Archers thread #194: Bottled on the Bridle Path! Discuss 75 years of 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 wishthat we'd heard the Reverend Shula preach over the festive period, 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 am all Archered out after the excitement of the 75th anniversary yesterday, the special drama (Truth and Lies), the podcast, you name it. Now it looks as if George is going to pull through, the hype seems a bit overdone. So it's over to you!

If it was Markie’s henchmen I think they may soon be looking for more work, maybe blow drying BOOP’s hair because if they were sent to give George a hiding, I think Markie is going to be mighty disappointed by a whack on the head with a bottle that people think might have been the work of a 14 year old.

what illicit activity would be happening in the woods on NYE?
do you mean some kind of sexual shenanigans?

Ooh, I don't know: wasn't his skull said to have been cracked?

I just listened to the podcast, thanks for those that mentioned it on the earlier thread . I found the early ones a bit boring and gave up . The recent one was good and had the producer of Truth and Lies on it , Dave Payne .
Not sure if we discuss the podcast on this thread , but I think that here we did manage to find most of the clues provided , obviously some will be red herrings .

I would recommend a listen . The actress who plays Hannah was on and the discussion around her character / life / loneliness was very poignant .

I suppose it is possible that
( a) George could still die and we don’t find out for ages who did it .
(b ) George doesn’t remember and the evidence doesn’t conclusively point towards anyone . The possibility then that he remembers in the future / blackmails that person / uses it to his advantage .
(c) George knows who did it - but if it is a family member/ Amber , he doesn’t; “grass “ on them . Or if he is frightened to do so re repercussions - Markie etc .

(d) the culprit is found / trial / conviction. Okay if it is Markie , but otherwise I don’t think listeners want another trial . Farming not legal programme .
I am starting to think it may have been Amber ? She was the one who hushed the others from asking more questions , when George started to speak . She also seemed to have forgotten her feelings for Brad .
Her motive -she did it to protect her family / be with Brad . Her relationships with her own family weren’t close and she really bonded with George’s family .
Whilst there were some suggestions of control / coercion by George against Amber , she did return from Dublin . Appreciate that this is a very complex topic , but again this has already been covered by Helen and Kirsty’s exes .
Agree with so many others , whilst I did enjoy the extra episode / podcast this time , I was still annoyed by the over dramatisation of language used in the episode synopsis . In particular ; “ rampage “ ;and ; “all hell breaks loose “.

2026onwardsandup
The recent one was good and had the producer of Truth and Lies on it , Dave Payne .

He wrote it as well.

Hannah was poignant, indeed. It shone light on something that isn’t always given much airtime. What it’s like to be a carer if you’re still young, how alone you must feel.

And how you are not supposed to resent or dislike someone who deliberately makes your life even more difficult than it already was.

I don't believe it was Amber- she seemed utterly repulsed learning of George's violence and although we heard him being controlling and misogynist, we also heard her succesfully walk away from that.

Although, a more likely scenario is that George's reaction to being left would be to ramp up the control. But there hasn't been the time for that to play out.

Amber does seem shifty to me, keen to blame the gang members.

plot thickens!

I must say, Amber was very invested in the 'Markie' hypothesis....

Kenton and Fallon have both had difficulty sleeping ...

Joy has a lot of unexpected sudden skills (for CCTV editing) and it would explain why the writers gave her a job at the pub...

Kenton has been far too quiet. Definitely not guilty

But Amber wouldn't have been able to wipe the cctv footage, surely that would only be Kenton, Fallon or Harrison.

Denton could be worried it is Marky.
Fallen could be worried it is Harrison.

My money is on Harrison. (So obviously it isn't him).

Assuming Lillian is a complete technophobe. Tracey?

Do you think Amber wants it to be Markie and his gang because the other options are unthinkable

The CCTV footage - I'm thinking Harrison or Fallon at a push Tracey

Yes. It's because of her play for Brad.

Whoever wiped the CCTV footage may not have done it to protect themselves, if they'd looked and seem something incriminating being done they may have wiped it in order to protect someone else, as they were glad George had been hurt.

No idea how CCTV works but would any records show what time the system had been accessed?

All ambulance calls are recorded. I know this because, in a previous life, I used to have to listen to lots of them. Why have the police not listened yet? They have clearly examined call records because George said that whoever it was used his phone to make the first call.
This would at least reveal age/sex/accent of the first caller (who will not be the one who assaulted George but is probably covering for the person they think/know did).

I have a feeling that with this storyline, as with so many others, the SW won't have the appropriate knowledge or done sufficient research, so that things the police should do won't be done properly or at all. The outcome will be based on a hotchpotch of information that would never pass muster in real life and which listeners will be expected to believe.

Whoever it was, they probably also wiped the tape at The Bull.

According to chatgpt the most likely answer is George was drunk, angry, and possibly swinging the bottle He either: fell and struck his head, or injured himself during a scuffle that didn’t involve deliberate assault, it seems this matches decades of Archers storytelling habits.

I got a bit carried away then and asked chatgpt to treat it as an Agatha Christie plot and it said Emma is most the likely suspect acting for the good of the family.

This is one of the things that gives everyone something to mock, isn't it? Because TA purports to cover all areas of life, there's just so much that they can get wrong. There can be weeks where you just go, "oh, so that's how that works, I guess?" and then suddenly there's something you know about and you go "Oh, that is NOT how that works"

For me, it was the idea that someone managing a livery yard and riding school (if that's what Alice's job is?) has the leisure to be hacking around the countryside on some random horse for fun, on a sunday. Ok fine, she can have a day off, but to just hop off to help someone take their christmas lights down... and do what with the horse, pop on the handbrake and take the keys out of the ignition 🤔

Amber’s reactions tonight and her reawakened ‘love’ for George are completely unbelievable. So it’s either crap scriptwriting or it was Brad and she’s covering for him. Brad’s technically able enough to have wiped the cctv footage but how could he have done it? Or of course it’s Kenton of Jolene but I don’t get why Amber would be so keen to blame Marky in that case.

All very very disappointing after the lead-up.