[WillPS]

As an aside I always thought it was odd that Brookside had two characters with the same name (albeit spelt differently). You had Jacqui Dixon and Jackie Corkhill in at the same time.

Soaps, as a rule of thumb, tend to avoid having characters with the same name at the same time as it does be become confusing. If Jacqui D had married into the Corkhill family there would have been two Jacqui/Jackie Corkhill.

Jimmy: eh, Lindsey have you seen Jacqui/Jackie?
Lindsey: which one?

The only other I can think of that's similar is Bet and Betty in Corrie but they're different enough to not cause a problem. And of course Annie Walker used to refer to Betty as Elizabeth for the avoidance of doubt.

I'd never thought about that. Jacqui was normally called her full name by her father I think which perhaps helped, they kind of moved in different circles I guess. Particularly in the era when you Jacqui, Katie and Rachel flat sharing.

[James2001]

Revisiting another storyline I remember watching first time round- Ron Dixon getting in a turf war with his Moby, and finding out the other man was called "Dick Ronson"- i.e. Ron's name with the syllables rearranged- a bizarre but amusing break from reality.

And a detail I'd forgotten, after Dick gets Ron's Moby crushed, Ron mounts the cube on a plinth in his garden with a plaque and photo, another break from reality considering how heavy the cube would have been, you'd need a crane to get it onto the garden!

On that note, I've never been able to take the Borg in Star Trek seriously because of that storyline, I always think of Ron blubbering over his crushed Moby when I see a Borg cube and burst out laughing.

[James2001]

The Brookside episodes website has been down for several days, which is disapointing... I probably should have downloaded the zip file while I had a chance. Lots of interesting tidbits in there and a good companion to watching the old episodes.

One thing that got mentioned in there was one of the characters saying "Meadowcroft Park" (one of the fake TV programmes they had characters watching) was "shown on a different day in Wales", which was likely a reference to how S4C showed Brookside out of prime time.

And on the S4C note, I remember when I was on holiday in Wales in 1996 noting that the break captions there had the S4C logo instead of the End of Part One/Part Two text, which was unusual. Though at the time Brookside (and Hollyoaks) had the Channel 4 logo on the break captions, so maybe they made those alternate captions to hide that. Sadly can't find any examples online.

Looking at what I can find, the Channel 4 logo on the break captions first appeared some time in 1995, it was still there in January 1999, but gone by March, looks like it was removed shortly before the Channel 4 revamp happened.


Another thing to notice is during the brief period after the show went 16:9, but still used the old titles cropped to 16:9, they used this bizarre mock-like font on the titles and break captions. Doubly bizarre because the old font was still in use on the end credits
   

Also as this video shows, the last few episodes made in 4:3 for some reason used this new break caption cropped to 4:3- so we have "ookside Close", as well as the picture of the close during the end credits cropped to 16:9 and back to 4:3 (but still used the uncropped opening titles).
www.youtube.com 

The episodes immediately prior to this still had the uncropped versions:
www.youtube.com 

[WillPS]

Unusual that effort was gone to in order to cover up the Channel 4 logo on S4C. They weren't shy about the fact their English language programming was from Channel 4. It'll be interesting to see what these turn up with if we get to it (I presume this is after the era Sky One finished with, about 94ish?).

Was Brookside sold internationally I wonder? Did one of the Irish broadcasters take it?

Worth remembering that the Brookside omnibus was widescreen a fair bit earlier as part of the PAL Plus trials (which I think also included Fifteen-to-One of all things) but at the weird aspect ratio of 2:1. I wonder if those endboards are a hangover from those trials?

[James2001]

Sky one showed episodes from 1994-96, so they would have covered some of the era that the Channel 4 logo was on the break captions. Though while I did watch some 94-95 episodes on there (I remember seeing some of the "killer virus" storyline- something that's become far too close to home the last few years!), it was being shoved on at 3AM by the time they'd have got to episodes with the Channel 4 logo on the break caption, so I can't vouch for the whether they showed it.

All the examples I've seen of the Brookside omnibus (sadly none seem to be online any more) from the late 1995-early 1999 period was just the 4:3 episodes shown during the week cropped to 14:9 and panned upwards (so all the cropping was from the bottom of the picture). Was very strange that they did this, but it was like it for probably around 3 years!

Hollyoaks on the other hand was made in 16:9 from day 1, so the omnibus in that case did go out in a 16:9 letterbox and was showing extra picture compared to the weekday showings.

I think I might have a couple of examples comparing the Brookside omnibuses from around 1996/97 to the weekday episodes in my Metropol file upload gallery, though I'll need to dig through it to check.

Edit: dug through and found this one I did of the start of the title sequence... but I can't find the one I did from actually within the episode itself (I know I made one that compared a shot of the Dixons sat at the kitchen table), maybe I deleted it or never uploaded it

[Si-Co]

Was Brookside sold internationally I wonder? Did one of the Irish broadcasters take it?

It was sold to Australia and shown on SBS, which was primarily a foreign.language station (make your own jokes up!). They only showed the first five or six years of episodes, five nights a week in the mid-late 80s. I presume when they had almost caught up with the UK they decided not to continue.

[James2001]

I have read about Beth Jordache's lesbian kiss being shown in a lot of countries, but I think that may be a reference to it being shown during the London olympics opening ceremony rather than countries actually broadcasting the show.

[James2001]

Next batch of episodes tomorrow anyway, we'll be seeing Alan Partridge (A-ha! Oh, wait... not that one) for the first time

[James2001]

Episode 41, Roger shouting from upstairs that he can't get it up and he comes downstairs telling Heather he needs her help to get it up.

Turns out he's talking about a camp bed

[Si-Co]

Is it just me or is the language starting to be toned down?