Badly done Helen, badly done - you're as stuffed as a Grundy turkey. Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

New thread in time for Friday's episode...

The story then grew wings

Coming from the "tweedy" thread it occurred to me that what Ambridge really needs is Marjorie Antrobus back. There are countless elderly women in the village but they're each far too self absorbed to either notice Helen's distress or do anything about it. Witchy tea and am dram really isn't going to be sufficient here.

I'd be interested in a breakdown of exactly what proportion of the total time is spent on Helen and Rob - I suspect they only appear to dominate because the SWs have really got their teeth into the story and are writing Brookfield, etc on autopilot.

But if they are not dominating in terms of time it suggests poor management of sl because the sl is dominating

I don't remember another sl doing that to this extent tbh (pre soc - obv the flood was one!)

Well, at least Susan hates him now. Although H was clearly stopping him go further with her.

Did we all notice that Henry's first word when he saw them was "Daddy"?

I don't think Susan will hate him. I think she'll continue to blame herself and see Rob as a justifiably angry and wholly loving father.

Given a choice she would probably side with Rob over Helen. Even though Helen is "family".

Which reminds me of how they have underplayed Chris. His marriage to Alice so beautifully wedded Susan to Ambridge royalty - but after a few comedy plots they now seem to have forgotten the value of this relationship.

Please direct me to the "tweedy" thread! So true that there has never been anyone to replace Marjorie Antrobus, which doesn't ring true somehow. Surely Ambridge would be teeming with such women and their dogs. Funnily enough I always pictured Ursula in that mould.

Here you go!

Perhaps it will be Carol who spots what is going on with Helen as she puts all the piece together.

I have no faith in Carol.

And Lynda is better with stroppy teens than marriage dynamics.

The only person I can think of who notices and takes action is Matt. I could weep for the loss of him. Just think how brilliant he was with James when he was contemplating wriggling out of fatherhood.

Did he and Rob ever meet properly? Matt had no patience with fakes and was clear sighted on Archer related behaviour; he would have asked why Helen is giving over her business to her new husband. And he's probably the only person who would have had no compunction in wringing Rob's neck.

WHERE is Tom???

Hello, I am a very new listener, it's sort of crept up on me. Could someone explain the episode timings? Are there 3 a day, because I'm getting confused.

Yesterday at 2pm I was listening to a meeting about silage and a dead dog, I gather there was another episode at 7pm. Now I've just heard a horrible man (Rob?) talking to his pregnant wife about making stupid decisions. So do I need to catch up with what happened yesterday evening and this morning?

The daily episode airs at 7pm and is then repeated at 2pm the next day. There's also an omnibus (the film) on Sunday mornings. If you're confused about who the characters are and how they're related to each other, or need to catch up on episodes, the BBC site is very good here

Or you can ask here. We're always happy to provide history/context/character assassinations.

Mon-Fri there is one episode at 7pm, which is repeated the following day at 2pm (the Monday 2pm one is a repeat of Friday 7pm).

On Sundays, there is an omnibus of all the episodes from the past week. It's usually at 10am, but it's earlier this week because of the Remembrance Day service.

Once the episode has been broadcast, you can catch up via the iPlayer, or This site does summaries of each episode after it has aired.

Sorry, doubled the same information as my internet crashed so I didn't see squeaver's post. What she said.

And if you want to quickly catch up on the story from a missed episode, go here for helpful summaries: www.lowfield.co.uk/archers/. with those and reading these threads I barely need to listen to the actual broadcast!

Fink you are missing the Sunday 7pm episode! Repeated on Monday at 2pm.

Thank you, so there's not an episode at around 11am? Wonder what I've been getting that confused with.

Women's Hour have a dramatised serial at 10.45; might easily be confused with TA if one's not paying attention. Or they could have been talking about TA a little earlier in the same programme and used a short clip?

Anyway, you can relax. Only one new episode per day!

Of course! Curses to my lack of knowledge of the Archers timetable after a mere couple of decades listening . I work Sunday evenings quite frequently, so I've obviously subconciously decided that the Sunday evening one doesn't exist, to save me the pain of having to face up to missing it.

Maybe Susan will see through Knob's behaviour. She si after all very much Team Charlie and has been from the outset - and did she not greet Rob with soem suspicion some months ago? (not sure about that bit). I also don't see Susan blaming herself for H's minor accident for long- no more than a bit of 'I wish I'd kept a better eye', etc. She is more likely to be cross at Rob for having a go, esp if he continues to talk about it, use it against her. She has quite a strong moral compass in that adulterers are treated with suspicion, I think, so I don't expect her to be Team Rob any time soon. I also quite like the idea of the 'non-poshos' bringing him down ....

Also, Carol might work as the catalyst. We've often wondered about the point of her, and she was quite sensitive to Lizard's unhappiness when she was shagging the 'Tucker boy'. Mind you, she was more close to Lizzie than she is to Helen. But maybe she will realise. And what WAS her marriage to John like really?

I am considering setting the resident home ed teenager a maths project - to work out the spread of stories lines in TA episodes in the month of November! He si not a natural TA listener but is quite taken at present with teh Rob EA story - tends to shout at the radio at these times. I'm not sure it willl work and I fear much maternal input will be required, at least in the numbers. Then he can do a naice graph and some percentages. We'll see.

gathering of numbers/figures, I meant. Currently looking through my notebook collection for a suitable notebook! Old-fashioend method, I know.

It's a pity really that Susan admitted to Rob that her attention was distracted. The accident itself is one that could have happened even if she'd been watching him - you wouldn't necessarily think anything much of a young child bending down to pick something up, and even if you did you wouldn't necessarily be able to stop him in time. And it wasn't really the world's most dreadful injury.

I'd hope Susan, once things settle for all except Knob, will point out self-righteously, that children have minor accidents all the time, and this could have happened in anyone's care, even his!

Do we have any consensus on current themes on TA? I have 6 main ones - there are some overlaps: Bridge Farm and Knob and H and H; Berrow F crisis; Brokefield; Christmas show ; Grundy family - all twigs, includes housing and work; Adam and Home Farm.

Yurtmagistra Kate.
PPE Phoebe ...

No word on

Lillian, Amside
Chris and Alice
Allan
Frilly
Will and Nic
Alistair
Mungo ++
Whether or not Caroline and Oliver will ever return.
Lewis
Horrobins

• though these are just SLs rather than themes.

Surely this is building up to some sort of conclusion? Does anyone know anything about dramatic structure? Or soap storylines in general? This cannot go on indefinitely, surely?

Did Knob have a go at Dudan? I had to truth the radio off. I cannot bear it...