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Would you like to see a Waterloo Road revival one day?


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Old 27-12-2016, 16:53
Tomski12
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I've recently been watching the series from the beginning on YouTube and I'm currently up to the episode where Karen Fisher got fired. I always think it's such a shame that the BBC basically sent it to its death when they moved it to Scotland. It was such a brilliant series when set in Rochdale (and series 8 wasn't bad to be fair) but I think it could only have survived in an area like Rochdale. Does the old Rochdale building still exist? Could they one day explain that the council have decided to reopen it, and bring in a few previous characters to familiarise the place? It began just as I was about to begin secondary school, and it was something everybody used to discuss in class. Would it still work now?
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Old 27-12-2016, 16:59
IanMandy
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I'm not sure if could work, it was already a very different show when it ended with every meme we of the final cast, bar one, arriving during the Scottish years. The best classic characters are now dead and the new headteacher every series was rather jarring but the problem is that Vaughn was a weak head and so the school needed a new head. They need to improve all those and bring back the likes of Mika or Janeece- former pupils who could realistically become staff due to strong connections with the school. The Rochdale school is no more having been turned into apartments at the end of series 7
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:00
Hollyoaks14
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What is that? An old soap?
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:02
The Queen Vic
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For me, it died when Rachel Mason left. The show should have ended when Eva Pope decided to leave the role. It was great until then, but shouldn't be brought back.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:06
PDS1985
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What is that? An old soap?
A TV series that ran between 2006 and 2014 it was set in a school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_Road_(TV_series)

It starred some ex and current soap stars like Denise Welch, Jenna Coleman and Tina O'Brien.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:10
Hollyoaks14
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A TV series that ran between 2006 and 2014 it was set in a school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterloo_Road_(TV_series)

It starred some ex and current soap stars like Denise Welch, Jenna Coleman and Tina O'Brien.
Oops...

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2195643
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:20
T.K. Mazin
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Definitely, as long as the show is brought back to Rochdale and not Scotland. It was so ludicrous how they just relocated the school and the teachers/students just went over to live in Scotland in some boarding house like they were on some extended holiday. Never mind their parents who, you know, might be worried about their kids living hundreds of miles away in a neighbouring country.

They need to stick to the original premise of the show - a struggling public school in a low-income area in Manchester.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:33
Tomski12
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Definitely, as long as the show is brought back to Rochdale and not Scotland. It was so ludicrous how they just relocated the school and the teachers/students just went over to live in Scotland in some boarding house like they were on some extended holiday. Never mind their parents who, you know, might be worried about their kids living hundreds of miles away in a neighbouring country.

They need to stick to the original premise of the show - a struggling public school in a low-income area in Manchester.
Precisely, it was like the core of the show died when it moved. This premise meant the influx of 'rough' kids was representing a realistic failing school in a deprived area.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:36
Tomski12
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If it was bought back they should make it separate to the Greenock school and simply pick up where the school was closed down, with a few old teachers and staff there in order to help the audience with something familiar from the old school.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:40
Tomski12
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I'm not sure if could work, it was already a very different show when it ended with every meme we of the final cast, bar one, arriving during the Scottish years. The best classic characters are now dead and the new headteacher every series was rather jarring but the problem is that Vaughn was a weak head and so the school needed a new head. They need to improve all those and bring back the likes of Mika or Janeece- former pupils who could realistically become staff due to strong connections with the school. The Rochdale school is no more having been turned into apartments at the end of series 7
Ive just done a quick google and it would seem the apartments were only a part of a storyline. The building was due to be knocked down and turned into a wind farm or something, but it appears it was never demolished. I'm not 100% though as there's nothing that says for sure whether the building's still there or not.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:42
T.K. Mazin
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Precisely, it was like the core of the show died when it moved. This premise meant the influx of 'rough' kids was representing a realistic failing school in a deprived area.
Exactly. That's what the show was about and I liked it because I went to a similar school myself. You could relate to it.

