Episode 1 (5th September 2022)

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Episode 1 | 5th September 2022 (Monday, 20:00-20:30)

 * REAL-TIME PUBLICATION: 1st October 2021 (Friday)
 * SYNOPSIS: Glen worries when Lisa seems out of sorts. Martin's working day goes awry. Phil tries to put Maxine's mind at rest

Plot
The episode begins with a flashback sequence that bounces between the past and the present. Becky Hawkins is shown as a patient at Leicester St. Mary's whose baby son, Alfie, has just died. She is comforted by then midwife Keeley Archer, then a midwife, who reveals that Alfie was on a transplant list but on this occasion, the wait was too long. It is not explained who Becky or Alfie are, or why Keeley was a midwife at the time, which is eight years earlier. Keeley returns in the present in Episode 2 following a break-up, having lived elsewhere for some time. The flashback then switches to a different character, Lisa Wright, rubbing her hands threw her damp hair in the bath at home. She then submerges herself in the bathwater at the same time as a distraught Becky crashes her head onto a hospital pillow, and the flashback relocates to a local leisure centre. in this context, Lisa is having a nightmare about a situation eight years ago in which her then two-year-old son, Luca, was kidnapped from the local leisure centre's changing rooms by an unknown, darkly-clothed individual who is only seen from the waist down. This happened partly because Lisa's younger sister, Bethan Hopkins, left Luca briefly unattended while she used the toilet. Bethan raised the alarm and gave chase to the kidnapper, who drove off with Luca in a car, but did not catch them. As a result of these events, Lisa told a devastated Bethan that she never wanted to see her again. As a result, Bethan remains in Cardiff, the sisters' home town, and Luca remains missing, despite reassurances at the time that the police would do all they could, given to Lisa by Detective Sergeant Helen Archer, incidentally Keeley's mother. The nightmare ends with Bethan pleading with Lisa by repeating her name; Bethan's voice then changes to that of Lisa's husband Glen Wright, who has had to break the bathroom door down to stop Lisa - who by now is choking on bathwater - from drowning. This subsequently leads Glen to insist that she takes time of her from her job as Head of English at Linford High, a local secondary school, but she refuses. The next day however, Lisa changes her mind and says she will take a week or two off work but no more. This is explained in the presence of Lisa and Glen's two adopted children, 17yo Liam Hardacre and 16yo Danielle Parfitt. Telling them coincides with them revealing the news that she and Glen wish to foster a third child, but this idea is met with some ambivalence by Liam and Danielle. Liam wonders where the new adoptee would sleep, given that they live in a three-bedroomed house which is full. Lisa reveals that she plans on turning the attic room into a fourth bedroom, and that she will redecorate it during her time off work. However, whilst Liam seems to be open enough to the idea, Lisa is concerned that Danielle is very unenthused. At The Moonshine Inn, landlord Phil Donnelly tries to reassure landlady Maxine Donnelly about their eldest daughter Steph Bayliss (who lives with her own family in Coventry) not getting in touch for a few days, telling her she probably just has a lot on and will reply when she is less busy. Meanwhile their twins, 16yo Phoebe Donnelly and Ruby Donnelly, are less then impressed when they have to cancel their cinema trip with friends Danielle and Liam tomorrow, as Maxine has booked them both an opticians appointment. Meanwhile bar owner Steve Rogers is worried about his father, hospital CEO Martin Rogers, who is snappy and evasive with him at breakfast. The day before, private housing landlord and wine merchant Rob Warren was also concerned about the deflated, distracted mood of his wife, the hospital's deputy CEO Vanessa Warren. Rob reminds her she promised she would tell him what was bothering her tomorrow, and subsequently she does. Vanessa reveals that, anonymously, she has reported Martin to the health trust following several complaints from different HODs about him. They have complained to Vanessa that Martin is always unavailable, always uninterested, and does not seem to have a grasp on things. They feel that patient care is beginning to suffer because of it and therefore action has to be taken. Rob wonders why she has to be the spokesperson for the complaint. She explains it is because she is the one who has been feeling the heat about it, but that she also feels the same way as the complainants. As a result, she supposes the hospital trust will launch an investigation which will mean it is out of her hands, but at the end of the day she feels she has to do what's best for the hospital. When Vanessa later arrives at the hospital, she immediately spots Graham Archer, a hospital bigwig, the husband of Helen and father of Keeley, getting into a lift. She approaches Chandra Patel at the admissions desk and asks her why Graham is here. Chandra explains that he is here to see Martin, and that whenever Graham puts in an appearance at the hospital, it is not usually a good thing. Graham explains to Martin that the trust has received a supercomplaint, and explains the context of it all. Martin realises from what Graham is saying that it sounds like an inquiry will be launched. Graham concedes that is true, and as a result of that, Martin is being suspended with immediate effect pending the outcome.

