Discuss The Archers here. There's hut construction, new teen arrivals, pastured eggs, pining Pip and other fun Spring-like stories to choose from.

[PseudoBadger]

Maybe if we don't look directly at the other storyline it will disappear?

[GypsyFl0ss]

Maybe we could have old Pip back....she could return from Cumbria with a " so did you miss me" . Then she can shag Terrible Toby 'cos we do know she likes a bad boy. But she can ultimately end up with Reliable Rex, which is where this story is ploddingly heading to anyway.

[Minimammoth]

She could come back pregnant.

[GypsyFl0ss]

Oh god please no!

[LillianGish]

Abraid I agree we might not have liked Helen, but she had interesting storylines - in many ways she is one of the most interesting characters because we spent years wanting her to get her comeuppance (even at the start of her relationship with Knob - when she refused to listen to anyone else's opinion, didn't care that he was cheating on his wife, was awful to Pat and Tony who had been so supportive etc etc) but now she's suffering we wholeheartedly sympathise with her, we don't think it serves her right, we are desperate for her to be saved. I can't imagine caring about anything that ever happens to Pip good or bad.

[SmallLegsOrSmallEggs]

Ah I did care when Pip was seeing the awful Jooooood. I wanted her to get comeuppance and she did and was then slightly better for it. Briefly. Before turning into farming's answer to Dougie Howser MD.

[LillianGish]

Good point SmallLegs - actually I didn't care then, but that was Pip Mark 1 - maybe Daisy Badger would have made a better fist of it. You have made me rethink my position of it not mattering who plays her.

[BYOSnowman]

The current actress is awful. Scenes with her and Toby and Rex are painful.

Part of the reason we don't care about pip is that we know she's going to have a gilded life. The real sl would be if she has a fall from grace and becomes the black sheep.

[Imbroglio]

Pip is loathsome. She is vile top her bothers.

I blame Phil and David who both worship her.

[Boomingmarvellous]

Pip's chirpy, smug and condescending manner is beyond annoying.

Wanting Helrob story to end very soon too with Helin coming out bruised but a survivor. It is making me relive my exH DV (also started in early pg) when I had long ago put it to bed.

[R4]

Pip doesn't have to be The Future of Brookfield™. The new editor could depose her in favour of either of her two brothers.
I vote that she goes to visit Matthew in Cumbria ... and never comes back.

[glowfrog]

I have a feeling I'm the only one around here who doesn't mind Pip and thinks the new actress is a massive improvement!

I reckon Toby owes money to gangsters in Brighton. Or something.

GOD I HATE HIM.

[Abraid2]

I prefer this actress to the previous one.

We need something to happen to her like doing the right thing at huge personal cost, or as Lillian said, struggling with a personal flaw of her own. Or doing something wrong and admitting she made a mistake, a kind of Emma Woodhouse Till this moment I never knew myself...

[LillianGish]

Actually sibling rivalry could produce a good plot, but the siblings are very much off-stage characters (though Josh creeping back with his eggs - a new Tom in the making) I still think they are looking at Phil(ippa) Archer and a Fairbrother in Brookfield (maybe he'll be killed in a fire and the whole cycle will start again).

[redshoeblueshoe]

Lillian I'm liking your idea. It would be good if Daveed actually stood up for Josh over the very annoying Pip. She was vile to Josh last week and yet no one says a damn thing.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

One of the interesting things about TA is that right from the start Brookfield Farm has been at the heart of the programme, but the people who live there have always been the least interesting characters - solid, decent, dependable types getting on with their work, pillars of the community, no marriage/health/money problems to speak of, law-abiding (for the most part), good neighbours/employers/siblings/parents/spouses/children/aunts/uncles/cousins/granchildren etc etc.

From time to time, the production team tries to bolt on some storyline designed to make us think that the Brookfield family are interesting but it never works. David's old flame, Sophie, trying to seduce him; Ruth nearly having an affair with Sam; Pip falling for the rotter Jude; Pip nearly going to Brazil but changing her mind; Pip conspicuously not falling for the non-rotter Rex; and least dramatic of all, David and Ruth nearly selling Brookfield and then (to nobody's surprise at all) staying put instead.

I really preferred it when they just accepted that BF was not the place for excitement and the nearest they ever got to it was Phil worrying about the pigs or Jill having conniptions because Ruth had let the Aga go out.

[BYOSnowman]

Pip is really horrible to josh. I hope he ends up happier and more successful than her! Which is the opposite of how I feel about the other young female characters who I would like to see be successful!!

I find the whole relationship angst irritating as well - she's like a love struck teenager. And all the innuendo when speaking with her parents is totally creepy

[Imbroglio]

Ruth had breast cancer and a miscarriage

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Yes, and even those misfortunes didn't make her an interesting or (to me, anyway) a sympathetic character.

[SmallLegsOrSmallEggs]

The most interesti g thkng about BF for me is the farming and Jill's cake production line. They should just leave it to that.

Script:
{Small vignette about pertinent farming issue e.g. moving sheep during flooding, milk prices, robotic milking taking no more than 1 minute, once per week}
Jill: cake anyone?

[Swirlingasong]

I think part of the problem with Pip is that she doesn't seem to have a natural group of contemporaries. She's a lot younger than the other 'younger generation' farmers (Tom, Helen, Adam, Ed,) but significantly older than her cousins and brothers as they are all still at school. In a few years this will level out maybe as Freddie, Lily, Josh, Phoebe, Johnny etc become 'grown up working people' as well, but at the moment she is rather on her own so appears a bit friendless with her parents and grandmother as her main confidants.

The other problem with her is that when she appears, she is always the main focus of the scene, never a bystander in the shop or someone who is called on as part of someone else's story, no bit part in the village hall refurbishment or one of Lynda's schemes, for example, so she seems rather one-dimensional and detached from village life.

[DadDadDad]

Where's Pseudo? It's time to put this record-breaking thread to bed...

[GypsyFl0ss]

Perhaps we could fill it right up to 1000 in the meantime DDD.

Just had a long phone chat with my Ma where were spent longer talking about the fictional HelRob characters than we did about anyone we actually know! I had to fill her in on Kirsty phoning WA as she refused to listen this week.

[redshoeblueshoe]

MAYBE WE SHOULD SHOUT SO SHE CAN HEAR US

[Boomingmarvellous]

Is there a new thread yet?

[glowfrog]

Am spending too much time on Facebook so I keep thinking - why not just tag her?