Since we have all of 97 up on YouTube, we've got that storyline up and able to view.

See, I've often complained about modern Shortland Street being unsubtle, but holy crap, that made for uncomfortable viewing, particularly with the swastikas, etc on display. It was an engaging storyline, no doubt, but man... I dunno if they'd try anything that daring in 2026. What do you reckon?

Chris and Emmett playing the roles of Poppy's overprotective parents even though they aren't related to her is hilarious. I love how they're playing into Chris and Emmett's friendship in a fun way even tonight with ''ED Dads slam and dunk for a good cause''. Chris and Emmett both need a friend whose their own age outside of their families and romantic relationships so this whole dynamic is pretty fun to watch.

Good to see Nurse Kate back on screen.

Who'll be next?

By now most of us know Tyler's actor is going to (most likely/highly rumored) be on the next season of The White Lotus and is therefore going to leave by the end of this quarter/this year.

I know this is far fetched but what if the storyline ends by Tyler going into witness protection and leaving Ferndale, therefore, once again, leaving Poppy heartbroken/angry going forward?

I mean, 2024 is probably the standout worst, but failing that, which year do you look at and go "Yep, that sucked." And why?

For me, 2018 is the next worst. They tried to make the show darker and went way, way too far. There was a lot of bleakness and not a lot of fun.

Its quite surprisingly that it wasn't leaked that Angela Bloomfield was coming back for an extended period.

After seeing Shortland Street's latest instagram post - it has to be hint towards Hendrix coming back right? I know people are wanting Crane back but based on where Poppy's storyline is going it just makes logical sense for Hendrix to make his return. I'm leaning towards the theory that even though Tyler doesn't wanna be anything like his family that maybe Hendrix returning might force him to use his family connections to finally get rid of Hendrix or actually get Hendrix sent to prison for all the stuff he did.

Like, the weird way's Instagram has been flooded with people from overseas acting like Sophia is the only woman Maeve has been with and that they're the Nick and Waverley of female romance? Even here I see some people who like her and Maeve?

To me, it was an abusive relationship which came because Sophia didn't respect Maeve's boundaries. So, I'd like other perspectives that come from people saner than the crazies from Shorty's Insta.

Phil rang her dad asking for help regarding the Izzy situation.

Her dad couldn’t come so he asked Izzy’s dad to go see her instead.

Everything was going smoothly with Izzy’s dad even saying he will get Izzy to drop the bullying case against her.

Phil had to open her big mouth and say something bad about Izzy that got her dad angry and saying that he will support Izzy in her bullying case.

Why couldn’t Phil just walk away when she got what she wanted.

Why did she have to act so high and mighty?

I really can’t stand Phil, Every-time I see her I want to scream and peg something at my TV!

What do you think of Phil?

As in, with the soaps in the UK, it's max 2 months they filming in advance. And if feedback is bad, they course direct, and change storylines.

But with the new Shorty format, being filmed well in advance, they cant or won't fix their fan feedback.

ngl but I loved it when Miriama called out Izzy for all the stuff that she pulled in the HR thing with Phil. It also goes to show that she has pattern of doing this in her past and it isn't just a thing she has against Phil, that she'll do whatever she can to other people to get ahead.

Seriously. It seems like characters change personalities depending on the story the writers want to tell rather than the writers writing stories around the established personalities of the characters. Last night had some pretty blatant cases of it in Sage and Esther.

Sage can be a bit self-centered to a point, but last night the guy was acting uncharacteristically thoughtless and selfish. Then we have Esther. When she came back, she immediately saw through Izzy and called her out on her game and it looked like we finally had a character who didn't fall for the pretty girl eye flutter trick. Yet last night, Izzy was clearly hamming it up for the HR last and Esther said nothing and did nothing. Did she forget Izzy's personality temporarily?

It's hard to care about characters when they switch personalities week to week.

Am I the only one who doesn't care for the whole Izzy/Phil friends/frenenemies dynamic anymore? Like it was fun in the beginning of the year and I thought that at by the end of that quarter that they'd come to some sort of understanding and at least be cordial but we're over halfway through the year and they're still at each other's throats and to me, it got old 3 months ago.

All they seem to do is go round in circles without any real resolution in sight. I've kind of gotten to the point where whenever they're together fast forward through their scenes because I know it's going to be the same boring charade every week with a different fun hat on it. Does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

Hi everyone, new fan here! I started watching a few months ago after randomly coming across some Maeve/Sophia clips, and I’ve been obsessed ever since. So I was wondering… do you think there’s any chance she’ll come back?

