- When Hollyoaks actually had likeable, good characters and didn't carry out character assassinations.

- Hollyoaks when it had formidable villains to match any soap such as Warren Fox and Clare Devine and not rubbish cartoon clones like Trevor Royal and Grace Black.

Trevor Royle was ruined when he became so inconsistent. His love for Claire, then Grace. His loyalty and rage towards Frazer one minute to the next. His fish shop dream and then his gangster dream opps nightmare.
Grace Black will NEVER be her sister or better.

2005-2007 Home and Away - Chloe Richards dying, Sarah's siege, Josh West's murder, the helicopter crash, Matilda's Bulimia, Tasha and The Believers Cult, Amanda and Belle, The Barn Explosion, Zoe McAlister stalker storyline, Kim/Kit/Rachel, Beth Hunter and Dan Baker's death.

The Home and Away I miss and love.

When all the soaps were great at the same time

Great post!

I use to love the heyday of Brookside. My favourite character was Julia Brogan. But there were many memorable characters in Brookside.

I always remember Julia clip-clopping around the close causing havoc and spreading gossip ................ "Once a Corrrrkhilll, always a Corrrrkhillllllllllll"

True. In general, I don't find Trevor a particularly scary or interesting villain. When he first came into the show, he did have an element of ruthlessness and killed a copper in cold blood, but he's lost that ruthless streak and become a two-bob plastic thug since Frasier died. Grace is just a gangster princess and a rubbish one at that. They have no depth as characters.

This whole attempt to make us like Trevor and Grace with this whole surrogacy story with Esther is so transparent as well. I still don't like neither of them. I am amused though at much they've softened Trevor and Grace up in an attempt to make up like them. Grace is a cold-blooded killer, yet comes up with this over elaborate plan to frame Freddie rather than just kill him. Trevor is another cold-blooded killer, who now craps himself at the sight of the mighty Roscoe brothers standing before him . Joe is the only Roscoe to be feared, the rest are laughable. And yet Trevor just gave up without even a fight and let Robbie go. I'm sure you know the scene I'm talking about.

The great thing about villains like Warren and Clare was that they were consistent and were never softened up. Warren never lost his ruthless streak nor his thirst for violence even when he built a family around him in the form of Louise, Spencer, Katy etc. He was defiant to the end. Can you imagine him kneeling to the Roscoes?
Clare was always an uber-bitch and they never tried to make us like her. We knew she was an evil gold-digging monster, but we loved her for it anyway.

What a fantastic post!

Oh, you mean as long as 4 months ago ( Beth and Kirk's wedding )

That one episode was funnier and more heart-warming than all of the other soaps have managed in years - if at all.

An outstanding story for me was the Grant/Tiffany/Louise triangle, I'm guessing 1998? Amazing, I even remember there being a one hour episode on a sunday which ended up with Grant standing in the rain

Emmerdale nutjob Graham pushing that woman off a cliff was disturbing. Jack was gutted to find her dead.

Does anyone remember when Jim paraded Dot's clothes in the Vic around 2000? It included a pair of panties and a bra, I think. Geri Halliwell's song Bag It Up was playing during that scene.

Tom Jones' Sex Bomb playing really loudly in the Vic, during Pat and Frank's affair. Peggy was onto something in the previous episode where she tried to get into the car lot portacabin, but it was locked from the inside while Pat and Frank were enjoying a Chinese meal.

Susan Kennedy's amnesia in neighbours

The millennium club explosion in brookside and later Susannah Farnham's murder shown in a series of flack backs.

The fabulous Rosemary Sinclair in emmerdale and her long running feud with her stepsons the King brothers.

Great female characters there!

Emmerdale - when Zoe was hiding behind the sofa ( from Scott Windsor, perhaps? ) with little Jean, doing her damnedest to ratch up the tension, and the cute little girl who played Jean was waving and saying hello to the cameramen!

I loved the whole week of zoes exit in eastenders can't believe that was 10yrs ago this summer

Sadies exit in Emmerdale was also pretty great

This may be long...

Neighbours

- The 1998 season finale, with Joel trapped under a car, under water, in the pouring rain. Karl had to keep him alive, but Joel slipped unconscious. I remember the moment Joel's hand slipped out of Karl's.

- Gus Cleary poisoning Max, and trying to gain control over his family. I remember a scene where Boyd tried to challenge him to a fight (OK, then!). When the truth was exposed, Max chased Gus on to some scaffolding.

- Steph having dreams of Drew, who was the opposite of the man he used to be, apparently trying to warn her that her breast cancer had returned. It had.

- Robot Wars! Bikini Shop farce! Wrestling Mania!

- The Full Monty! Harold going into a catatonic state from the stress of having to strip. They had to go on without him. Some random guy got in the way of Lou switching off the lights at the moment they dropped their hats.

- Lou & Mishka's antics: distilling their own vodka in the General Store; Mishka pushing Lou down a stairwell to escape her controlling husband, Igor, which left Lou with amnesia, where Janelle convinced him he was in love with her! Mishka returned, and her and Janelle went to war over Lou Bear.

