Archers thread #182: The Shit hits the Am! Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd be delighted to oblige your employer by cleaning up sewage spills without proper training or equipment in place of your normal duties, or other unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please! We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Credit for the title goes to @echt. Can't think of anything much to say about current storylines. Credulity is strained to its limit on many fronts, unfortunately, but there are a few nuggets in the slurry. I did enjoy hearing Natasha's outrage that Fallon is doing obvious, sensible things at The Bull even though it might hit Terum. I thought Natasha was supposed to be an entrepreneur!

Over to you!

Thanks. Good title!!

Thanks Gasp & ecth - I like pithy thread titles.

Checking in. Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. I didn’t see Khalil’s leukemia coming - I wonder where that’s going (it can’t just be there to stop him fasting at Ramadan can it?) I like the Maliks and I think they’ve been quickly incorporated into the landscape of Ambridge.

Good title.

A background with dangerous childhood illness and what that does to family dynamic in the longer term is good. Long time since we've had anything like it - Elizabeth's heart is the nearest I can come up with.

The maliks have so far been a greater success than mick and joy

i don't like Zainab though and I don’t like how the sw seem to be wetting themselves with excitement over ‘educating’ us

Didn't Helen have a clicky hip? And Roy a cleft palate? But you're right, I can't think of anything major.

Oh, didDan have arthritis?

I guess Bethany doesn't count because she moved away.

Azra doesn’t have ‘health anxiety’. She has a well founded and perfectly justifiable reason to be anxious about her son’s health

She should have acknowledged some self-aware in this. She is a doctor and I kept waiting for her to refer to that. As it was she sounded as if she had no medical experience nor understanding of the stats related to K’s condition and potential further relapses. I am bored with the Malik-Snell combo I’m afraid.

Chris had a cleft palate. We have had lots of health issues, even illness, with babies but it has tended to then be all right and never spoken of again. Though I do think Helen's special daughter status was related to the clicky hip.

Elizabeth's heart problems caused recurring problems, as indeed they could in real life. But it is good to be starting again with a new young person with a health story/backstory.

Also the added agony of being a medic and unable to save your child from illness is a nice touch. Maybe TA is picking up a bit after the horrors of the last few months.

no medical experience nor understanding of the stats related to K’s condition and potential further relapses.

Don’t spoil it for me, I’m hoping for third time lucky.

I'm not sure if this storyline is still running but I've just seen this:

www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/28/beavers-released-english-waterways-government-licence

Last night on Today in Parliament there was a segment on the issue of beaver releases, one of the speakers in the debate actually referred to the matter having been a storyline on The Archers.
So the writers were actually right up there in terms of contemporary countryside issues.

I'm getting sick of so much coverage of the Maliks, they come across as such an unlikeable family. Both Azra and Zainab are unnecessarily aggressive, confrontational and moany. I also think they both have really unattractive voices, not accent but something about the tones, very harsh. So that combined with Lynda's scraping voice is hard to listen to!

If the point of the Maliks is to educate us then SWs failed by having Zainab dictating to Natasha that the tea room has to change its business hours to accomodate Zainab being on a fast.

I do think a problem in recent years is over exposure of characters - I think any character would be irritating when they are pushed so much. I am really confused why Joy and mick get so much airtime

if you have had a kid who has had cancer twice you will always be on the lookout for a relapse - is that bruise healing normally, why are they tired, are they losing weight? I don’t think that is abnormal, dr or not

Thanks for the thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g brilliant title!

Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Too much of the Maliks and Joy/Muck and not enough of the others. I really want to know how George is getting on in prison.

Daniel's juvenile rheumatoid arthritis in 1998?

Which healed itself and was never heard from again. Bethany's long-term issues around health, inclusion, education and employment could have been interesting, so they got set away to be interesting somewhere off-air.

As I understand it juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (now called juvenile idiopathic arthritis) does sometimes go into drug-free remission as the child grows up: it can last for anything from six weeks to the rest of someone's life. In the same way, a ketamine overdose such as Jazzer suffered may get better in months as happened for Jazzer, rather than its effects lasting for the rest of the persons life. So I forgive the editorial team for those having got better.

Kenton's thyroid malfunction, on the other hand, would (like Jill's) certainly be a life-long condition requiring daily medication (and making it unlikely that sudden decisions to go off on a boat-trip for a month starting from a country where he didn't have a prescription for T4 would be easy, or indeed practical at all). I am always a little irritated that neither Kenton nor Jill ever has to have a blood-test to check on their thyroid, nor any change in prescription leading to problems, the way ordinary mortals so often do.

Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , and the mention.

<Blushes and curtseys, like Trump getting the Nobel Peace prize. Not.>

In tonight's episode I thought there'd be a meat cleaver incident, seeing as it's Friday. Gnasher was unbearable wasn't she? Quite calculated in her insulting of Fallon - hard to row back from I'd have thought.

I like the way the credit card issue has re-surfaced in a plausible manner.

[Resists temptation to make an early note for the next thread title]

Natasha could have started saying aggressively 'Have you ever actually said thank you for everything we did for you? Have you? Have you?'

I enjoyed that. Well done Fallon.

Can someone explain what on earth is going on re the cricket captaincy?

I'd just watched the Trump/Vance pile on on BBC World and Gnasher's tirade reminded me of what I'd seen earlier,