Unfinished storylines – my bug bear

[Sally Annely]

There are so many storylines started, yet not finished – it really bugs me.

Here are a few to start off:-

Josh’s egg enterprise – mentioned briefly recently after a 6 month break – those poor hens would be smacking their heads on the coop ceiling with so many uncollected eggs.

Martin Gibson – pissed off Kathy at the Golf Club, unpaid bar bill, a bit of a chancer, on the BL board and a pain in Brian’s side – where did that plot go?

Amtrust – Matt may have buggered off with the money, but Lillian still has the rental income and property issues since then – but she is never seen, sorry heard to be running a business any more. (Where did Anthea go, she was a breath of fresh air).

Darryl – ???????? He could have made his millions in flood repairs.

So many more, however I do like to think that Stefan will bite Rob on the bum, and that we get closure with Scruff.

[Miss Mid-City]

I think Darryl’s storyline ran its course abruptly but it was definitely finished. Same can be said, too, for the Martin Gibson nonsense. It sounded like it was building up to an arguable case of constructive dismissal but it all petered out. We’ve not heard much from Kathy since.

(If the writers get advice on certain aspects of their storylines from proper, legal professionals, they’d know that employment law cases are often too dry and boring to make into juicy drama. Can anyone think of a procedural drama that focuses on anything other than criminal law (or occasionally, family law )? Nothing exciting ever happened in any Employment Tribunal I ever attended …)

Another unfinished storyline that comes to mind is one I’ll call: “The suspicions of Jenny Darling“.

Did Carol Toboggan bump off her old man or not? Did Jenny resolve that one?

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for Dr Locke to justify his reappearance (move over Alistair) …

[Valerie Bayliss]

You are right, it seems that sometimes SW change their minds but just dump the storyline rather than complete it. Particularly Lilian at the moment who was destitute and despairing then vanished for a while and is now playing second fiddle to Kate.

[Sarah CM]

What about The Bathroom with Two Doors? That seemed ripe for some farce with Mtt, Psul and Lilian, and they completely missed it. Why mention the anomaly or two doors if you are not going to slam them? ?

[Kosmo]

Well it is about time Route B raised its head again.

And we need Justin Elliott back to woo Mrs Toboggan.

And Lizzy has gone a year without a good seeing to by anyone. What has happened to her dairy conversion into extra wedding events.

And we need Hayley back – dumped in Birmingham and forgotten.

Mike needs to re-appear – he cannot be happy in Birmingham either.

Jazzer needs to appear and cause mayhem, or just sing – he was living with Jim so where is he now?

I agree about Lilian – Anthea resigned because it was all such a mess – and Lilian has seen her accountant (I did not know she had one) because she has to raise £26k as her share of the pub repairs – and what about the bit of the pub owned by Jamie – where is he to pay his share?

And where are Kathy and Jamie? They are in the cottage next to the Grundies (well semi-detached) and much be flooded out and being done over by Hazel as well.

Poorly cobbled together and not managed – Adam and Ian have managed to move back – but where are the updates on other returnees like the Horrobins? If you are going to have a flood then you have to keep tabs on everyone – and Scruff the missing pooch?

[Jeremy Peake]

The culvert that Ed cleared was a decoy one constructed by Rob, Kosmo. The real one contains all of the missing characters (and Scruff) and was sealed tighter than King Tut’s tomb with a mixture of concrete and Stefan.

Back to the original post about lost plots. They seem to outnumber the concluded ones, and the ones that are resolved usually have disappointing endings. The writing always seems to be good, sometimes outstanding, for individual scenes and episodes. I get the impression that longer term decisions about what happens in Ambridge are chopped and changed at will and at short notice. A bit like real life!

• This reply was modified 8 years, 8 months ago by Jeremy Peake.

[Sean Geraghty]

I agree with Kosmo, i thought Liz had identified a plot of land she could sell off to fund the accommodation expansion to cash in on the holiday market. What happened there?

I miss Annabelle Schrivener she was a well rounded distinctive charac

on another point shouldn’t Titchyknob now be called Rohypnol Rob !

[Annietomic]

I agree there are too many storylines left hanging. Similarly the recent (in my opinion unnecessary) cast changes make a mockery of consistency of the drama.
It is almost as if there are several competing sets of producers who are ignoring the others’ efforts.
The result is that the principles of ‘Soap drama’ override any pretence at reality. In a normal drama that would not matter too much as there is a finite end to the show.
However, The Archers is a flagship Radio 4 programme (‘The Home of Intelligent Speech’). Recently, The Archers has failed to live up to that ideal.

[Janie Murray]

And what about Alistair? He’s not around much but Shula doesn’t seem too bothered. Jim mentioned recently that the atmosphere at the Stables is often tense so he stays out of the way as much as possible. What is going on? Gambling? Another woman? The script writers are teasing us with this one.

[Author]

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