Family Affairs

Since I started watching Family Affairs in November 2004 I've been hooked, I was honestly astonished to find such a fantastic show on a channel such as five. Story lines like Denise's rape, Pete's demise and Chrissy's cancer have kept me glued to my screen for these past 13 months and I for one am going to miss this fabulous soap a great deal when it comes to an end tomorrow night.

Many characters have left Charnham this year and the show has suffered huge losses but still struggled on, August 3rd was a dark day indeed when I was horrified to find Family Affairs had gotten the chop.

While Pete & Eileen Callan, Sadie & Pamela Hargreaves, Dave Matthews, Jake Walker, Lucy Day, Tanya Woods and Conrad Williams were very big parts of the show, It has somehow managed to still entertain me on a daily basis with the 10 new characters introduced these past 2 months - That takes something special that no other genre of television has, something that only soaps have. It seems, with this axing, the great British soap is dying a slow and painful death.

So, to Family Affairs! 2285 episodes on and finally coming to an end, We'll miss you!

I know most of you would draw and quarter me for this but I would take this show anyday over Coronation Street and Eastenders.why? Because they do not have a villain so complex and evil as the incredible David Easter's PETE CALLAN. He is the England's answer to DALLAS' JR Ewing. A real son of a bitch but not without his own weakness' (ie kids) who revels in other people's misery and suffering especially when it suits his own agendas. This show really ought to be called the David Easter hour as every scene with his character is eagerly awaited. The shows brisk pace is excellent too and you will definately miss out if you forget a episode.The acting on this show is superior to most soaps and all cast and crew should take a bow. hell, and I usually don't even watch soaps!

Family Affairs is without a doubt the best of all the UK soaps. Why? Take the quality of the production first - There is a cinematic style to all the camera work, using jibs and dollies - keeping the cameras moving, all these things add up to a "professional" production. The show is shot on video (as it has to be when filming at least 5 episodes a week) and then filtered in post production to give the "film" look. Just look at the cheap video production of Eastenders and Coronation Street for comparison. It was certainly the quality of the Family Affairs production that led the producers of Brookside to totally change their production (too late to save the show as the script writing had unfortunately deteriorated to a level beyond redemption) style to attempt to emulate this high quality cinematic style.

Secondly, the show's writers keep the plot lines within semi-believable boundaries, choosing to deal with everyday characters and situations rather than the plane crashes and larger than life "comedy" characters utilised so often by Eastenders and Coronation Street.

Last, but certainly not least, is the superb cast who interact superbly. Actors like David Easter (Pete Callan) and Nicola Duffet (Cat Matthews) have an absolutely brilliant "natural" on screen friction that just cannot be duplicated by any of the shallow characters from the other two soaps.

Well done the whole Family Affairs crew, Actors/Actresses, Technicians and the Producers.

Since i started watching Family Affairs which was around early 1998, i have been glued to it ever since, i only wish i'd watched it from the start, i couldn't believe it when all the Hart's were all wiped out on that boat, i feel that it deals with more real life issues, which is more than you can say about the big two (Eastenders & Coronation St), it's brilliant and underestimated and i can't wait for the omnibus edition on Sundays. It has all the basic ingredients of being a great soap up there with the big two give it a GO!

I watch family affairs,coronation st &east enders on uktv every week night family affairs is by far the worst, bad plots, bad sequences and the worst acting of any soapie,even worse than the Americans and that is saying something.

I find it very frustrating that all these shows on uktv Australia" are so far behind the UK and when one trys to find out the reason for this they just fob you off with some story that they will show double episodes to catch up ,needless to say, this never happens. I am very happy that family affairs is going , to make space for something of better quality, but at the same time I would to know the background reasons, did they finally realize how bad it was? did people stop watching it? whatever it was you musn't leave us in suspense Why do you feel that you have to keep everything a secret from your fans? or is it that you just don't care? I feel strongly that you should try and keep your public up to date. Family affairs is notorious for just having its characters disappear and reappear for seemingly no reason,we do get involved in the people and enjoy following their lives.\

I can understand why family affairs would have to come to an end, even though we are so far behind here in Australia, it is easy to see that the writers are running out of ideas for new plots,so many plots are being repeated and old episodes coming back.I have also noticed that as new characters are being introduced, a lot of them are really bad actors, like you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and ending up with the drek regards Vince