The Archers - It's so much more than just a soap. It's a bloody drama!

[PseudoBadger]

Will it still be Sunday tonight?

redshoeblueshoe
Thank you.

Not been following the threads, but bitterly disappointed and angered by the cop-out unrealistic turn in the storyline. Are we complaining to the bbc? Where if so?

I have been thinking that we can't really be suprised they couldn't do a DA storyline well. When they first wrote abusive Rob, they thought they were writing him as a nice normal person and had to be told that he was actually abusive towards Helen.

I always thought mumsnet was about nappy rash, stretch marks and Calpol

I don't think I've ever discussed any of those on MN! Welcome Alleycat. If you want to sample MN at its best and worst, try Am I Being Unreasonable, Chat and Relationships. There are links to those at the bottom of the page (that's assuming you are not using the mobile version).

True yesterday

Re complaining to BBC - I think a barrage of complaints will just have them rubbing their hands together in glee.

PinotEgregio - good question. I agree that there hasn't been any physical violence towards Henwee while TA is on air, but there are another 166.5 hours each week that we don't know what's going on in Ambridge...

I suppose we don't know whether Rob hit Henwee after binning his Easter egg and Thomas - for not being "obedient". there's also the scalding bathwater, though that'll be impossible to prove.

If Sunday is Monday (I like that)
and today is Wednesday, if Rob is now dead wouldn't Ursula have posted a notice in the Times ?
Alleycat you're welcome

Complaing about them then? It's just so... irresponsible

Place marking 💃🏼

Checking in.

I think that complaining would achieve very little tbh but what I do think is that perhaps there needs to be some real awareness raising of DV somehow which isn't depicted in how to stab your abusive partner.

brought the only way that this storyline could be deemed anything less than a 'roaring success' would be if listeners switched off in droves. It will be interesting to see if the current increase in audience numbers will be sustained if the programme doesn't maintain this level of tension and profile.

I guess what I'm trying to say is not tuning in its the only way to express dissatisfaction. Otherwise all publicity is good publicity.

Onemorestep

Other health miracles include:
Brian's double recoveries from being attacked by a cow, (when he became epileptic but not for long) and the car accident with Siobhan.
David's rapid recovery from being crushed by a cow and stranded in a ditch overnight.
Mike's eye-loss (but still able to drive a milk float and fell trees)

Agree with that. And while they are talking about it on WH etc there is no sign of the loss of success. Also while there were many complaining about Sunday's episode on Twitter there were many celebrating Rob's demise, even though it appears he's not been deaded just yet.

I haven't looked at Twitter, what's the consensus on Helen and the fact that she is now the aggressor and really does deserve to go down?

The debate has now changed from dv to the legal system wrt mitigating circumstances.

I would have preferred the discussion to still be about dv and rebuilding a life after it.

Any rebuilding Helen now does is not just because of dv but also because of criminality

Shame Ambridge Extra hasn't been resurrected to follow the Helen and Rob storyline through to its conclusion.

That seems to be the case BYOS but I won't be invested in it. Let's face it, how likely is it that they'll conclude the legal process correctly and not create a sensationalist ending to move the plot along? Again.

Well I'm not listening any more, and regret having started again tbh. I feel used, which is nothing to what a lot of survivors of abuse feel, I imagine

Will you all slow up, I am struggling to catch up.
Good thread title Pseudo.

I have been thinking that we can't really be suprised they couldn't do a DA storyline well. When they first wrote abusive Rob, they thought they were writing him as a nice normal person and had to be told that he was actually abusive towards Helen.

I don't think that's the case. There was a stage early on when SOC went all arch and coy and suggested that listeners were reading more into the SL than was intended, but it was very obvious by that stage that it couldn't conceivably be anything other than a deliberate abuse storyline, and he subsequently admitted that they'd been planning from a pretty early stage. As originally conceived Rob was going to be the new Brine, but I've always thought that Paul was a bit of a dry run and they started going down the abuse path from at least the point that Jess turned up in Ambridge.

Did R get. Blow on the head, he might come round after all the repairs speaking with a foreign accent and with a whole new personality.

My books have arrived! (Or, rather, I waited till the last possible day and took myself off to the delivery office.)

Opened The Archers Archives entirely at random. First words I saw were:

On 7th April, Kathy stood up to face her persecutor across the courtroom ...

Opened the second one - The Ambridge Chronicles:

Tom Forrest was the last person anyone expected to see in the dock. But in 1957 that's just where he found himself, charged with manslaughter ...

I'm feeling a little haunted.

Thanks for the new thread Pseudo.

Thanks for the new thread

I think the SWs have written themselves into a blind alley here:

They can't go down the courtroom drama avenue because it's boring
They can't see Helen grotesquely punished ie with prison because of the message it sends out to abused women, who they have pretty strongly encouraged so far to get involved with the storyline (meaning - stay or if you try to leave he'll make you stab him and you'll go to prison forever)
They can't have Helen go completely unpunished because of the unrealistic nature of that and also the message it sends
They can't just ignore the storyline

Anything realistic from now on will be boring (long hospital drama, long legal drama) but anything unrealistic would do the storyline a massive disservice.

Which makes the whole decision to have Helen stab Rob really silly. I wonder if they'll be tempted to wrap it all up with a pat ending.