Don't get me wrong, Kate was lovely but I couldn't connect with her as character.
Similarly, I felt Vik Singh and Paul Riley never really fitted in well. Riley has especially suffered from pretty feeble storylines not helped by his dodgy brother ('Stewpot' from Grange Hill!)

I was always saddened by the nature of Conway's departure. I remember at the time Ben Roberts, who played him, said that he'd wanted to go out with a bang!

I wonder how many of the fire victims had the choice to leave or were they written out of the series.?

So true about the departure of the 'newbies'. In this daily format it seems that they've almost just arrived and now bye bye!

Paul Riley and Ros were both completely unconvincing as police officers. I assume that was Ros's last episode today, but she normally sounded like a schoolkid. Riley just gave the impression he had no idea what was going on most of the time.

Poor Roz. She just couldn't catch a break.

Paul Riley (or 'Stoner' as me and my brother nicknamed him) never cut it as a cop. It was the long hair and the indolent demeanour. He looked like the sort of guy who would hang out in a den all day, wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and smoking dope. Although watching it back now over 10 years later, he actually did more police work than I remember.

Great stuff!

Riley reminded me of Keanu Reeves in Bill an Ted, i kept expecting him to say cowabunga dude. When i first saw him i thought he was on a work experience, i didnt know he was a regular.

Roz's exit was poor, she must have upset the writers, so much so they couldnt be bothered to write her a decent exit.

Todays episode had a couple of chuckles for me, Cass asked Kate if Cork was still alive and she said "try slapping him, it worked for me" , and then when they were on a stakeout waiting for the rapist, Des was hiding in a bush, they were all trying to be quiet and Des shouted "We're into overtime"

I thought the storyline over the week, was not bad, but todays episode was a bit farcical, and the guy playing DI Collins was dreadful

That was Brian Croucher, 2nd actor to play Travis in Blakes 7 and played Ted Hills in Eastenders (uncle of Ian Beale and Ben Mitchell).

As for Riley, he should have made a great undercover cop, precisely due to his.. looks.

It was just his overacting when he was hit on the head by Spears,,, it was like he was in a cartoon

I can't believe we'll be getting to the fire episodes soon - like others have said, it only feels like 5 minutes ago since the Don Beech scandal and the new CID turning up!

Todays episode was awful imo, i switched off after 10 minutes

I stuck it out but it was a ridiculous storyline, looking forward to the Special Constable Terry Knowles episodes!

I agree, I managed 20 mins before switching off.
It seems with episodes from this particular era, that we are getting a week or so of really gripping, memorable episodes, followed by ones where they seemed not to put any effort in at all... No consistency.
Still, Loaded starts next week - one of my favourite groups of episodes!

They were some of the best ones; the only issue I had with them was that Des and Gilmore patched up their differences.

Also everytime I saw Michael McKell as Joseph Ferdinand, I kept thinking that it's actually Marc Warren.

Mcknell is also known for playing D.S./D.I. Trevor Hands in two seasons of the ITV drama Murder Investigation Team

pushing it a bit today aren't they ? "pakistani haters" that wasn't cut or bleeped and i've heard them censor a lot less (first 4 letters of pakistani and you get your word)

Today's episode was excellent. So much better than Friday's - can't wait for the rest of the week!

The Terry Knowles episodes are great

Does anyone remember the episodes when it seemed like nearly all of Sun Hill were working undercover in a hotel trying to catch a gang of people smugglers?

It was Quinnan 1-6, wasn't it? With that Berisha guy?

all 6 parts of the Quinnan story will air in October from the 12th

Yes thats right, I couldn't remember if it was before or after the fire......and I seem to remember that Dave and Polly briefly rekindled their romance.

..and tomorrow sees the start of Series 18 which if memory serves me right hasn't been repeated since the days of uk gold

I hated the really cheap and cynical way that Terry Knowles was killed. Couldn't he just have been run over whilst chasing a suspect, or shot during a siege?

Does anyone know if Terry Knowles was only ever meant to be a guest character for that particular storyline

Wasn't the actress who played Helen (Reg's girlfriend) in today's episode appear in Coronation Street at one point?

The first episode of series 18 happened today.