Archers thread #192: Village of the Dammed. Discuss the beavers here. Throw in the odd word about the Archers if you must.

[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 love to have Kate present as you give birth, 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.)

I'm more excited about the arrival of the beavers than anything else going on in Ambridge at the moment. I hope there will be a webcam.

Bets on how much of next week is set in the castle or on the way there/back? I'm bracing myself for at least 50%.

I've never thought about it but I suppose it could have been inferred from the actor's name, which is Bonnie Baddoo. IMDB says she's been in 10 episodes of The Archers, which is enough to make her quite an established minor character. I doubt they would introduce another Lottie in those circumstances.

What on earth is a "bubble week"?

It's a week where the scriptwriter writes a self-contained SL, only vaguely related to TA. The holiday let scam week was one.

OMG so they are doing it PURPOSELY! The editor actually says to the scriptwriters, "forget about it being a long-running soap opera with long-running plot lines and established characters who we have known all their/our lives, and just treat it as 5 * 15m episodes of random nonsense"
Explains a lot.

OMG so they are doing it PURPOSELY! The editor actually says to the scriptwriters, "forget about it being a long-running soap opera with long-running plot lines and established characters who we have known all their/our lives, and just treat it as 5 * 15m episodes of random nonsense
Explains a lot.

So mad I posted it twice.

I think the 'bubble writer' is Nick Warburton.

It was news to me. If it is the same Lottie she was at school with Pip (apparently good friends, though we'd never heard mention of her).

I don't imagine that rural Borsetshire Green and St Stephens comp were particularly diverse at the turn of the century.

Do you think there will still be traces of norovirus at the Stables when Shula visits? It would be good to hear about her son, from time to time, but Daniel seems to have been pushed firmly to the back of the cereal cupboard with Johnnie!

That's quite shocking. I don't watch any TV soaps but do they do things like that on those programmes?

@Buxusmortus , I don't watch tv soaps but I think they do. The writer I mentioned writes for tv soaps.

Thanks. I never bother looking up the actors' names.

I think the "bottle episode" is a TV idea in the first place; one which uses the sets and characters and has no need for any outside anything, but has nothing to do with the overarching plot. So the "bubble week" would come from that, I suppose.

Nick Warburton certainly has done bubble weeks, but Keri Davies apparently claimed he wrote one this week.

I think Keri asked on FB if folk wanted Johnny back. I didn’t read the responses.

Does he think he has the power to bring Johnny back? Seems to me that is an editorial decision, not one for one of the twelve writers to make.

Bonnie Baddoo is a mixed race actor.

Sorry @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, that's not really an answer to you, just a confirmation of upthread musings.

They’re crowd sourcing major storylines, now?

FML. 🤦‍♀️

I assumed her name was ‘Baddle’ but that Pip had somehow got at it.

Bubble Weeks could really work in our favour. I only really want to hear how things develop with George and Ed this week but if I know the week is going to be dedicated to the norovirus and the surgery’s copper pipework then I can relax and switch off til Sunday…

@mimbleandlittlemy The surname is West African. Ghanaian, I think.

@JoelenesParrot , that's not how bubble weeks work. We'd probably get Amber's Adventures in Armagh or something.

Damn! Thought it was too good to be true! Thanks @threshacre

It might be better than Shula's Sunderland Sermons.

I wonder if there’s a reason Paul hasn’t learned to drive. Alistair has mentioned it twice in a week. I’m surprised it’s only becoming a major issue now when he’s been working at the surgery for so long. I would have thought Jakob would have made a fuss about how inconvenient it is long before now.

Maybe they want to bring in how hard it is to book tests.

Or how expensive it is for ordinary young people to pay for lessons.