I watched it for a while on TPTV (it seems to be permanent fixture on their website) and it's fascinatingly boring. Or boringly fascinating. But perfectly watchable. Very interesting what you say about the live episodes: I can't say I noticed any difference between the first and second series. I have to admit I've put it on an indefinite hiatus since Talking Pictures distracted me with their reruns of Stingray and now Captain Scarlet.
I must give it a go on their website. I’ve only ever seen the first episode, which opens with a rather grim plot involving a new resident, who has downsized from his family home to Rutherford Court, trying to kill himself and his dog.
I’ve just watched said episode and the father compares his fancy dressed daughter to a “cheap whore in a Hong Kong waterside brothel”. Heady stuff for an afternoon soap altogether.
Trine did return, albeit not as Marchell Betak, but Clare Wilkie.
Gosh, I never knew Charlie Slater was a villain in Eldorado and all them all other things. He was always such a lovely fella on Enders (as well as being a stuntman on Who back in the day).
Yes, Trine was sent off to visit her grandmother in Denmark and came back as future EE & Crossroads star Claire Wilkie. Who, in my opinion, was a great addition to the cast. She added a bit of gravitas to the teen scene in Los Barcos.
I didn’t realise he was involved in Who. I quite enjoyed him on Eldorado because he was quite a forthright character whereas Charlie was such a passive presence most of the time on EE.
Yes, quite prominently throughout the '70s. I remember a little in-joke on Enders during the early-2010s after the news of the Christian/Syed/Amira triangle broke. Ricky Butcher tries to helpfully explain to a bemused Charlie that there are gay people everywhere, "even on Doctor Who." "Not in my day," Charlie replies confidently.
A nice nuanced in joke there. A lot better than later efforts when a taxi driver compared Shirley to a Terrahawk just because she was referred to that on another forum.
I remember buying Heat magazine (back in the day before it became extremely trashy) and there was an article on the introduction of the Slater family - Charlie, Mo, Lynne, Little Mo, Kat and Zoe (Gary may also have been included) - and it felt quite exciting as I think they were the first new family to be introduced since the DiMarcos in 1998. Despite efforts at the beginning to promote the whole family, including the feud between Mo and Pat, the older Slaters quickly fell by the wayside and it was Kat, Zoe and Little Mo that were pushed to the forefront. I think Charlie’s main story was the fallout of the Kat/Harry reveal and he then essentially hung around in the background, providing a sounding board for his family’s various woes, until he was axed in the early 00’s.
It felt to me like he was part of the fabric of the show, a bit like Betty Turpin in Coronation Street only with deeper emotional ties. I don't know how many duff-duffs he got, but he still felt like an integral presence. For what it's worth, I'd say he helped contextualise his family's woes.
The Tuesday and Thursday night episodes aired at 8.30pm, normally home to sitcoms and effectively meaning Castles was the Nine O'Clock News lead in.
As you said, there’s very little to be found online, so I think this is the first time I’ve seen the opening credits since it originally aired. My recollections of it from 1995 are vague although I think I may have mainly known it from the afternoon repeats. Despite Granada Plus airing everything and anything, I don’t think Castles ever had a rerun on there.
I’m seven episodes in and I can see where Acorn Antiques borrowed from it. There’s lots of “You forgot my sweetener” style scene ends and the latest episode that I watched ended with the cliffhanger of someone forgetting to pick up a bottle of tonic from the doctors, reminiscent of “After last Friday’s exciting cliffhanger, let’s see if they’re any further on with mending that umbrella stand”.
The omnibus edition I recall aired on Monday afternoons on BBC1 post Neighbours during the brief Tuesday and Thursday run.
That and Michael Buerk\Peter Sissons grumbling over Castles as well, as it was the 9pm news lead in. (And a low lead in affects the news bulletins - like Family and Friends, Paradise Beach and the revived Neighbours in Australia).