Once they moved to Scotland and it became a privately funded school, it lost a lot of its originality and it became some bad version of Grange Hill with Scottish accents.
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:47
Tomski12
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Ive just done another search and it turns out the old Rochdale school was demolished after all, and of cours so has the Greenock building, so I guess that would make a revival a bit harder unless the BBC was to invest in rebuilding the school which is next to impossible with their budgets nowadays. It's quite sad actually as I remember the old Rochdale building very fondly
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Old 27-12-2016, 17:51
T.K. Mazin
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Ive just done another search and it turns out the old Rochdale school was demolished after all, and of cours so has the Greenock building, so I guess that would make a revival a bit harder unless the BBC was to invest in rebuilding the school which is next to impossible with their budgets nowadays. It's quite sad actually as I remember the old Rochdale building very fondly
That's a shame. I'm sure they could rebuild the school in a neigbouring area to Rochdale, though. As long as it is a low-income area in order to stick close to the show's premise.

I know it wouldn't be ideal as the original school in Rochdale had so much history, but that's the best you could hope for if WR was rebooted by the BBC.
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Old 27-12-2016, 18:01
Tomski12
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That's a shame. I'm sure they could rebuild the school in a neigbouring area to Rochdale, though. As long as it is a low-income area in order to stick close to the show's premise.

I know it wouldn't be ideal as the original school in Rochdale had so much history, but that's the best you could hope for if WR was rebooted by the BBC.
I suppose they could replicate the original school on the original site if the council never do anything with it. It as till annoys me that the BBC showed a total lack of respect for it during it's final series and booted it on to BBC 3 too.
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Old 27-12-2016, 19:29
PorkchopExpress
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Absolutely not. Waterloo Road was appalling.
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Old 27-12-2016, 19:55
IanMandy
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Absolutely not. Waterloo Road was appalling.
Only towards the end when it lost a lot of its popular characters and the main values of the show were forgotten. It was unmissable TV for a long time before
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Old 27-12-2016, 21:57
Glendarroch
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Thing is, they could have easily just done a new show set in a struggling school in Greenock. One of the teachers could have decided to relocate ( they could have said they did a short course to retrain for the Scottish education system, I' m sure such things are available). Plus, all the supposedly rough Scottish kids sounded posh and the affluent ones sounded roughAlso, why did they not follow our education system, when they moved here? The whole thing just didn't work.
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Old 27-12-2016, 22:17
Tomski12
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Thing is, they could have easily just done a new show set in a struggling school in Greenock. One of the teachers could have decided to relocate ( they could have said they did a short course to retrain for the Scottish education system, I' m sure such things are available). Plus, all the supposedly rough Scottish kids sounded posh and the affluent ones sounded roughAlso, why did they not follow our education system, when they moved here? The whole thing just didn't work.
We'll to be fair in series 8 it was an independent school and wouldn't have had to follow the Scottish education system.
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Old 27-12-2016, 22:22
Glendarroch
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We'll to be fair in series 8 it was an independent school and wouldn't have had to follow the Scottish education system.
Yeah but lots of independent schools in Scotland do, including ones that are if a much higher standard than WR! It seemed to jar with the whole relocation - you know ' when in Rome, you do as the Romans do...' it came across like they didn't really commit to it being in a Scottish town.

Honestly I think they would have been better to do it as a spin-off off. Have one of the popular characters relocate and find themselves working or attending a similar school, without all the nonsense about it being some sort of ' Academy' which was so good that parents would send their kids a few hundred miles away to attend. They could even have a few characters do that at a push - eg someone getting a job in the school then recommending a colleague. The whole ' Academy' set up just seemed half hearted.
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Old 27-12-2016, 22:26
T.K. Mazin
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It's a shame the way it ended. I thought the BBC saw it as a long-term ongoing series like EE, Casualty and Doctors etc, but it seems it was just another one of those "boom and bust" TV serials that BBC executives get bored of after a while.
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