Fair City [News, Spoilers & Discussion v6] Read Post #1 Before Contributing

Littlefinger

The Talking Bread wrote: »

Not how it works.............

This is Fair City though

SB_Part2

The Laura steroids storyline is so stupid. You'd swear she was an olympian.

BuilderPlumber

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

@ BuilderPlumber, I too absolutely hate the character of Orla, so much so that I will actually start flicking through my phone whenever she appears on screen, I couldn't care less what she has to say, an awful screechy boring character who in real life would have fled Carrickstown years ago for pastures new..

I think that the actors have very little control over the scripts and storylines so I'm sure Niamh is probably sick of playing the whole do I trust Paul, is he having an affair act by now. But I also get the feeling that if they say one negative thing about the soap, that's it GONE! (look at Harry Molloy and Jo and others in the past), which leads me to believe a lot of the script writers are very thin skinned with big egos instead of trying to come up with fresh ideas. Instead, we are subjected to the same old drivel of Niamh and Paul for DECADES, who wants to watch the same scene over and over :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Tragic thing is, in the right hands and right actors, FC can be edge-of-your-seat fantastic. It really can- that story with Heather had me gripped every second she was on screen and watching her unravel was disturbing but unmissable television but 90% of storylines are predictable drivel. Even this Katy story could be salvaged if they presented an intelligent link between Stella and Ciaran, even that would be worth the weeks of teasing.

Fair City can be excellent and I agree the Heather storyline was one of the best. I enjoyed the Flynn/Cathal ones too and the Katy one is very gripping and gets us talking. Hopefully they can link this up well. This Dermot swindle of Paul's money will make them more interesting.

Orla adds nothing to the series. She is one of these characters who is just there and has absolutely nothing to offer. Why is she working in a bar? She should be in PR with Hayley you would think. That sick baby story she was in was surely one of the worst FC storylines ever. I would go as far as to say that when FC goes through its poorer periods Orla will be heavily featured in the storylines too.

The Wolverine

Tbh I think Dermot will live but it will probably be more of a he gets a phone call, hangs up with a slightly shocked face and then someone like Niamh asks "what is it?"

"They think they have matching donor"

Few episodes later BOOM! Oisin shoots Dermot in Vinos from a gun that been retrieved from the toilets to avenge Don Paulione

Strazdas

SB_Part2 wrote: »

The Laura steroids storyline is so stupid. You'd swear she was an olympian.

I'm not really sure why she's taking them. Normally the only non sports people to take steroids are bodybuilders.

They're not "addictive" either as was claimed last night. The only reason people take them is because they want to take them.

The Talking Bread

Why does she even need them. All she does is a few stretches in the park and runs around the corner at the start of the episode to make it look like shes been running for hours.

Strazdas

The Talking Bread wrote: »

Why does she even need them. All she does is a few stretches in the park and runs around the corner at the start of the episode to make it look like shes been running for hours.

In theory, they could improve her speed, strength or stamina but for what though? She's only a fitness instructor and doesn't seem to compete in any sports.

BuilderPlumber

SB_Part2 wrote: »

The Laura steroids storyline is so stupid. You'd swear she was an olympian.

It is a typical filler inner soap story. More of this Nina one will be featured too sadly as Sash will be caught between her 2 lovers.

The funny thing about poor soap storylines is they often coexist at the same time as the best stories. No one really cares about Laura and her pills. The thing everyone is concerned with is Dermot and of course Katy.

BuilderPlumber

dee_mc wrote: »

Yea but even if the FC writers had the wit to go there with the storyline, the next step would be for Niamh to fall in love with newly philandering Dermish and we'd be back to square one!

I have a sneaky feeling that this is what could be on the cards. It would be an easy way to map out another year's worth of a storyline for Niamh, Dermot and Paul. Affairs are ever present in all soaps and FC is not an exception. They are easy to write and they also sort of paint a picture of certain characters such as Paul who we love to hate.

BuilderPlumber

Strazdas wrote: »

In theory, they could improve her speed, strength or stamina but for what though? She's only a fitness instructor and doesn't seem to compete in any sports.

I think the angle is for her to be able to do all these fitness classes without getting tired and to have the energy to do other things too. At the end of the day though it is a poor storyline for a character they don't know what to do with.

The Talking Bread

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

It is a typical filler inner soap story. More of this Nina one will be featured too sadly as Sash will be caught between her 2 lovers.

