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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 444167" data-attributes="member: 23">A Little KnowledgeThis story’s familiar face is John Clayton, best remembered by me as Home and Away’s Danny King… Pippa’s suicidal paraplegic brother, and Tom’s longtime friend. As Vince Glover, he’s once again playing someone who is brash and cocky on the surface but masking insecurities. He’s out drinking and womanising while his hypochondriac wife is drugging herself up to the eyeballs and considering running away with a pharmaceutical rep who is a regular guest at their hotel. (or is it a motel? It has that downmarket, almost sleazy kind of vibe). It’s not quite as daft or funny as it sounds. Long story short, he thinks he may be infertile after a bad bout of mumps in his late teens, and Terence deduces that all she really wants is a child (not the first time he’s done this). And it turns out that the drugs she was taking were masking her pregnancy. It’s all rather too convenient and neat, but hey ho. There follows a “twist” that can be seen coming - right down to Terence’s unethical response to the infertility test result - but which is enjoyable nevertheless (and it was probably less obviously telegraphed forty five years ago). With the guest-story being efficiently workaday rather than compelling, there’s more time to focus on the goings on with regular characters. Shirley’s fake limp to get out of jogging with Frank is amusing enough - especially when it’s spotted that she’s forgotten which leg is supposed to be the bad one. The collapse of Molly’s crayfish empire when the yabbies climb from the pond and escape into a nearby river is a perfectly acceptable time passer, while her fallout with Vicky and several other local after Molly reports a farmer for her perceived ill-treatment of his dog to the RSPCA is very watchable (it strikes me that characters in Wandin Valley generally get along better with one another than characters in soapier series, so it hits harder when there’s an argument, disagreement or even tension). The biggest story of the episode is the ailing health of Marta’s beloved horse The General. His health ebbs and flows over the two episodes and I really wasn’t sure which way it was going to go, though I did comment as we watched that if The General died they may have to change the end credits though I really didn’t expect both of these things to actually happen by the end of that very episode. It’s always nice to see this side to Marta. The General was her most trusted confidante, so I wonder if this will affect her relationships with people. Certainly Vicky and Terence have been a good support to her through the crisis, and good old reliable Brendan sent Marta to spend time with The General while Brendan covered the wards. So yes - instant end credit change. While I loved the spaciousness of the horse riding scenes and will miss them, it has also bothered me that the rider is an obvious double. Now - assuming they stay the same - I think I’ll be bothered by the imbalance of characters at the end. Fatso and Doris get their shots, which is really lovely. But in terms of cast, I think it was just Simon, Brendan and Molly. I think it needs to be all or nothing, really. One further observation (not about this story in particular, but it did crop up a few times here): why does nobody shut doors at the hospital and even often at the surgery. Staff and patients alike have the most confidential of conversations with doors wide open. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?