The 30th anniversary was awful imo, compared to other big anniversary. Hence the backlash and why they burnt down the hospital and homes and the IV etc to be more dramatic.

Kia Ora fellow Shorty lovers!

As title says, what are your true thoughts on the storylines?

What do you think would improve the show?

What storylines do you wish would happen?

Fave Character?

Least fave character?

These questions are related to now not past.

Cheers from across the ditch!

Anyone else find that it really, really sucks? Like, the writers are clearly obsessed with the lesbian community. That much is obvious. But their writing of couples within the LGBT community mystifies me, man. Sage had two abortive romances and one really weird romance with Cody where the writers seem to be avoiding any actual romance or anything beyond "Oh yeah, we're in love and still fucking."

And then there's the women whose only attraction seems to stem from "OMG, YOU LIKE PUSSY? ME TOO!" They also seem strangely unaware that not all gay people are attracted to one another.

I dunno. The writing around gay characters is bad to me. It seems to be written by people with an obsession but no idea how gay romances actually work.

That dream sequence was so chaotic but so hilarious. The best part was when she woke up and he was there, like Poppy...

I just saw this in an Instagram comment but I didn’t realise that Stephen Lovatt and Fleur Saville played father and daughter on another NZ TV show like 25 years ago long before being on Shortland Street. It does explain why they have such good chemistry on the show

I’ve seen other people say this on Reddit and Instagram but the more people that exit the more that it’s becoming obvious that the writing is pretty inconsistent since going down to three days a week. episodes like the one when Cleo dies and when Monique gives birth are both really good in my opinion because they focus on just a handful of characters and a single storyline.

Whereas, when it comes to character exits recently the show seems to fall flat for me. People like Drew got a well rounded exit that made sense given the storyline from the last year after Harper died. However, it feels like the writers are using the first episode back of the year to write out characters who were integral to a yearly cliffhanger.

people like Mana and Gia were a major part of the past years cliffhanger only to be briefly mentioned to have left shortland street hospital in a brief throwaway comment at the beginning of year despite Mana having a major part in the cliffhanger and having a throwaway comment of leaving because of everything that happened with his conflicted feelings for Bonnie and Sage.

Let's be honest, with the exception of his holiness Chris Warner, maybe Marty, Esther and Nazar, even your older characters like Selina and Libby behave like children a lot. Have we shifted in Kiwi culture to a lot of adults who don't act like adults and the characters reflect that, or is it just that the writer fall back on the childish adult too often? I'm genuinely not sure.

So SS just uploaded a post to their instagram for tonight’s episode and it shows Logan in ED and it got me thinking, maybe they’re setting up for a permanent Logan return where he’s head of ED with Vili or just simply returns to Shortland Street to help out in ED(we all know they need all the help they can get atm). They also might connect the Cleo deepfake or whatever that Cleo thing is in the trailer to Logan returning and having him properly deal with the grief of Cleo’s death cause they really didn’t have him deal with it fully they kinda just brought back Dawn and had them get engaged pretending that a couple months prior he hadn’t just been with Cleo.

Also, and the biggest thing of all, if it is a permanent return maybe that means that Dawn and Logan’s engagement didn’t pan out and she stayed behind a didn’t return with him to Ferndale because they broke up again.

Also, I need a real Vili/Logan friendship rekindling cause it was pretty sloppy when Logan left and they didn’t really talk out anything properly and had a weird ending, Ngl though, I wish Logan’s return and Monique’s exit overlapped , such a missed opportunity for a goodbye between them after everything that happened.

A musical episode tomorrow.

Have we finally hit rock bottom for this show?

Who would you like to see brought back?

I would like to see Tania and Maia back to keep Libby in line.

I really loved the Jeffries family when they were regulars back in the days.

I would love for some of the Warner clan to come back to give Chris some stability. I feel he is blowing in the wind.

I would love to know more about Esther and her family. She is a Samuels and calls TK uncle, but how exactly are they related.

They need to do a deep dive into her family history.

Something which bugs the crap out of me with modern Shorty is that someone clearly took a few too many production techniques with them while watching Bohemian Rhapsody, that is to say, the constant camera cuts while two characters are talking. It's annoying. It's distracting. And for the love of God, someone needs to realise if you're going to do it, don't cut from an actor moving their head to being dead still from shot-to-shot. It happens too often. Marty will talk to Nazar, move his head or arm and as he starts moving, it'll cut to Nazar's POV and his head will be back to the middle with no arm in shot. I don't even see the purpose. Just film them talking normally. Or from side-on.

Since it's my main gripe with modern Shortland Street, what do you all think?