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Weekly Reviews > Episodes 4348-4352 by Steve

UK Broadcast: Monday, December 8th - Friday, December 12th, 2003
Written by: David Hannam, Elizabeth Packett, Phillipa Burne, Andrew Muir, Drew Profitt
Directed by: Jeffrey Walker, Gary Conway

Singing stars, Saints Day and sex with no strings - it was certainly a week of unexpected surprises...

Harold found that his relationship with his son was becoming further strained this week. Deciding to make an effort with David, Harold visited him at work, but this only led to more problems, as David was too busy to speak with him. That evening, Harold was horrified when his son told him to make an appointment next time, and Liljana tried to get them to be honest with each other. Unfortunately, it all backfired as David told his father that he’d always felt neglected and Harold said that he found his son’s displays of wealth embarrassing, calling Serena spoilt. Before he knew it, Harold’s newly-returned family had moved into one of Lassiter’s apartments. By the end of the week, it was obvious that the family weren’t coping very well with their lack of space. Liljana wanted to celebrate Saint’s Day, an old Serbian tradition to rid cleanse the home, and felt that Lassiter’s wasn’t the most appropriate place to do it. Lucki ly, she bumped into Harold and managed to engineer a meeting between father and son, which resulted in David agreeing to return to Harold’s home, at least on a temporary basis. Liljana thought she’d won, but could David’s discovery that his offices had been padlocked and put up for lease have anything to do with his sudden change of heart?

The chemistry between the three new Bishops is already very evident and hopefully this will continue as they are integrated further into the show. It’s also interesting that so far only the viewers know about David’s financial crisis, and, with scenes of Liljana out shopping and Serena using her father’s credit card, it can’t be long before he’s going to have to admit the truth…

Lou also found a new lease of life this week with the arrival of Nina’s mother, Trixie Tucker. Earlier in the week, the unhappy publican had confided in Connor that he felt like his life was going nowhere, with scam after scam. He explained to Connor how he used to be mayor of Erinsborough and had been surrounded by family and now he was reduced to living in the pub, flogging dodgy goods on the side. Later in the week, however, Lou was surprised to see one of his biggest crushes, stage star Trixie Tucker in the pub, later finding out she was Nina’s mum. He quickly began to flirt with her and jumped at the chance to have her perform in the pub for him. Unfortunately, without her husband and singing partner, Nina’s father, Nick, Trixie failed to set the stage alight and was only rescued when her daughter joined her. Afterwards, Lou and Trixie were thrilled with the reception and wanted to make it a regular gig, christening them ‘The Tucker Twins’, but it seemed that Nina wasn’t quite so keen…

Wendy Stapleton is a wonderful addition to the cast as Trixie, bringing new dimensions to the character of Nina and breathing new life into Lou. The scenes where Trixie struggled to cope alone on the stage were painful to watch, in a good way, while Lou’s speech earlier in the week about feeling like a nobody was great, as it really echoed the viewers’ feelings on the matter. Hopefully with Trixie alongside him, Lou will now have some new stories.

After trying to chat up a younger guy in the Coffee Shop, Izzy was bluntly told that she was too old and there began her quest to regain her sexual allure. Meanwhile, Jack was still smarting from his break-up with Nina and things didn’t get any better when she refused to speak to him, preferring to sit and chat with Connor. When Nina and Connor later attended a charity ball at Lassiter’s, Jack tried to get in and, spotting her ex at the door, Nina kissed Connor to try and warn Jack that she was over him. A distraught Jack had previously had an encounter with Izzy at the pub, as she invited him to her hotel room for some fun and, at the sight of Nina kissing Connor, he went up to her room. It was soon made clear that she only wanted him for sex, as she quickly told him to leave afterwards. But the attraction was clear, and when number 32 was empty for a while, Izzy called Jack over for another afternoon of fun. After nearl y catching them together, Sky became suspicious about Izzy’s behaviour. When she later overheard Izzy on the phone to Jack, calling him by his new nickname, Dr. Love, Sky jumped to completely the wrong conclusion, assuming Izzy was actually having an affair with Dr. Karl Kennedy…

This whole situation has been building up for weeks and weeks, and it’s great to see so many other characters and storylines become embroiled into one big mess. The catalyst for all this, Izzy, is a joy to watch, as she manipulates everyone around her, with the only people seeing through her, Sky and Susan, being portrayed as the ones in the wrong.

After previously agreeing to help Rose Belker with her financial problems, Toadie and Tim got more involved in the case this week. Although Tim was eager to get rid of the case, believing it was making them very little money at all, Toadie wanted to do the decent thing and help the woman, especially as he was worried that she was being conned by her son-in-law, Tom. Fortunately, Toadie managed to get evidence from a suspicious neighbour that Tom had been tampering with Rose’s fuse box and trying to make her believe she was going senile and Tom was forced to admit his scam. Rose later came to thank the boys for their help and present them with $1500 for their fee, leaving Tim, who had complained about the woman on several occasions, feeling very red-faced.

It’s great that characters like Tim and Rose can be used in storylines like this, as it really strengthens the sense of community on the show. Other touches like Tim being interested in Izzy and Rose talking about her daughter and grandson only serve to make the characters more than just guest characters as time goes on. Meanwhile, it’s great to see Toadie doing something other than fooling around with Stuart and Connor, especially after such excellent performances earlier this year, and hopefully his career will be explored more as the weeks go on.

Finally, Lyn was thrilled when the problems with her ‘two dads’ were finally resolved, as Henry and Charlie made an uneasy truce after realising how much it meant to their daughter. Karl’s problem with alcohol grew worse as he hid some in his bike flask, but was shocked when Susan borrowed his bike for a ride with Lyn. Karl caught them just in time and poured it away, claiming he’d used the water to clean his tools. Other issues arose for the Kennedys when it seemed that they were no closer to tracking down the mysterious Jamie Clarke. However, after several arguments, Joe finally opened the envelope to find a shares certificate made out to Jamie, which they later found out meant that the boy was $80,000 richer…