As doors slam shut in Rob's face and behind SOC, a new door opens for the next Archers editor. Are we expecting some New Tricks, or just Archenders?

[PseudoBadger]

Welcome one and all. No spoilers please!

" You were always on my miiiiiiiiiind ..... "

I loved the way Caroline said that final line. Very nicely judged.

Tom & Kirsty can have No1 the Green...

ibrowse
But if the radical SL hadn't been written, I for one wld have not known about the new coercive control law or MBUs or separation of babies from mothers in prison.
I don't mind the odd issue and, after all, this was why TA was started in the first place - to educate through entertainment.
agree about important issues but this was soooooo drawn out and crowded out the stuff that archers listeners for years have enjoyed.
You do know that originally the archers was to inform farmers not to act as a vehicle for doing one single issue ad nauseaum.
It could have been done and informed you (if you were unable to google the information) without dragging it out. The acting has also sometimes been hard to take (Pat n Tony come to mind for their over-acting). I expect to be 'informed by soaps' but also to be 'entertained'
I shall give the Archers a miss until they can concentrate on a story-line that both 'entertains' 'informs' and is 'shortlived'. Eastenders and Corrie could do the 'angst' stuff better.

Any thoughts on this?
If Helen and Rob's characters were reversed, what would village say about him still living in Ambridge having violently stabbed his coercively controlling wife?

Don't want to come across as the mysogynist git of a jury foreman but I'm wondering how much more forgiving we are towards women. Of course there are very few examples of men being raped but if all the other evidence was equivalent ....

X posted mollie
I suppose it boils down to taste. Yes I found it extreme at times and when driving up M6 listening to TA last summer with a 10 yr old who detected the rape "Rob?..." before I did (nearly crashed the car), and suffered all those plot holes big enough to drive an feeder wagon through, but ultimately I loved the drama and had some meaty conversations over the last 2 years. I think it's part of my life after 40 years and am loathe, like a long but sometimes trying marriage, to give it up

Just caught up on tonight's ep, aka the Massive Foreshadowing of Joe's imminent death, like wot we learned in drama class. Could the sw have laid it on any more thickly?!

Fink do you think Rob will be complicit? Startling Bartleby by driving too close while driving and texting?

I hadn't thought of that. I was considering an overdose of Caroline's kind gift followed by a fall. I would think just dying in his sleep most likely but I couldn't stand it if they did a replay of Phil's death, which still brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it now.

Just caught up since Friday. Kirsty, how could you.

I'm in the cross camp. Its all about SOC's ego still. but of course I've given you lots of happy endings tinkly little laugh.

Surely a BOOP for TA being back to Susan being snobby about salad cream.

And yes, the last line was perfectly done.

And it did sound like Soosan is changing her mind about Knob/has always thought he was a baddie. I missed the salad cream ref - I'll LA.

The whole "happy endings" thing - it feels like they might be building up to rob doing something really dramatic - he's lost "his boys", Helen has got away unpunished, he's lost the respect of the village and probably justin elliot's job - i reckon it will go really ee and will conclude with him getting arrested for trying to burn bridge farm down or something. Pat can shout "noooooooo" in a really dramatic way

Hurrah! The glorious Nancy Banks-Smith is back

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/13/nancy-banks-smith-on-the-archers-trial-is-it-safe-to-come-out-now

Love how she always refers to SOC as 'The Archers' exciting editor'

Oh. So that latest NBS hadn't been linked before? So I could have been first?

It is nice to see her back.

I spent part of the evening explaining to a newish turned-on-for-the-trial listener that Caroline never used to be such a snotty cow. What they've done to her is so rubbish. As I remember it generosity used to be a big part of her glamour. The old Caroline would have found gifting Grange Farm to the Grundys for a peppercorn rent an absolute hoot.

I thought that Gruach - Caroline was really at her snottiest last night. I'm not sure why they've done that to her given that she has always been a staunch defender of the Grundies in the past. I can understand her being pissed off about what they've done to GF (something the old Grundies would never have done imo) but she brought a really horrible sour note to the proceedings

ibrowze, if Helen and Rob were reversed with Helen being the coercive controller and stab victim and being precisely as horrible as Rob is, I very much doubt that our reaction to Rob staying in the village now would be any different to our current reaction to Helen.

It's because soc likes a stereotype and he's chippy about rich people so he had to make out they had finds beyond necessity and they are snobby

I won't miss the lazy stereotyping that's for sure. It's like he couldn't be bothered to read up on the character so just drew a caricature

The new ed claims to be a lifelong fan so I hope that means he knows the characters and their history. If he brings back the archivist all will be right in the world!

I don't blame Caroline one bit.

She was stretched to buy Grey Gables, has worked her arse off through some difficult years keeping it profitable, and now she has to watch one of their assets being lived in at minimal rent by people who will almost certainly trash it. I bet the 'rearranging finances' involves taking out more loans.

Especially as one of the tenants did his best to trash her business as well!!

Although I do find the thought that clarrie isn't keeping the place like a new penny very odd

Caroline has always been a staunch defender of Will Grundy (she is his godmother) and she clearly has a lot of time for Clarrie, who would I think have been a colleague at The Bull decades ago when Caroline worked there (and later co-owned it with Sid). Not so sure she's always been enamoured of Joe and Eddie. Frankly, I'm on her side here. The Grundys have behaved appallingly to Caroline and Oliver.

Of course, ever since the flood SOC has done some pretty ludicrous things to the Grundys. Surely no insurance company would have paid for them to be put up in a country house hotel for months on end? And no such hotel would have let them stay. Nor would the owners of a large, expensively refurbished farmhouse have handed it over rent-free to a large ferret-keeping family with young children.

New era now. Lifelong listener to TA, good (if true). No radio experience, bad. Let's see which wins out.

It's because soc likes a stereotype and he's chippy about rich people so he had to make out they had finds beyond necessity and they are snobby

If anything the Grundy's have suffered from being rewritten as feckless filthy yokels to the same if not greater degree.

I think Clarrie is doing her best but she works long hours and has to cope with Joe and his ferrets, dogs, children, people who won't clean their boots before coming in to the house.... And she is in her sixties herself.

If Helen and Rob's characters were reversed, what would village say about him still living in Ambridge having violently stabbed his coercively controlling wife? I don't think that's relevant. The point is Helen has lived in Ambridge all her life, all her family live there, everyone knows her and she knows everyone. Where else would she live? The question is why is Knob still there and why isn't anyone questioning his continued presence? He is a very recent arrival with no ties and not a single friend and a family farm in another part of the country - he didn't even get round to buying a house Ambridge. There is no reason at all why he should continue to live there. He has yet to sign a contract with Justin and in real life I think Justin would be telling him that it would probably be in everyone's best interests if he looked for work elsewhere (in fact he could probably find him work elsewhere if he really insisted on continuing to employ him cf Charlie's fish farm).

Now we're getting back to normal I start to wonder if Lynda is still wandering about clutching Scruff's ashes.