We're on a road through Ambridge, come on inside. Archers chat here

[PseudoBadger]

Have you had your free venison burger?

Alistair sounds envious and wistful. I wonder if he is reevaluating his life.

Lizzie was surely horrified the morning after, but had to maintain her cool to kick Rumpy Pumpy Roy into touch. The story would have been better if there had been a slower buildup, with more scenes of Roy distancing himself from Haley, and comparing her unfavourably with his fragrant crush. Mumsnet's Relationships board goes to show that the actual storyline itself is plausible, especially given the unsettling effect of Brenda and Tom.

Who will Lizzie confide her guilt to??? Priggish Shula perhaps... I agree that there's not much discussion of events between the characters these days, and that lack of mulling over means the stories lose depth and credibility.

I am enjoying the stories, though. Love GypsyFloss's suggestion of Dan being the bully... perhaps a dishonourable discharge for him.

i could see roy doing the whole cheating bastard script thing where he tells hayley that he isn't sure whether he loves her any more, she works to try to get the marriage back not realising that there was an OW involved (her own boss too!)

but they sort of did that with jess, so maybe not

wwd here btw, namechanged

Cretaceous Surely it's part of army life to bully (anyone heard of a kind sargeant?) and be bullied. As long as no one dies then there's no dishonourable discharge . It's part of the 'removal' of civvy street from the soldier to be.

ppeatfruit oops, yes, you're right... guess that plot would involve him being promoted...

I hope we're being led down the garden path with Daniel and Sandhurst, as it feels as if this is a storyline they've done with some co-operation from the army - all this information about the kit, the special days etc must be coming from somewhere. I can't imagine the army PR dept being too pleased if it was all leading up to a storyline about a death in training or a bad episode of bullying.

As for Roy and Elizabeth, what an idiotic idea to throw them together. Yes, people who their partners believe were devoted to their families do sometimes turn out to be having an affair, sleeping around and so on, and on the Relationships board it's usually portrayed by the other partner as a complete surprise. But in Ambridge we usually see more than one side of a story. This has been sprung on us with no preliminary groundwork at all.

Petula Yes yes yes... where Lizzie sacks Roy, has the baby, dies in childbirth due to her long-forgotten heart condition, then Hayley has to bring up the lovechild... oh whoops no, that's been done as well.

Mimsy Yes, it's the no groundwork that's the problem with this story. It's like the climax has come before the buildup.

Well Roy talked about a 'spark' between them didn't he? He could see it, shame some of the audience couldn't eh? They've worked closely together though and often once 2 people know each other very well they can sometimes.....

i feel like dan/sandhurst stuff is more informative as you say mimsy, also about shula letting go, children making choices parents don't agree with etc

Yes. When Brian and Siobhan suddenly started exchanging bodily fluids, it was a very arresting scene but not at all implausible as Brian had a long history of affairs and Siobhan was clearly unhappy with Tim and had tried it on with Greg the gamekeeper not long before.

When Ed and Emma fell into each others' arms, it was the climax of years and years of history between them.

When Helen and Rob started snogging, it was again not a surprise as they had been teetering on the brink of an affair for weeks and weeks, there was clearly something wrong between Rob and his absent wife Jess and Helen has a long history of making disastrous choices about men.

But this? OK, Roy may have been affected by the upheaval of recent months. But there's not been so much as a hint of that in any of the scripts. We hadn't heard from Hayley for months and months - years? - until last week.

They're going to have to do an awful lot now to convince me that there are longstanding problems between Roy and Hayley that they just haven't got round to telling us about.

But even worse than all of that - of all the people in Ambridge Elizabeth could have chosen for a one night stand, would she really go for her ex-nanny's husband? Hayley has been very close to Elizabeth for far longer than Roy has and we have to assume she's still close to the twins. If this was real life, I'd be utterly sickened by that kind of casual cruelty to someone who deserves much better. If Hayley does find out, I'm not sure I'll be able to bear listening to it.

They built it up with the 'she's a very attractive woman' 'look after her Roy' tosh in the past few weeks along with this completely artificial situation to give them the opportunity.

The storyline pisses me off because its the whole 'men and women can't work closely together without getting it on' and the simpering woman boss who can't do anything else but gag an employee because women only think about sex right?

At least with previous affair stories there was believability.

They seem to want us to know that they're all having sex. Thought Ruth and David may hae ceased such activity? Wrong! Let's get in an unexpected pregnancy to prove it! But oh dear, a baby would be inconvenient so let's just get rid of it.

I hope they don't feel obliged to tell us whether Christine and the Prof are doing more than the crossword together.

In sure there will be some 'hilarious' storyline about jim putting his back out and it being the talk of the village. Oh how much fun.

I see your point about having cooperation from the army for the whole Sandhurst thing, Mimsy, but they've been flagging up potential problems within the platoon so it's possible that we're going to get a bullying plotline - made more interesting if Dan is accused - which will be dealt with brilliantly by the CO and all will be well. (Though Shula's domestic world might have fallen apart by that time.)

The Roy infidelity plot just irritates me, especially if Shula's marriage is unravelling simultaneously. There's only so much we can take!

It's like they want to blow everything up and start again

Why not have a plane crash on the village and repopulate it that way? Oh sorry, emmerdale (farm) already did that

I looked through the previous thread - and I note that it was on May 7th that their festplan prompted me to type "Roy and Lizzie in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g"...

Isn't that a long enough lead in for two work colleagues to decide to take it outside the office? There was more stuff on the 14th May and then it snowballed. I'd say the SWs had laid the groundwork fairly adequately given the context.

And it's not like Ruth and Sam who were claiming to be in lurve.... That had a longer build up admittedly.

And people say in that you only have to look at the relationship boards to see men like Roy having sex with other people all the time- well maybe. But this is a drama. And in drama there are conventions- things have to be credible. And Roy and Lizzie just isn't credible. I don't think a single person who has listened for any length of time could possibly think anything but "huh?".

The arithmetic and Sam storyline was credible, because Ruth was feeling restless and unfulfilled. She had been ill, the farm and the family felt like a treadmill, she was feeling time passing her by. There was nothing like that with R at all.

Ruth, not arithmetic! Really, IPad!

There was nothing like that with R at all.

But there was....

WAS NOT!!!!!!!!!!

Don't think seeing your best mate and sister running off to live a glamorous new life is enough back story to warrant an affair
Particularly when he has had that experience with Kate already

I suspect they are testing characters to decide who to write out and who to develop further.

Please write out :-
Roy
Rob, after getting his comeuppance.
Pip who is possibly already a gonner

Bring back:-
Ian
Mike and his wife who has been silent so long I've forgotten her name
Joe
Susan and Neil
Clarrie in a good mood
Usha
The Prof