Febuary 6th 2010

[Poida]

I cant believe it's been six years since he escaped! Wow! That has gone quickly! It'd still be awesome to have him back though and have it as a special with just him, Smithy, Jack, Neil and Mickey. I'd LOVE to see it! Make the final time though this time.

[Bill Angel]

I think I'm mostly over the whole Beach thing.

Although I can see a storyline with a skeleton being found only for forensics to find it's Beach...

[Matt Newham]

You can't be serious - Sun Hill's most notorious officer found rotting in the back of a cupboard?  That would be like the ending of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"!  I feel that Beech needs to go out in a blaze of glory - after all he's done, the character could really do nothing less - he was too intelligent and too desperate to just let himself fade away.  That being said, I thought that "Beech is Back" would have been an adequate ending to the Beech saga, but now that he's back out (thanks a lot Marquess), he needs to be brought back and finished off.

[Bill Angel]

I was thinking more the station garden than the stationary cupboard.

[Poida]

I saw a fan fic ages ago where there was a stand off on the top of the station, where Beech had nowhere else to go, Neil and Mickey were at the bottom of the buiding watching whilst Jack and Smithy were on the roof with Beech tryong to coax him down and that it was all over. He did some spiel about he cant go back inside again then he throws himself backwards off the building landing near where Neil and Mickey are standing. He mutters summink then dies. Perfect way out and ending!

[Matt Newham]

That sounds similar to my fanfic story on this site - you may be thinking about the same post.  If it is, you've got a couple of the characters confused, but that's the general gist.  If it's not, I may have to pull mine off the site before someone accuses me of plagiarism!

[Poida]

It probably is yours Matt, I wasn't 100% with the characters so i just guessed from which i remembered. Really good idea you had! You should finda way to submit it to them!

[Matt Newham]

Not a lot of chance of that - organisations like Thames and ITV are unbelievably picky about where their scripts come from - it really is who you know.  That being said, I would always love to know how Ronnie Barker managed to hide behind the pseudonym Gerald Wiley for so many years - no one in the BBC (including Ronnie Corbett) knew that it was Barker!

My fanfic story is in the fanfic section, in the thread entitled "The Bill's Final Scene" (pardon the shameless plug).

[Poida]

Yeah the name clicks it for me now. It was definitley yours that i read. It's a pity that they're so picky. They should set up an annual competition so people can submit a script and the winner's episode gets devoloped into an actual episode. they could give them a a payment and their name in the credits, but to stopall the 'legal issuses' crap get them to sign a waiver that they wont try to claim royalties down the track.

[Matt Newham]

That would be GREAT - mind you, who would want to be picking through 700 different Bill scripts, trying to work out which one was the best?  Mind you, I'd love to enter something like that; maybe something to finish off Beech, give Burnside some closure with Ronnie Buchan, or do something to develop Jack and Mickey's relationship, which I think has been ignored for too long.

Characters that I wouldn't mind bringing back:

Beech
Burnside
Heaton
Okaro
Daly, Deakin or Stanton (but only in association with Beech)
Galloway (just to find out what actually happened to him!)
Stamp
Hollis
Carver
Ackland
Cryer

To be fair though, I would hate to see the show just being an endless parade of "Look Who's Back!"

[Bill Angel]

I've honestly got to say I don't think I really want to see any of those characters back. They have all moved on their stories told.

As for Galloway and Burnside - I thinl they are both long retired from the police force and are sitting in the pub telling stories about their glory days.


My list would read more like (and this is only in Guest Roles as part of joint opperations from other parts of the police force)

Gary Best
Luke Ashton (if only so that once he could win against Smithy or at least be allowed to leave on a high note, a sucess -  Madquest really had it in for him)
Suzie Sims
Debbie MacAllister
Yvonne Hemmingway
Lewis Hardy

Maybe Dave but it would have to be a really good storyline to justify going that far back.

Actually what I'd like  is for former characters to be in the background - witnesses to stuff - things like that. I mean they are suposed to live in the area.

[Matt Newham]

I think we'd have to agree to disagree on those lists Bill - the only ones I'd be interested in seeing back would be Luke Ashton or Quinnan.

I do, however, like your idea for ex-characters to be witnesses or something like that (even victims like with Roach).  What would it be like if there were a shocking murder, and CID were to find out that the link in it all is actually Reg Hollis?  As Reg never had a farewell, his reaction to being involved with Sun Hill again would be far from pre-ordained.

[Bill Angel]

I can certainly imagin Reg turning up as a key witness to a crime - taking down the vital licence plate no. becuase it's a habit. He's also a character who is unlikely to have moved away from the area. Deakin, Daly, Stanton wouldn't live in Sun Hill anymore the job has moved them around the country. Unfortunalty for the fans I don't think the producers would have him back.

As for agreeing to disagree absolutly that's what you'd expect from a show that's run for 25 years.

----- edited to add

you know who might also be interesting to see again - Nick Klien - there are enough people who remmber him and we know nothing about what happened to him after he left.

[Matt Newham]

True that - actually, you could probably start another thread for people whose stories were left open for a return, and then never did.  As well as Klein, what about:

Beech
Burnside (as previously mentioned)
Glaze (took the money and ran, but to where?)
Okaro (would never be a full-time return, but shouldn't his promotion leave him in touch with characters like Jack?)
Weston (promised to return when joining Heaton's squad)
Galloway (only for previously mentioned reasons)

There are plenty of other good officers who remained in the police squad, and so could make returns (Yorkie Smith, Deakin, Daly, Holmes, Heaton, Turner, Kezia Walker, Lennox, Nixon, the list goes on...), and giving them one or two one-off appearances could make for interesting viewing to see what happened to them, but it would have to be in the context of a relevant and quality story - I'd rather the producers say "We've got a great people smuggling story here and a part that Heaton could fill really well!" rather than, "It's about time we got Weston back - what material can we come up with for her?"

Opinions, Bill (or anyone else)?

[Bill Angel]

You are missing the other half of the question - Do the actors want to come back?

In the case of John Salthouse, as I remmber and I might be wrong, the answer is no. I don't think Lisa Maxwell wants to come back either as her last year was pretty traumatic.

As for Burnside - that story is more than told - he came back quiet frequently for a time and had his own spin off show.

As for the rest maybe but I think the writers want to get on with creating their own characters than going back to someone elses. Particularly if they have to pay royalties to past writers. It might be nice but given the show is pretty much a new show I'm not sure we can go back no matter how much we might want too.