The funny thing about poor soap storylines is they often coexist at the same time as the best stories. No one really cares about Laura and her pills. The thing everyone is concerned with is Dermot and of course Katy.

Personally I couldn't give a flying monkeys about the other 2 plots either!! As long as they keep unintentionally feeding us the material for the thread, I am happy!!

Dermot's terminal illness plot has been awfully written, a character there the guts of a quarter of a century and I don't think they have managed to write it in a way that it has pulled even the minutest heartstring of a viewer (from what I have seen!) and lets not mention Katy's 3 month spa in the back of LoveHate's garage!

Cormdogg

One thing that always irks me about Fair City is that Carrickstown is supposed to be within Dublin city yet there is little to no interaction between anyone or anything else from Dublin. Carrickstown is like its own little walled off enclave. It's more like Glenroe, an isolated village with its one of everything. One guard, one shop, one garage etc etc It's all so amateur. A school production of a play on TV. It's all so cheap, especially the storylines.

Strazdas

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

I think the angle is for her to be able to do all these fitness classes without getting tired and to have the energy to do other things too. At the end of the day though it is a poor storyline for a character they don't know what to do with.

You could well be right, but in that case I would expect her to be taking some sort of 'upper' or amphetamine as opposed to steroid (maybe that's what the writers mean she's taking).

BuilderPlumber

Cormdogg wrote: »

One thing that always irks me about Fair City is that Carrickstown is supposed to be within Dublin city yet there is little to no interaction between anyone or anything else from Dublin. Carrickstown is like its own little walled off enclave. It's more like Glenroe, an isolated village with its one of everything. One guard, one shop, one garage etc etc It's all so amateur. A school production of a play on TV. It's all so cheap, especially the storylines.

All soaps tend to do this with Coronation St, Emmerdale, Eastenders and Glenroe all confining themselves also to specific fictional villages or fictional parts of cities. Of course this does not reflect reality but is done in order to neatly create and wrap up storylines.

The outside world in soaps are entered only when necessary. We know some characters move to Cork, Galway, Belfast, London, etc. We know Pete comes from Roscommon, we know Lucy had a very distinct Longford/South Leitrim accent (Lorna Quinn who played her is from Longford but we are never told where the character is from exactly but it was hinted at but we know by her accent), Dominic and his daughter had Northern Ireland accents, and Dermot is from down the country somewhere too.

All soaps and dramas are in their own way a version of a 'school play' because of their very nature they are a finite set of people and resources focusing on the lives of one example of different types of characters. Taking gardai as an example: sure we know there are more of them than the 2 regular ones we normally see (and we get to see these if the storylines require) but we will only see the regular ones mostly and the storylines are not always about crime unlike say Love/Hate or The Fall.

Some of the storylines on FC are excellent imo and others are poor. This is no different to Coronation St or most of the others. Eastenders probably avoids silly storylines better than most soaps. Making a character like Orla interesting is a hard task: she is now a main FC character but that was never the intention at the start. She was introduced as a very minor character who was connected to Jimmy Doyle but later on became a major character.

Interestingly the main characters in FC changed rather dramatically over the years. Back say in 2001, Charlie, Mags, Bela, Rita, Leo, Nicola, Donal Maher, Christy, Renee, etc. were among the main characters and these are now either gone or reduced. Only Paul, Niamh, Dermot and Carol remain major characters who also were then.

SB_Part2

The Talking Bread wrote: »

Why does she even need them. All she does is a few stretches in the park and runs around the corner at the start of the episode to make it look like shes been running for hours.

And they don't make you agro either.

Flippyfloppy

SB_Part2 wrote: »

And they don't make you agro either.

Are they coming my from the ' roid rage 'angle?

In the long-term, anabolic steroid abuse can cause:
Anger and aggression ("roid rage").
Paranoia.
Delusions.
Heart attack.

bazermc

Lol. I had to google Roid Rage. I thought you were all misspelling it or it was some form of road rage in D4.

SB_Part2

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

Are they coming my from the ' roid rage 'angle?

In the long-term, anabolic steroid abuse can cause:
Anger and aggression ("roid rage").
Paranoia.
Delusions.
Heart attack.

Yeh long term use as in a couple of years. She's on them about 3 weeks.

Strazdas

SB_Part2 wrote: »

Yeh long term use as in a couple of years. She's on them about 3 weeks.