Regular Cast

 * Chandra Patel (Bhavnisha Parmar)
 * Danielle Parfitt (Eleanor Worthington-Cox)
 * Graham Archer (Martyn Spendlove)
 * Glen Wright (Samuel Anderson)
 * Helen Archer (Susan Cookson)
 * Keeley Archer (Alice Barlow)
 * Liam Hardacre (Malique Thompson-Dwyer)
 * Lisa Wright (Anna Acton)
 * Martin Rogers (Victor Gardener)
 * Maxine Donnelly (Denise Welch)
 * Phil Donnelly (David Crellin)
 * Phoebe Donnelly (Leah Barnes)
 * Rob Warren (Stephen Harakis)
 * Ruby Donnelly (Chloe Barnes)
 * Steve Rogers (Dean Fagan)
 * Vanessa Warren (Anna Passey)

Recurring Cast

 * Noah Donnelly (Harry Wilson)

Guest Cast

 * Becky Hawkins (uncredited)
 * Bethan Hopkins (Lucie Jones)
 * Luca Wright (uncredited)

Locations (in order of appearance)

 * Leicester St. Mary's, interior - maternity ward (flashback)
 * The Wrights home, interior - bathroom
 * Unidentified local leisure centre - interior: swimming pool, changing rooms, corridor and reception area; exterior: building entrance
 * The Moonshine Inn, interior - living room
 * The Warrens (elder) home, interior - kitchen
 * The Wrights home, interior - living room, kitchen
 * The Rogers home, interior - kitchen, living room
 * Leicester St. Mary's, interior - admissions desk, CEO's office

Notes & Trivia

 * First appearance of Becky Hawkins, Bethan Hopkins, Chandra Patel, Danielle Parfitt, Glen Wright, Graham Archer, Helen Archer, Keeley Archer, Liam Hardacre, Lisa Wright, Luca Wright, Martin Rogers, Maxine Donnelly, Noah Donnelly, Phil Donnelly, Phoebe Donnelly, Rob Warren, Ruby Donnelly, Steve Rogers and Vanessa Warren
 * In the past, there has been some ambiguity as to what the fictional Leicester suburbs of Middlehampton, Newben and Linford consisted of and how big they were. Jones wanted to make this clearer in this version, so the basic rule of thumb is that the name Linford only applies to Linford Park and Linford High School. Linford Park links Middlehampton to Newben by land, whereas the newly-named Soarbridge Street links those two suburbs by canal bridge. Otherwise, the main areas are Middlehampton, where most of the characters live, and Newben, where most of them work
 * Several long-standing character arcs, story arcs and other details were discarded or changed in this episode, compared to previous versions of the project. In all previous versions, Episode 1 opened with Lisa Wright acting as an in-vision narrator over events which affected her and the Wrights in the past five years, such as Lisa and Glen losing their newborn baby, Sophie Jane, to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), deciding to adopt, and the episode ending with a smirking Anita Johnson, implying that Anita will have an unspecified negative impact on the Wrights' marriage in future. However, all of these elements were removed from this version
 * Several name changes have occured to the characters: Lisa was originally called Lisa Hopkins, despite being married to Glen Wright, and the family was often referred to as 'the leading family' to help identify them. However, feeling this was too ambiguous in the past, Lisa is now called Lisa Wright and - despite Liam and Danielle having their own surnames - the family as a whole is referred to as 'the Wrights'. Having previously been assumed English, Lisa is now Welsh, although she has lost her accent, and hails originally from Cardiff. Having always had the last name Harvey, Danielle's surname was changed to Parfitt as Jones felt it was more 'memorable'. In previous versions, Lisa had a variety of jobs, including fashion agency worker, barmaid, salon owner, and in the March 2021 test run, manager of a local missing persons charity called JEM (Jigsaw East Midlands). However in this version, she is a teacher and head of the English department at Linford High. Jones felt this would give Lisa a bigger platform as a character
 * In other name changes, Steven (also Stephen) is now known as Steve. The original intention of this was to avoid a name clash with Steven Carwell, a long-standing character in another soap Jones was involved in, The Avenue, which has since ended
 * In all previous versions, Lisa Wright was the first character to be seen and the first to speak a line. In this version however, Becky Hawkins is the 'original original' character, though Lisa is the first regular character to be seen who is in the show from the outset. Keeley Archer is seen before Lisa, however Keeley is only seen in flashback in Episode 1 and is not a present character at that time
 * In the previous version (AKA These Days 2.0), there was a character called Martin Walker. In this version (AKA These Days 3.0), there is another Martin, Martin Rogers. However, there is no connection between the two; for example Martin Rogers is not some kind of reimagining of Martin Walker, but an entirely original character
 * Several original characters have been added to this version. In Episode 1, we are introduced to the Rogers family. In previous versions, Lee and Steve were good friends but not related. In this version however, they are brothers, as Jones felt they were 'so connected to and complementary to each other' that it would make sense them being siblings. This was also done to give These Days more of a family feel. For the first time, both Lee and Steve were recast. Previously Caucasian, they are now portrayed by mixed-race actors which, Jones has said, was done to improve diversity amongst the cast. Jones also felt that the actors who portray them - Jay Kontzle (Lee) and Dean Fagan (Steve) shared a 'convincing' resemblance, and had good chemistry with each other and with other characters
 * In the first version, there was a popular 'baddie' called Ben Warren, brother of James Warren. Ben does not appear in the second version, but James (now called Rob) and Jason do. The original intention was for all three to be brothers when Ben was introduced, but ultimately Ben did not materialise in the second version. In this version, Jason is back - as his son Declan, though Declan is now two years older than previously - and James is now called Rob. When called James, he had a few love interests but was unmarried. In this version however, he is married to Vanessa Warren. Vanessa is a reimagining of a previous version character, Vanessa Wells, sister of long-standing previous versions character Ricki Wells. Jones admitted she 'struggled' with writing Ricki in the previous version, hence why she was discarded this time. However, he felt Vanessa worked well and had further potential, hence her development and progression into this version
 * In previous versions, Keeley sported the surname Thompson and always portrayed a nurse. In this version, she is a former midwife but now a barmaid. In addition, her surname has been changed to Archer and a family has been built around her. So far that consists of her daughter, Saffron (often known as Sass), her father Graham, her mother Helen and her brother Reuben. Saffron is entirely new but Graham Archer (initially Gavin Archer) is basically a reimagining of a previous version character, Bob Emerald

September 2022
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