What did everyone think of Terry?

[ilovepat]

Andrew Clarke was a class act. SO EXCITING that fiona's son was alive (some of the best cliffhangers?), but the rape was a bit yucky, wasn't it? Oh, I must also take this opportunity to say again HOW MUCH I loved Jill. Kim Lewis, you were brilliant!

[ilovepat]

Does anyone remember when he was tipped to be the new James Bones?

[dee16]

tipped to be James Bond? Didn't know about that. I'm thinking of what I thought of Terry when I watched him first time round so I was just a bairn!! Hated the Moustache!!!

[Chris Daly]

I liked the character of Terry, but I always thought it was odd the way the other characters seemed to accept and like him after the rape. They were obviously happy with his story that he thought Jill was a pro (which still doesn't excuse it!). Strange.

[dee16]

I have to agree with you Chris. It seemed to be forgotten about pretty quickly and how the storyline ended with Jill going to live nearer Terry, it just would not happen in real life!

[col]

I agree too. I liked the character of Terry, but thinking of it what he did was inexcusable.

[dee16]

I never thought of it at the time as I was at school, but what i found quite interesting was the 2nd and 3rd time around watching it as an adult you saw a lot of things differently.

[woombai jane]

I got the feeling that they wrote that storyline for Terry before realising just how popular he was with the viewers. Maybe the scriptwriters ran away from that one and hoped we would forget it happened. I liked Terry. It didn't make any sense that Jill would live near him later, or that the others would ignore what he did. Agree with ilovepat - Kim Lewis was one of S&D's finest.

[lillyivimia]

Terry was a good character, all things considered, but had all the hallmarks of a short-term character (thus the rationalisation of letting the character rape Jill). As woombai jane has already noted, though, I think Terry proved to be popular with the fans and the scriptwriters needed to remould the earlier 'cocky man's man' type of Terry into a more acceptable version. Not an easy task given, as we all know, that he was a rapist. All the scriptwriters could reasonably do with this, in the final analysis, was to tap into the rape and play it out for all it was worth. That so many people forgave him during this process was, I'm afraid, a prime example of fans, scriptwriters and everyone else involved suspending reality on a huge scale.

[allenmx]

Nov 28, 2008 18:12:32 GMT -1 lillyivimia said:

That so many people forgave him during this process was, I'm afraid, a prime example of fans, scriptwriters and everyone else involved suspending reality on a huge scale.

So very true Carl, but hey, that's S&D for ya ;D

I did like the chararcter of Terry, particularly the tensions he brought to the relationship between Fiona and Jill. His introduction and revelation as Fiona's son also gave Pat MacDonald to show off her acting talent to its fullest - theere were some really moving scenes.

I'm currently watching an Aussie series called "Always Greener" which features Andrew Clarke (the actor who played Terry Hansen) and his character (Derek) enables him to show his comedy acting side, so that has been nice to see!

And I've just started on Snowy River which has him as the lead and he's pretty good in that too.

[codyw1]

Good actor, but yeah, I could never get over the whole rape thing either. It's just not a crime you can have a character come back from IMHO.

And Fiona hoping he and Jill would get together afterwards was just crass on so many levels...

[kathdayknight]

Hi,

Never liked the rape thing much either, but, Andrew Clarke, the actor - love him - what a spunk!

[SONS AND DAUGHTERS]

hated his guts and that will never change jill is my all time fave on SAD but i do agree that andrew clarke was a good actor

[taintedlove08]

I`ve always thought that Andrew Clarke would have been the perfect choice to play Paul McGill on the mini series "A Woman of Substance"
Barry Bostwick played the part very well, but Andrew Clarke would have been perfect - especially as Paul McGills character was Australian.

[Si-Co]

Terry's introduction into the series, and the revelation that he was Fiona's long-lost son was, in my opinion, one of the best character-driven storylines in the whole series.

From Fiona's point-of-view, a stranger rapes the young girl she looks upon as a daughter. Her hatred and repulsion of Terry is obvious, and not overplayed at all. She then learns that her son, whom she believed had died days after being born, was still alive, and she is sent on a wild-goose chase by Wayne to try and track him down. Two hugely emotional traumas for the character to go through. Then, when her hope that she will be reunited with her son is at its peak, she is told this 'repulsive animal' who she detests is actually the son she is searching for. She is torn between her love for Jill, her love for her 'son' and her hatred of Terry.

Then, when Terry has his accident and she sees him lying there so helpless and crying out for his 'ma', it is obvious she cannot help thinking of him as her son, and she is able to overlook/excuse his crime against Jill and allow herself to care for him. Then, when he finds out about her past, he rejects her. They manage to put aside their differences and the viewers are given some explanation, or - and I use this term loosely - 'excuse' for the rape.

There still can't be a happy ending though, because Jill is now pregnant with Terry's child, Fiona's grandchild. She loves her son, the girl she looks at as a daughter, and her grandchild to be. She dreams they will be a happy family together. However, Jill makes it clear she can never forgive or accept Terry.

As the series develops, Terry and Jill become more friendly, and in a far-fetched plotline, he proposes to her, which she rejects. And in an even more unlikely storyline, Jill leaves the show to live near Terry in the country. There are implications that they have become a couple, although this is never explicitly stated and may not be what the writers intended us to think.

Bevan Lee, Executive Script Producer in 1983, is quoted in Super Aussie Soaps that he was given the task of turning a rapist into a hero in ten weeks. In a lot of ways, he succeeded. Generally speaking, the characters, and many of the viewers, stopped thinking of Terry as a man who attacked Jill, and instead more sympathetically as a man who loved his adoptive parents, rescued children from bush fires, saved Tony Parker from drowning, and they seemed happy to see Fiona reunited with her long-lost son.

The rape was necessary, in my opinion, and it had to involve Jill, as Fiona's reason for despising him initially had to be serious enough to make us share her anguish when he was revealed as her son.