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Discuss your favourite podcast, radio show or The Archers episode.

Original poster

I'm out

67 replies

WordGetsAround · 13/03/2016 21:33

I wondered if it was worth (belatedly?) starting a thread for people to declare when they give up on the archers?

I'm out.

I've enjoyed the Hellknob story in its early stages, defended it and then longed for it to be over. I had all my hopes pinned on a Christmas finale, then New Year, but the pain goes on and on. I keep thinking that I've stayed with it this long and that it would be such a shame to give up now, but I can't keep going.

DH gave up 6 weeks ago and he's survived, so it must be possible to go cold turkey!

I think when it's all sorted out I will come back - and may even catch up on it all, but I can't keep going with it day after day not knowing when/if it's all going to be resolved.

Please use this thread to declare if / when you're out - or any thinking out loud you're doing.

Tonight's episode will be the first in 10 years I won't have listened to (v committed podcast listener!!).

(Might keep reading the amazing thread though!!!)

OP posts:
BYOSnowman · 24/03/2016 13:14

When soc first joined I suggested he had been brought in to kill it off!! Get rid of the old listeners who would complain, Bing in new new who aren't emotionally invested and won't care. A little far fetched but I bet that 7pm slot is coveted...

Marilynsbigsister · 24/03/2016 21:09

Threw in a he towel last month. Listened for 47 yrs but no longer an enjoyable listen..

Twowrongsdontmakearight · 24/03/2016 22:37

Yup. Just listened and very frustrated. I think I'll try again in a few weeks. Bet there'll be an annoying pip story by then. Aargh!

ElementaryMyDear · 24/03/2016 22:52

Apparently in fact overall listening figures are up by over 100,000.

DoSomethingKirsty · 25/03/2016 05:29

Figures may be up, but I suspect these will be temporary listeners who will give up once the story ends - in the meantime they will have lost the core.

frostyfingers · 25/03/2016 12:01

I'm out, and have been for about 2 months. I occasionally listen but if I hear Knob then the radio goes off. I wonder if the actors are finding it as tedious to be involved with as I find listening to it?!

Duckdeamon · 26/03/2016 06:22

I don't think it's a sensitive or realistic portrayal of abuse at all.

The boarding school suggestions
The MiL
The pushing the home birth
The non suspicion of almost all family/friends. health professionals not noticing things.

Gruach · 26/03/2016 08:34

The "official" TA thread is about to reach its 50th conscutive thread.

Star
Original poster
WordGetsAround · 26/03/2016 20:20

Grauch - please come back and tell us when it's over!? The new thread title is giving me hope!

OP posts:
Plattertudes · 29/03/2016 20:42

I stopped listening about 6 months ago when I realised that every time HE was on I gritted my teeth. For the sake of my back molars I went cold turkey and after 40 years listening the button has stayed off.

I have been abroad for a couple of months and felt sure it would now be safe - I was wrong!!!!

Now looking forward to the day he is gored to death by his own personality

cherryrednose · 03/04/2016 19:21

Well that's sealed it for me. I'm completely out forever.

firesidechat · 03/04/2016 19:45

Me too cherryred.

The whole thing was an insult to our intelligence.

cherryrednose · 03/04/2016 19:51

So bad wasn't it fireside? It's never been the same for me since the Nigel debacle but this has really finished me off. What a shame. Sad

firesidechat · 03/04/2016 20:06

I'm stupidly upset by it. I grew up listening to the Archers and I'm 52 now. Feeling slightly betrayed, which is daft.

BYOSnowman · 03/04/2016 20:23

Zero credibility now.

Gruach · 03/04/2016 20:44

A reminder about the Spoilers thread. Always worth a visit!

JennyHolzersGhost · 03/04/2016 21:58

Cross-posted from the current Archers thread ...

[Disclaimer: Used to post on MN, stopped after all the hacking/terrible IT security stuff. Have come back specially for this because I feel rather strongly about it.]

