So I got sucked into watching Shortland Street again and after a dire January and February the show has somewhat improved. Though the biggest problem is ambitious ideas with shoddy execution and awful writing.
All soaps are guilty of this, but I’m sick of the writers writing characters off for a holiday in show. It isn’t realistic to have Dawn swan off back to the farm for weeks multiple times already in the year when she’s only a nurse. Just have the characters not seen, they don’t always have to write in an explanation for their absences.
I’ll address the Carla story first. I love Carla first off. I loved her back in the 90s when I got to see the episodes years ago and I still love her. What I don’t love is how this story is progressing . It’s a problem Shortland Street has struggled with a lot lately and that’s nuance. Carla just has to be bat shit crazy. She just to be OTT manipulative and devious. Why? Why not just write her complex manner, which the writers do sometimes and then undo the next episode by making he do something outrageous.
Chris never should have even contemplated firing Carla as there was no grounds, just decades old innuendo and gossip. Her credentials checked out and there were no formal complaints. If Maeve, Leanne and Eddie had a problem with Carla and her therapy why didn’t they lodge an official complaint and nip it in the bud? Poor writing.
I did love Nicole mentioning to Chris why didn’t he have a problem when he first meet Carla over a month ago and Chris couldn’t even remember meeting her which Nicole then accused him of only remembering attractive women he could fuck and say maybe there was animosity held over from back in the day because she wouldn’t sleep with him. Burn.
Yes Carla has boundary issues and treating Nicole as a friend is all sorts of inappropriate but Carla does have valid points. Drew is misogynistic and does treat attractive women differently, Leanne is problematic, Tess is man crazy and relies on men and her looks far too much and she helped Damo’s self esteem, so I’m a little sick of all her help and valid points being tossed aside because the writers have decided to make her a psycho therefore invalidating all her work and correct actions.
Seriously she taps her fingers on the desk and everyone is magically hypnotized, except for Leanne of course. Utterly stupid and embarrassing. So Karl buggered off because she hynotized him but continues to stay away and ghost Tess. Crap writing.
Speaking of crap writing when Nicole and Carla are talking at her place after Carla has babysat Pele, Carla talks of her strained relationship with her sister and she says how lucky Nicole is for just having brothers and Nicole agrees. Hello, Nicole had a half sister Morgan Braithwaite, she was the reason why Nicole even came to Shortland Street in the first place.
All Carla needs is some therapy for herself. It’s sad she has no self esteem and is constantly lonely and isolated and always misunderstood.
The other major story is the laughable sex trafficking one. It’s just woeful.
So Theo breaks into a location, by herself and happens to stumble across a shipping container filled with sex workers in under two minutes and then takes on one baddie and liberates the workers and just as the police are showing up they allow Louie into a dangerous situation straight after them contaminating a crime scene. Rolls fucking eyes.
Then Zara gets involved and lets it consume her life (so much for promising Eve to look after her sons) until she is most likely murdered, that is after she gets shot in the arm at a protest rally.
So Michelle gets in on the action, gets jealous of Zara of hogging the limelight, tries to get involved until it threatens her political career, then umms and ahhs repeatedly over her involvement then her old never mentioned before friend rocks up conveniently when she knows the corruption goes to the top and puts pressure on her to leave it alone . Then just as things are progressing to the next stage Theo in one episode tells everyone she got the job no one knew she applied for and leaves in said episode after she was the driving force for the whole thing and getting everyone involved, including laying emotional guilt on everyone. Fantastic writing yet again.
Now onto the characters individually.
I hate Esther. Horrible character. She says Curtis is her soul mate, says Curtis wouldn’t mind her repeatedly fucking her baby daddy, then backflips and calls it cheating, yet still drops her knickers anyway and gets mad at Eddie for getting the wrong idea. Okay hun.
All throughout this Esther gets the Head of Surgery gig and Desi accidentally lets slip that she is paid significantly less than Boyd, so is mad and claims misogyny and racism. Yet she is a junior surgeon, has been at the hospital for significantly less than Boyd and is not as qualified or accomplished.
So after being rewarded playing the race card, even though Chris admits her gives her special treatment already (You know young, pretty and being a family friend), she is repeatedly shown she is incompetent and out of her depth.