- The Bogan's Tipped Hair and all the hilarious fantasy sequences.

- Lyn learning Aunt Valda was really her mother.

- Lana Crawford and her whole coming out story with Sky. I loved their shared passion for comic books.

- There was a love potion story with Michelle Scully, who I think drugged Paul McClain with it. I don't remember where she got it from or what happened afterwards.

Home & Away

- Marilyn and Fisher's son Byron dying. That was one of the saddest stories H&A ever did.

- Jesse cheating on Selina with Chloe.

- Chloe's rapist turning out to be her stalker, and the man she was dating. I remember that scene where Chloe returned home to find the Beach house covered in Bear traps. Really sinister story.

- Stephanie turning out to be the reincarnation of someone from the past. She fell down a cliff and died, I think.

- Angie Russell and her walk of shame after her lies and schemes were revealed.

- Casey Mitchum having a piano audition, but was plagued by nightmares of it going wrong. She seemed to have these nightmares for weeks.

- The earthquake! The flood! The mudslide! The cyclone!

- The Summer Bay Stalker. Sarah Lewis's reign of terror was the best. Psycho Zoe's follow up was good, but her resurrection for a second time when she blew up Jack & Martha's wedding was a step too far.

- The Sutherlands falling down a mineshaft.

Hollyoaks

- Toby Mills' serial killing spree, bumping off all the blondes. Ellie took several episodes to say anything. These were the days storylines were super dragged out, not like today, where everything is at breakneck speed.

- Lisa's self harming story.

- Laila Rouass playing a cop who seduced Ben. She left the role and was unofficially recast with a character who picked up her storylines. She got pregnant with Ben's baby, who was engaged to Izzy, I think.

- Cameron getting naked in the class room and covering his modesty with a globe. They used to do a lot of comedy nudity in those days, which they no longer do now.

- Dan and Debbie's romance.

- Justin and Becca was one of my favourite teacher/student affairs.

- Dot and the webcam
- Joe Wicks insisting Grant was the devil during Christmas dinner
- Sarah Hills' really bad caterpillar eyebrows
- A drunk Phil when in Paris with Kathy, Grant and Tiffany in the hotel lobby shouting that Kathy was "An oldie but a goody" in bed

Ricky's stag night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLuG0xNe0I

A fabulous friendship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=450elALRNuc

Forgive me but all my throwbacks are from the US soaps as I only started watching British soaps 3 years ago.

1. All My Children's 1994 Tornado; This was the first soap disaster ever done and although it lacked the great special affects story wise it was very effective as most of Pine Valley was at the Chandler Mansion for Adam and Gloria's second wedding. In the middle of the ceremony Gloria tells everyone that she will not marry Adam and she knew that he had faked his kidnapping and right after that the tornado hits causing complete chaos..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZoZExWp6cE

2. All My Children- 1995 Erica's woman of the year speech: During Erica's pain killer addiction story, the show's most iconic character was drugged out of her mind during her acceptance speech and decided to tell off everyone in attendance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H9Wy8NAd2Q

3. One life to Live 2001 Trading places episode- This was a standalone episode that was a dream of Rae who dreamed that she was called to a sanitarium where all of the shows characters were being held and was shocked and confused when she all the characters were dressed acting like other characters from the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSAZ...U&spfreload=10

4. Days of our Lives 1999 Sami's execution: Sami had been set up by Kate and Lucas to take the fall for Franco's murder and she was sentenced to death by lethal injection and wasn't until that they began to to kill her that the execution was halted by the governor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDjS...E&spfreload=10

5. Days of our Lives 2000 The Last Blast Dance: Phillip lost a bet with Shawn-D and was forced to take goth opera loving Chloe to the Last Blast Dance. Chloe shocked Phillip and everyone else at the dance when she showed up in a short red dress raveling how stunning she actually was. Phillip ending up falling for Chloe and they ended up dating until the truth about the bet came out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTG4Si4pJ4

Are you sure about that? Didn't Santa Barbara have an earthquake in the 80s?

They did: https://youtu.be/RgMYoF1ZkrU?t=40 It's in Spanish, as I couldn't find the English version.


I remember this story - Ghoul Girl! I liked that Chloe changed gradually, and it wasn't something done overnight. Her and Philip were a good couple, but I think her false rape allegation ruined things for me.

You're right about Santa Barbra, I'm not familiar with that show at all so that's why I didn't know about it. Andy you're right the Last Blast dance was cliche but it was done well. I really enjoyed that group of characters Chloe, Phillip, Belle and Shawn-D. The false rape story was stupid but I don't think it ruined them, I did prefer Chloe with Brady though.

The student halls in Hollyoaks.

Eastenders:

Mo Harris running an adult chat line under the name Madam Whiplash. Her ringtone was an old Nokia 32/3310 one.

I've just had a memory of swan being cooked in EastEnders, Mo bought it as 'turkey'