Rejoice, for the Dopeys are staying in Ambridge to feast on Oedipal flapjacks. Or at least David is. Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

Will Peggy make it to the end of this thread?

Odd - I thought she would be at Grey Gables with Rob. Maybe they got back to Blossom Hill? Or to Bridge Farm?

If tomorrow and Friday's episodes cover up to the end of last Sunday then we can start again on this Sunday anew and we can just forget that we lost a week. I think? Maybe Soc's master plan is to always have 48hours over 6 days although I'm not sure quite what that would achieve.

Love the idea of Charlie and Rob is hospital together with their competitive pneumonia!

I'm another one who is quite enjoying it. I'm not finding it difficult to follow. It is a much more believable storyline than either the Brookfield move or the bypass - in fact all the more reason not to have bothered with them at all. I don't think it matters at all that the weather is out of sync with the rest of the country - it has been pouring for weeks in Ambridge and that's good enough for me.

I am slightly confused by the previous signposts towards sinkholes etc, like Ed not having water, and the hole opening up near Lake Hill... The flooding is caused by the raincloud that has been over Ambridge for months, and isn't caused by the sinkhole or whatever else is going on. Is something even more catastrophic going to be revealed after the waters recede?

Errol sheep get stuck on their backs when their fleeces are heavy, so often early summer before they are shorn. They can die because as they are ruminants, gases build up inside them. Actually I realise that I don't know exactly how this causes them to die, but it does. So your DH saved that sheep's life.

Bit of a shame that Charlie survived really, he's a character I would happily do without. Not least because a Charlie/Adam affair would be incredibly tedious.

Do we know if Piggoi is safe?

It's going to take another week just to get through all the conversations about who was where and how they got on! No, we don't know if Piggoi is safe but I hope she got to Home Farm or Bridge Farm at an early stage.

Well.

What. a. pile. of. poo.

Adam and Charlie - ridiculous.
And appalling acting from WoodenTom.

That has been the most un-Archers-like two episodes EVER.

The only good bit was hearing Rob being a knob all over the place.

Well given that the Ambrocalypse is a whole year late I don't think there's much point complaining if we lose an odd week.

Poor old Bert - I thought he'd be a help to Pip, but of course a bungalow in the river and Freda missing would be too much. Glad Tom rolled in to the rescue - poor Pip, trying to hold it together, I was quite pleased that actually she came up with the solution and got the pump out. I think she may yet turn out to be another proper Archer farming Brookfield.

As to Rob... don't quite small headwounds often yield rather a lot of blood?

Not too surprised that Charlie waded in rather than giving up - he's an odd character but he's nothing if not determined. A bit daft not to realise that if he cleared the blockage there would be a strong current though.

They did, belatedly, catch up with the actual flooding last year

Ambridge had another ludicrous extended deluge then (when it had stopped raining everywhere else ) & Brookfield took in some sheep from a friend of Ruth's whose farm was flooded

I'm assuming 'bungalow in the river' doesn't mean it rolled off its foundations and fell into the Am, which is the image that first came to mind when I heard Pip say it.

Re Charlie - I've lost count of the number of times I've read about people heading out to promenades to gawp at unusually high tides, trying to drive through rapidly rising flood water etc etc and coming to grief. People underestimate the power of water.

Dairy - yes, I know sheep get stuck because of their (unnaturally) heavy fleeces if they end up on their backs. Come to think, I probably knew this because of Dan Archer's demise, so TA may have fulfilled its educational role in ensuring that we dealt with that sheep. What I don't know is why they ever get in that position. Do they just fancy a roll occasionally and it goes horribly wrong?

It's probably more that the river is in the bungalow.

I couldn't see Piggoi's name on that list on the timeline of who's where. But maybe she's just tucked up in bed and totally oblivious.

Errol more so that from lying on their side they topple backwards, sometimes due to uneven ground, and then become stuck.

"I'm not going to leave you, Charlie!" said Adam.
"Oh, for God's sake, Adam! Get a grip!" said Bearhug, while possibly not quite concentrating sufficiently on driving through the M3 roadworks.

I wish they'd go back to a normal time.

Didn't Dan die on Lakey Hill?

I dont mind the flood SL in the sense that it does show how helpless people can be in the face of it and how terrifying it is even when you are usually relatively close to services. It also shows how it can affect different people, depending on where they happen to be. Pip and Tom acting class sponsored by acorn antiques. (but i did feel for pip).

The bit that really upset me was the bit where we heard Adam shouting as if from under water. Too play for today-ish for my tastes. Ugh!

Other than that I've quite enjoyed it

Boop - that was actually wrong wasn't it as we went into what? First person pov or something? Why were we underwater?? (can you tell I went to school in the 80s when teaching grammar was unfashionable!)

I'm not sure why it was wrong but it just wasn't right

Someone who knows these things about drama will be along shortly.

I think it was a way of conveying that he had gone underwater for radio. Otherwise Adam would have had to shout to no one in particular "Oh no, he's gone underwater." It's quite hard to convey fast-moving action like this when the listener can't see anything. At the risk of sounding like a Sock apologist, I think it's been done quite well in that I could imagine what was happening clearing the culvert - Charlie having to tell us everything that was blocking it because we couldn't see what he was doing. Also with the Aunty Cardboard rescue - easy to visualise though possibly more talking than was necessary if we'd been watching the drama on TV. Much better than the Otto episodes where I couldn't work out what had happened at all.

I didn't mind that gurgle too much (it didn't go on too long) because it was a concise way to convey aurally that someone's head was underwater without resorting to unnatural commentary.

A gurgle yes. Us being under the water with Charlie. Not so much. Adam shouting "Charlie! Charlie! Where are you?" Would've done the trick.

Oh, they'd probably got lots of lovely watery sound effects lined up for this week and wanted to use them all.

Yes the sound effects team must've been on overtime!