ruth on the sidelines. It made for a neat contrast when the show kept cutting between the Collinses, where Paul and Annabelle are trying to figure out the nature of Gordon's relationship with Cecile, and Heather's, where we're the ones trying to figure out precisely what the deal is between Nick and Charlie.Again we disagree!I must confess that on past re-watches, I've put the Collinses on fast-forward after Paul's redundancy. That great scene between him and Billy sitting on the bricks seemed to bring his character full circle: the family's story has been told. I felt that, from that point on, they stop evolving. Instead, they kind of plateau, in much the same way as Harry and Ralph do. This time around, I wondered if I'd perhaps been unfair and decided I wouldn't start scrolling past them just yet. All the same, I've felt something lacking from the road safety campaign/Annabelle becoming a magistrate story, but couldn't put my finger on exactly what. Is it that their new interests come just a bit too much out of nowhere, as if the writers were giving them something to do for the sake of it? And are the opposing nature of these interests (Paul suddenly prepared to break the law just as  Annabelle discovers a desire to uphold it) just bit too neatly contrived? There again, one could make the same accusations about Bobby's sudden lack of interest and/or sympathy in the problems encountered by Sheila during her Educating Sheila storyline. But that seemed less noticeable, or just easier to overlook, because  there was so much at stake, dramatically and personally, for the characters. I don't get that same feeling with the Collinses. Annabelle's previous interests -- antiques, catering, even jogging or bailing George out of prison -- stemmed from a need to find purpose in her new life away from the Wirral. Her wanting (not needing) to becoming a magistrate doesn't carry the same dramatic weight. It feels more like a whim. This doesn't necessarily make for terrible viewing, but it's not all that compelling either. Likewise Paul's campaign. It's watchable, but almost in a public-information-film sort of way rather than  as a piece of character-driven drama.  It could just as easily be Annabelle (or Harry or Ralph) protesting, while Paul is the one watching disapprovingly from the sidelines. One can imagine the same plot on Corrie with lots of different characters getting involved and it actually being quite funny, but here it's just a bit ... mild. (As it was, it was interesting to see a barely recognisable Norris Cole as part of Paul's old boy network.)I remember something similar when Annabelle first started keeping fit, with her being too self-conscious to start jogging until she was out of view of the neighbours.Ah yes, gather round as we consult the Mantlepiece of Recasts ...Next to Pat, New Gordon has always been my least favourite piece of casting on Brookside. This time around, I have attempted to watch his first few episodes with an open mind, but so far I've failed miserably. That means the only remaining point of interest, for me, is to see how Paul and Annabelle, as well as the writers, deal with the dilemma of a gay son on the close. It's uncharted territory for the Collinses and British soap opera alike.I'm not exactly sure where we are date-wise at this point, but my guess is late August '86, which means Enders  has just pipped Brookside the post by introducing UK soap's first long-running gay character (paint-drying afternoon show Together notwithstanding) i.e., Colin Russell, just a couple of weeks earlier,. I didn't like Colin much either back in the day. So timid and awkward, so middle-class and repressed, he felt kind of embarrassing -- but having re-watched his era a couple of times, I've totally changed my mind. Viewed in retrospect, with the character no longer carrying the burden of being  almost the only gay in the televisual village,  I'm able to see him as an individual character like any other -- and he's quite fascinating. His relationship with the younger Barry (a loud-mouthed oik, naive but totally free of any of Colin's emotional or societal hang-ups) is actually very touching. But as Colin has no family, and Barry has no family we see on screen, save for a remarkably accepting brother,  it's a totally different scenario to the one presented on Brookside. (Barry does eventually come out to his father, who reacts so badly that Barry feels compelled to renounce his relationship with Colin and starts dating girls, but it happens entirely off screen. Enders won't have a character in Paul's position, i.e., a father confronted with his son's sexuality, until Kathy's brother Ted gets the short straw in the mid-90s.)Nick's wife aside,  Brookie's depiction of gay characters thus far has been a little ... clunky. I remember a strange scene from a few years earlier where Bobby and Matty, back when they were working for Sheila's odd-job agency, are called out to a job at a hairdresser's. Their attitude to the salon manager (male, chatty) is very much "backs against the wall, lads", the assumption being that this fella would have his evil way with both of them given half a chance. It's not pretty, but it feels real: Bobby and Matty are decent enough men, but why wouldn't they be homophobic, given the time and place in which they live? Only trouble is, the actor playing the hairdresser seemed not to get the memo of what the scene was about,  because he couldn't or wouldn't play the hairdresser in a sufficiently stereotypical way to give Bobby and Matty something to react against, and so the scene doesn't quite make sense. (But actually, as I'm typing this, I'm wondering if that was the point: maybe the bloke didn't have to be flamboyant or even gay: perhaps the fact that he simply was a hairdresser was enough to elicit Bobby and Matty's response? Hmm, I'm not sure.) And then there was the horribly mincy, bitchy gay couple Annabelle showed around Heather's house when it was up for sale. They certainly got the memo, but despite their blatant camping-it-up, Annabelle remained oblivious to their relationship, until it was spelt out to her. In both instances, the writers seemed content to reinforce viewer preconceptions rather than challenge them.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?