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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 246575" data-attributes="member: 23">With the seventh episode, the series seemed to just click with me. And this was built on with the eighth.Almost every episode so far has had featured a character or two in serious jeopardy, be it from a plummet down a mineshaft, falling from a horse or being lost at night in severe weather. In these two episodes, no less than two main characters have been dramatically shot. There's been a hostage situation. Several seductions. A grand dance. And romantic imbroglios galore.Episode Seven's exciting  jeopardy came out of a number of running threads: the lawless prospectors camping on the edge of town as a result of the gold strike; the Blackwoods' desire to drive Kathleen from town to build their railway; Kathleen's need to stand up for what she has.Kathleen had a Miss Ellie moment when she marched to the prospectors' camp after they shot her heifer for food. When met with insolence, she produced a shotgun from beneath her overcoat and aimed it at the most vocal member until she was in receipt of payment. And she wasn't the only woman brandishing a shotgun.After Jack was shot by some prospectors who he saw poisoning Kathleen's herd's drinking water (at Frank Blackwood's behest), young Danni grabbed a gun as she and Colin's new fiancée Emily marched to help Kathleen as the prospectors headed to Kathleen's to lynch Jack. I found it refreshing to see three women in this situation while being neither victims nor arse kicking feminists. They're simply characters who know the rules of the sometimes harsh remote area in which they live and do what they need to in order to defend their property. There was something of the Winds Of Vengeance to it as missing characters returned to help round up the villains of the piece, but I enjoyed seeing this side of the characters.Tyrannical Oliver Blackwood ended up slapping his disappointment of a son round for going too far in carrying out their scheme. Shades of Jock and JR Ewing.Meanwhile, things have become very sudsy in the romance department. There's  preacher Colin's new engagement, of course. But that's nothing to the convoluted web that's come out of several triangles which have become interconnected.Haughty Victoria Blackwood - for all the world an Aussie Fallon Carrington - has been playing off cousins naive Rob and cocky Luke, teasing both and seeing how far they'll go to get her company for the upcoming dance at the Blackwoods' home. She even had Rob defend her honour by fighting some prospectors who made a comment at her.In the meantime, ice queen Anita Hargraves has returned to town. Initially for revenge against her old flame Matt. She seemed to forgive him but, despite befriending Victoria and learning of Victoria's attraction to Matt's nephew Luke, Anita has gone after newly rich Luke herself. It's all so twisted.Realising that Luke and Anita were an item, Victoria went to her backup plan: Rob. But Rob, sensing Victoria's previous disinterest had already asked another girl as his own backup plan.After some drama at the Blackwoods' dance, we were given a brief Who Shot Oliver Blackwood? mystery when a mysterious assailant gunned him down and Frank found a cartridge from Luke's gun on the verandah, which saw Luke locked up in the Blackwood larder awaiting justice (I'm still unclear, but it seems there's no official law enforcement in Paterson's Ridge, which makes it a scary place to live).It's a bit of a shame the mystery of the shooting appeared to fall into the "episodic" category. The shooting took place halfway through the episode, and the mystery was resolved by episode's end, with Oliver confronting and intimidating the actual gunman. I do like that the assailant was a regular rather than a guest. And since nobody other than Oliver and the audience knows who actually fired the shot, it promises to add some enjoyable subtext to future scenes.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?