I was a longterm listener - TA had been part of my life since I can remember, my mum and grandma were both dedicated listeners - but I quit during the Roy/Elizabeth affair because it just felt as though the whole programme was spiralling into sensationalist, narrative-driven bollocks - a far cry from the character-led, gentle listen that I loved. I've kept an eye out since, waiting to see if it'd be worth returning - but the direction of travel has been entirely the opposite. The flood being a great example. These big dramatic events; just no - that's not what I want to listen to. I want to hear the characters interacting in a tale of everyday folk. Blush

I've always been sceptical about this storyline - I thought it was great that it was attracting so much attention and doing so much for a very deserving cause, raising awareness of the true nature of abuse and also raising a lot of ££ for good causes thanks to that nice Twitter man whose name I can't remember. But it was still too 'gripping' for me to want to listen to it - just not right for what I had wanted the programme to be. Well, that's ok, it's not up to me to choose how it should be and if the editors think they can get a better audience by not pandering to my tastes then that's their prerogative, of course.

But the way in which they've casually taken all that hard work (even if it wasn't to my taste) and tossed it out of the window in pursuit of a single-day salacious frisson - well, it just goes to confirm everything I'd suspected about the current Archers operation. Sad to say it but I think there's no coming back from this - there are too many relationships and long-standing meta-arcs that have been pissed all over by this cheap-shot short-term chancer, SOC.

I used to joke that the only way I'd return to TA is if the entire village had been suffering a Dallas-style 3-year collective bad dream. Now I think that's actually the most realistic story option that'd get me back onto it again. Sad

Bananasandchocolatecustard · 03/04/2016 22:04

I grew up listening to the Archers, my mum has always listened. I stopped when Nigel was killed off. I also stopped watching Coronation St when Hayley was dying. I won't go back to either.

firesidechat · 03/04/2016 22:22

A reminder about the Spoilers thread. Always worth a visit!

Will it make me feel better Gruach?

My ibs has flared up tonight because of this. Not a happy bunny.

VitaSackvilleVest · 07/04/2016 20:59

I've decided to give up on the Archers for a while.

Its not doing my mental health any good, and I now feel like the only way for Helen to be free would have been to have used the knife on herself and that worries me,

Gruach · 07/04/2016 21:12

I can see why someone might decide to back away sharpish right now. It's pretty depressing.

But a) It's fiction - doesn't matter how many worthy bodies they claim to have consulted, in the end they want a story that's in all the papers and all over Twitter.

And b) They've said it will play out over the coming year. So what we hear this week or next is not the end of the story. They are clearly front loading the police procedure section with points against Helen - we can be certain there will be a reversal at some later stage.

I'm tempted to give up myself - but I'd miss the threads! The Archers - one line at a time thread is enormous fun.

BYOSnowman · 07/04/2016 21:41

I'm with you vita

Part of improving my mh is distraction and doing things that make me happy. Listening to the archers makes me anxious and irritable.

And I don't need to hear a mentally ill woman being subjected to prejudices on that basis

MrsArthurShappey · 08/04/2016 15:29

Gruach I'm not as prolific a poster as you but I still get immense pleasure from the threads despite not listening. I catch up on Lowfield for detail as the thread only provides so much.

Original poster
WordGetsAround · 29/04/2016 20:30

Is everyone else still clinging on?

OP posts:
EasyToEatTiger · 30/04/2016 18:30

I'm giving up too. I've experienced too much shit in my own life. Even though Rob is a psycho, I don't understand why he would want his wife to kill both herself and their unborn child. I don't see why Helen has been put in this situation. The best, kindest people can get caught up in the most stupid dangerous situations. TA is somewhere between RL and dull drama. Ursula has been parachuted in as a pantomime baddy and I don't like all the sleepwalking into an even bigger nightmare. It's horrible for Helen. Yet there are no revelations, no gossip, in fact nothing to suggest that Rob isn't the superstar he thinks he is.

Yes, BYOSnowman, I too feel anxious and irritable listening. Time to tune out. But I do enjoy the threads!

I know it takes time to sort out a nervous breakdown. It takes years. Are we to endure Helen mumbling, going mute, while her parents bleat away about how normal they all are? Are they going to start thinking that Helen was just a wrong 'un? Do we, as listeners have to endure all this? It really isn't kind or neccessary. I think SOC has done us a disservice with this sl. With so much else going on in Ambridge, I really do not want to drop in to the misery of BF. But the spell is broken.

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