Out, damned SOC! Out I say! When will Ambridge be free? Discuss The Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

A once-great soap is going down the Beverley drain.

Oh for fuck's sake!

Well he's the brotherly love triangle. Yawn.

What's the money on pip getting pregnant, Toby doing a runner and Rex stepping into the breech

I mean you can't have too many stepfather to your nephew type sl after all

I have no words ...

The rest was funny though. Boop!

Delurking to say- Bleugh!

Actually the first time I've enjoyed TA in an age.

I mean you can't have too many stepfather to your nephew type sl after all

Who had the brain bleach last?

Yes the rest was more like old times. I struggled to recognise dr Locke but the others were clear. Although Rex and Toby still sound similar their lines distinguish them

Bleugh indeed.

Urgh...

And yes to Pip pg "going up Lakey Hill" always seems to be a euphemism.

I'd say their delivery distinguishes them. Rex sounds as if he's operating at the full limit of his intellectual capacity - always a bit stressed and bewildered - while Toby sounds impatient, as if he's only using half his brain on what's in front of him because there's something more urgent and exciting elsewhere. And he always sounds better away from Rex.

No stepfather-uncles please!

One stepfather uncle is more than enough.

Although I also think one brotherly love triangle in 100 years is more than enough

I was waiting for them to nominate Rob as cricket captain.......... I'd rather have that than listen to more femme fatale Pip

Trojan me too !

Me too. But they're probably saving him to be Chair of the Parish Council and leading man in the Christmas Show.....

Catching up on last night. I love Kaz. Tony is so wet you could wring him out and Rob reminds me of Dick Dasterdly of Muttley fame.

Alistair seemed very keen to keep Dr Locke away from Elizabeth. Weird. You'd think he'd be glad his rival is sniffing around his SIL instead of his wife. Yuck at Pip. I really thought she'd seen sense and gone off Toby.

I think Tobes has potential. And he was very clever in handing his brother first shot at the prize. But Rex failed to close the deal (only partly because of Alice) so has no legitimate cause for complaint.

Is there no bro code? He knows Rex lurves pip

That reminds me. How many siblings in RL call each other "bro" or indeed "sis"? I don't know anyone who does that

I call my brother bro actually. Slightly tongue in cheek but is my most common form of address for him, and he refers to himself that way too eg on a phone message "Bro here, just calling to say..."

He rarely calls me sis though.

I think the episode when Lillian made fun of Toby by getting him to help untack her horse showed us a different side to Toby. When he realised he was being teased, he let down the bravado and seemed more humble. I actually quite liked him in that episode. Made me think there is a chance he will eventually come good when he realises he doesn't need to act like such a silly arse to impress people all the time.

God, tonight was grim. I can't stand the thought of the Fairbrethren fallout now.

Also: is Doc Locke sharing Arsula's ill-fitting teeth? He sounds awfully slurred a lot of the time, and even more so tonight.

(btw Gruach, I said that the Wayne-Drain SL seemed to have been nicked from Prokofiev's 'Lieutenant Kijé' - a fictitious government official is created by courtiers to placate the Russian Tsar, then they get into all sorts of bother inventing his exploits, and eventually have to kill him off when the Tsar insists on meeting him. Sounds strangely familiar, no?)

Yes ... Magnificent reference spotting. But I question whether SOC (or the SW) really were using the original story. Because surely anyone exercising their writerly instincts would have made far more of Ms Drain? They could have kept it up for years, giving her more and more grandiose adventures and involving an ever wider circle of Ambridge society. What they gave us instead was a bit of a damp squib - with all the advancement going to a "real" person who would have been promoted anyway, by default.

Anyway ... I'm liking Toby more and more. As I said, he was very fair - Rex cannot possibly blame him for his own lack of - what could one say - decisive action. You know, I really find it very difficult to believe that Rex was a rugby star. There's nothing to him. Surely it's a sport that requires some element of explosive energy and killer instinct - not just resigned plodding?

(I was thinking about rugby players I have known and (almost) loved. Huge, noisy fellows who could break all the furniture in a room just by looking at it. Not Rex. But now I have an inkling of what he looks like in my head - what was the name of Charlotte Church's ex husband?)

I agree that Rex is all wrong. However, I'm pleased that they have portrayed him as a vaguely reasonable human being and not a RuggerBugger. I still don't know what he is doing in Ambridge - he should be hawking himself around Premiership clubs trading on his name, selling upmarket, artisan, hand-crafted, over priced meat products like burgers and sausages.

Mr Charlotte Church was Gavin Henson. I see Rex as more of a Chris Robshaw.