Colour me shocked because I love TK now. After years of being a macho he man he has now matured and mellowed and I really like him. I love his partnering with CeCe and felt he has been unfairly maligned in multiple stories this year.
When Waimarama’s father was admitted to the ED, Marty, Dickhead Dawn and Louie all openly contradicted TK’s order of discharge when he is HoD and made him out to be uncaring when he’s doing his job and refusing to give preferential treatment to a staff member.
Then there’s when he was accidentally stoned and Louie blabbed all over the hospital almost costing him his job, after he tried to give Louie space and respect despite having Gangja plants growing in his house around his young teen daughter.
Dickhead Dawn, dear god how I would love to stick her head in a blender. She is still such an annoying idiot. She lurches from one manic fad to the next. First it was hoarding stray dogs and traipsing all the dogs around the hospital (how did she get through security), then it was her aggressive competitiveness now it’s pushing Prince to work harder and take more shifts and bring in more money to buy a house after she has spent weeks off work going to the country.
Desi is another idiot. I do laugh at her comments sometimes and she is funny, but she’s way overused and she goes too OTT most of the times. Most of the things she says and does gets no backlash, take the ‘affectionate slurs’ against lesbians. Would the writers dare repeat some of the ‘cute slang’ directed at Maoris or POC like they had Desi do. Judging by how quick the Maori entry at Urban Dictionary was cleaned I think not. Sick of the hypocrisy when it comes to diversity.
I was also finally liking Boyd too, especially his pairing with Zara, now that’s gone to custard. Shame I was really loving Boyd, Zara, Rani and the twins together. I was also coming to love Zara too just as she was offed.
I like Damo and was offended at the Damo’s bully storyline. I hated how Prince told Damo to just get over it and move on after Damo was physically and mentally abused for years and still has PTSD over it. Not to mention Damo still struggles with low self worth and poor self esteem. Then the writers copped out and gave the bully cancer (how emotionally manipulative) and after convincing Damo that he too was a bully (thankfully Desi saw through this BS) had Damo run around for him, helping him and copping abuse only for some lame apology at the end in a kumbaya moment. F off.
I really like Michelle and she works well with Chris even if she’s too good for him at times.
I love Cece but wish she wasn’t such a martyr. Rani has a father and Boyd she would have been fine to go spend time with her dying sister in Fiji. She clearly wanted to but was finding excuses to stay.
Thank god Theo has gone. 'nuff said.
Little Louie and his gigantic ego. Yeah Rani really wants you and can’t stop thinking about you after her mother is most likely dead. Didn’t like him either in the silly ganja storyline or him fucking a guy to get into Theo’s knickers. Yes kids it’s okay to sleep with someone to impress someone else and use them as a sex pawn.
I went off Sophia too when she was horrible to Rani. She’s been nice to Rani lately but dumping Rani just because you wanted to be mature and have mature friends that weren’t at school(which is probably one of the most immature things ever) only to come crawling back because you had no better offers was spineless.
Leanne is just a nasty, petty vindictive bitch. Telling everyone who will listen what an ungrateful cow Nicole is when she is shocked why Nicole doesn’t want her in her life. Insults her daughter’s parenting, causes conflict in her son’s love life, constantly goes behind her daughters back and against her wishes and undermines her daughters marriage almost on a weekly basis. I wish Carla enacts on her threat and bashes her head in just like Bernie.
Then she is constantly goading and harassing Carla at every opportunity, filming her illegally and is guilty of exactly what she is accusing Carla of, unprofessional (when she barges into Carla’s office and starts snooping), manipulative (running to Maeve to put pressure on Nicole to change her feelings) and being a witch (demanding to Zara that it’s either her or Carla when she isn’t even employed at the hospital or pushing Chris to fire Carla).
I like Drew and Harper together.
Loathe Eddie.
Marty is too pushy and desperate. Love Waimarama and really feel sorry for her.
I’ve already typed enough so I don’t have it in me to launch a tirade against Maeve.
Love Rani & Nicole.
Tilly is a little cow. Don’t like. I don’t like Pele either. The other kids are good.
