The Archers: Discussion #84. New Year and some of us are still listening even if we don't know why.

[DadDadDad]

New posters welcome - with your fresh views and burning questions.

Old posters welcome - with your jaded views and knowledgeable answers.

But new posters feel free to be jaded, and old posters feel free to ask questions!

How is the Pip storyline going to play out and do you care?

As usual, if you want to mention the advertised storylines for future episodes, there's a separate thread for that - no spoilers here, please.

Just imagine we're all sitting round a table at The Bull -->

I always imagine the actor playing Adam reading his lines standing with his legs apart and his chest out. In his mind he is playing Macbeth or Richard II at The Globe.

Absolutely. Everything he says he so portentious.

Have either Pip or Adam and Ian mentioned childcare at all? Will Ian get “maternity leave”?

I don't have a problem with Lexi being the surrogate. It's as realistic as it can be imo. It was her idea in the first place, she's doing it because she wants to help them, it also suits her circumstances - she wants to stay around to be with Roy, she also wants to see more of her own children which A and I have agreed to facilitate. She's a much more realistic choice than Helen with all her mental health issues, or Kate (just wrong on every level). I also think it's more realistic than them enlisting the help of a complete stranger. I think the story is there to shoehorn a couple of gay dads into TA - it will be all about how they cope not about Lexi doing a runner. For this reason I suspect the egg transfer etc will all go smoothly to get on with the main event - the SW probably consider this storyline has been drawn out long enough if you date it back to their early attempts to find a surrogate (was she called Mags??) I think comparisons with modern day slavery are just silly - not sure why that conversation was juxtaposed. Lexi could go home if she wanted to - she's torn because she's fallen in love. She's not a slave.

For a horrible moment I thought Jenny was going to say something bigoted and xenophobic again but I actually thought that her reservations were pretty valid. They don't know Lexie that well and I'm not sure if they've yet explained how vulnerable Ian and Adam are in this situation. Under UK law, the person who gives birth to the child is automatically the legal parent. There is nothing officially to compel Lexie to hand the child over and she could lawfully keep the child, even though it is not biologically related to her. The child won't be theirs until they get a parental order.

Surely Pip's baby is a Pipette?

I would have thought Adam and Ian’s would be Pipette......

Why would Lexi want to keep their baby? If Lexi wanted to have another baby she could have her own with Roy surely.

Bertrand ... in which case Pip's baby can be a Pipsqueak :)

Lillian - at the point of handing over the baby she's carried for 9 months, given birth to and held in her arms, she just can't do it. I know I couldn't.

She may well not want it, Lillian, but as Hating says I think it's plausible that after carrying and birthing the child she would find it very difficult.

I do wonder if they will explore this. I don't think this element of the surrogacy laws are widely understood. A very good friend of mine is considering surrogacy but will almost certainly go to the USA where she is guaranteed to be the legal parent of her child, despite the fact that it will cost six figures. Even if she could find an altruistic surrogate in the UK she would run the risk of the surrogate keeping a child who is biologically that of the intended parents.

Presumably Lexi will be kept in Ambridge until at least 2020 so that we can have a post-Brexit-deal storyline.

I think Alice will get trashed at the office do she was talking about and lose her job.

I also think that Lexi will go for the tests mentioned by Adam and something will crop up.

Although Jenny is a bit of a gusher over her kids, especially Adam, I do love how much she loves all her family.

I am a few episodes behind I am afraid, but after listening to Friday's episode I was wondering if there were some rather heavy handed hints about future story lines. The possibility that Ian and Adam's baby might be unwell or disabled was discussed twice. Jennifer seemed sleepy and preoccupied, could she be ill?

I don't want Brian to go to prison. He is a very flawed character, but I enjoy listening to him. Could they send Adam as his proxy?

Future storylines - who's car has a Matt-shaped dent?

Rural poverty? - we had Emma going to the food bank
Single parents struggling for childcare and unable to make ends meet? - Not Pip or Helen. Baby Grace will be looked after by Mary Poppins herself, Jill.
NHS donor services (sperm, eggs) - Not NHS but we have Henry, son of a robot.
Down’s syndrome? - it could come back if anything happened to Mike and Vicky.

I’m trying to think of an issue TA has dealt with properly in recent years (other than emotional abuse and the Jack Woolley dementia SL) EA was dealt with well up to the mauve dress, but purely because SOC thought he was presenting an ideal of manhood, caring and protective. After that it turned to pantomime.

Lexi's baby? Either it will turn out to be damaged by Brian's chemical leak (not quite sure of the mechanics of that but that's never bothered the SLs) Or she will have a horrendous delivery and be unable to bear a child with Roy which will lead to the slow and gory disintegration of their relationship.

I know I couldn't I don’t think you are alone there - that’s why it is not easy to find a surrogate. In the only case of surrogacy I know of in real life, the surrogate was always of the point of view that it wasn’t her baby and so for that reason it was quite different for: being pregnant with her own children. I wonder what the stats are for surrogates refusing to give up their babies where the baby is not biologically theirs - and remember Lexi was very keen on this distinction, she wasn’t offering them her own child? I personally will be surprised if the SW go down this route.

I do feel a bit sorry for Ian - all his biological paternity dreams dashed just so the SWs can build in another strand of Aldridge inheritance drama ...

The baby won't have a drop of Aldridge blood, though. Only Kate, Alice and Ruairi are Brian's biological children, unless the SW are going to rustle up some others.

I don't think that a young Brian would have let someone use his farmland as landfill. Am I alone?

The baby won't have a drop of Aldridge blood

• Which only makes it trickier and more drama laden, since Adam will have perfectly legitimate expectations ...

(Though I can't recall the outcome of the most recent Home Farm inheritance discussion.)

That's actually where I thought Adam wad going last night with his 'small favour ' which turned out to be a cottage for Lexi. I thought he was about to try to renegotiate the partnership to have his potential sprog given a share! Thank goodness he didn't, that would have been embarrassing.

The 'sprog' isn't more than a concept yet.

A few years ago someone reported a poster on one of these threads for saying that Henry’s father was a test tube. I’m glad a sense of humour on the same subject has been recovered! 😉