If she was taking testosterone, it could make her aggressive pretty quickly though (along with plenty of other unwanted side effects for a woman).

maurv1

Strazdas wrote: »

If she was taking testosterone, it could make her aggressive pretty quickly though (along with plenty of other unwanted side effects for a woman).

LIke growing man bits ,I believe :eek:

JP Liz V1

I think Hayley or Sash could handle Laura if she tried to beat them up

What happened to Damo and Laura's brother Mark who beat up Suzanne, is he still in Galway

Radio5

What is the name of the guy whose only line seems to be -

'I've made more posters or has everyone forgotten about Katy!!!!!!!!!!'


Thanks.

walshb

Radio5 wrote: »

What is the name of the guy whose only line seems to be -

'I've made more posters or has everyone forgotten about Katy!!!!!!!!!!'


Thanks.

Emmet, or better known as Forty Coats/Eskimo Boy!

walshb

Radio5 wrote: »

What is the name of the guy whose only line seems to be -

'I've made more posters or has everyone forgotten about Katy!!!!!!!!!!'


Thanks.

BTW, don't let Eskimo boy fool you with his grief. One minute he may appear fit to be sectioned because of his heartache and grief over KT , and within an ad break he's livin' large on the card tables of Carrigstown, making a killing in poker. He's a gas man is Eskimo Boy.

dee_mc

JP Liz V1 wrote:

What happened to Damo and Laura's brother Mark who beat up Suzanne, is he still in Galway

I never remember him beating up Suzanne?!
He barely gets a mention anyway - maybe Damo and Laura will Skype with him on Christmas day now that you've mentioned him!

JP Liz V1

dee_mc wrote: »

I never remember him beating up Suzanne?!
He barely gets a mention anyway - maybe Damo and Laura will Skype with him on Christmas day now that you've mentioned him!

I thought he beat up Suzanne in the park for her beating up Damo

dee_mc

JP Liz V1 wrote:

I thought he beat up Suzanne in the park for her beating up Damo

Oh it's quite possible, I just have no memory of it!
Suzanne actress played that storyline pretty well actually - I remember a scene where she deliberately burnt Damo with an iron and it was really disturbing. FC has had a decent stab at tackling some real issues over the years.

muggles

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I think Hayley or Sash could handle Laura if she tried to beat them up

What happened to Damo and Laura's brother Mark who beat up Suzanne, is he still in Galway

No he got out of Galway. Has since made it as far as London to sing on Britains Got Talent! :D

MelanieC

muggles wrote: »

No he got out of Galway. Has since made it as far as London to sing on Britains Got Talent! :D

That was the first Mark! We've had Mark 2 since then and presumably a Mark 3 is on the cards if he ever decides to make the lengthy trip home from Galway. The Farrahs still hold the record tho. They could form a girlband between all of them!

Wanderer2010

BuilderPlumber wrote: »

Interestingly the main characters in FC changed rather dramatically over the years. Back say in 2001, Charlie, Mags, Bela, Rita, Leo, Nicola, Donal Maher, Christy, Renee, etc. were among the main characters and these are now either gone or reduced. Only Paul, Niamh, Dermot and Carol remain major characters who also were then.

On your last point, Carol is an enormously over rated actress in FC and there is a whole community of people who will gush over how fantastic and realistic actress she is when in reality she is really nothing special and relies on the same old "rough family" storylines to keep her in the show. Who cares if she had an awful upbringing or slept with scumbags etc? Is that her whole thing for her time in this show- rough partners, fathers, abused as a kid etc etc wow, she lights up a cigarette and spends 3 episodes hinting at sexual abuse, yawn.

Dusty Springfield (Robbies mother) spent 10 minutes chatting about her childhood in the Laundry and I was transfixed, I don't even think I blinked. Now THAT is acting, same with Heather who is deliciously evil and has an edge about her that makes her storylines fantastically entertaining. And yet.....no IFTA nomination for Heather. Why not? One for predictable old Carol and nothing for Heather?? An absolute disgrace.

The main problem with FC is its populated by a handful of people who have acted all their lives and can outshine the rest of the cast just by being in the same ROOM as them. Mary from Glenroe, top actress, ditto Bob, Renee, Heather, even Tommy Dillon and in fairness Oisin is a shocking good young actor. But the others.....Paul, Orla, Charlotte, Sash, Debbie, Wayne, Pete, Doug etc....mildly interesting but they are simply not as good as proper actors and actresses and we are subjected to their crap year after year. My only hope with this show is that the current KT story will have some kind of interesting conclusion but I'm not holding my breath..