Hey, does anyone remember Nicole?

Yeah, I mean, it's a bit hazy for me too, but I think - correct me if I'm wrong here- but she might have gone out with Maia, like last year or something? Kind of a fraught relationship, neither of them could really get it together..? Sort of the party girl to straight lace Maia? Ran off to Tauranga after a big fight? Ring any bells, anyone?

Oh me neither, it's a good thing then that over a THIRD of Monday's show was devoted to reminding us about her! Because when a Shorty character leaves for just over a month the audience's memory automatically wipes out- kind of like that guy from Chris Nolan's Memento- and unless we have tattooed Nicole on our arms we need a ton of re-establishment to bring her back into our apparently goldfish sized minds.

First Nicole late night drunk dials the Jeffries yuppie urban abode and gets Tania so we get an entire scene of Tania ON THE PHONE. This scene broke some general Shorty rule of the viewers not being privy to phone conversations. Usually you see a character on a phone and you either can't hear one side of the conversation, or we cut to the person they're speaking to and hear the conversation embedded between two locations. Not so with Nicole, who is allowed the incongruity of a voice over. We hear that she wants to apologise to Maia, whom Tania refuses to wake up. The next morning we get an entire scene of Maia and Tania talking over breakfast in which the phone conversation is pointlessly reiterated. Maia is reluctant to ring Nicole back.

***Aside****
-During this conversation I was so bored that I noticed Shorty has kindly bothered to give its characters another diegetic soundtrack. So while Maia and Tans are eating toast they are listening to some girly country music. This makes a pleasant change from the Rhian Shian album the characters have been listening to constantly for the last three years. It has taken me forever to get the hang of Shortland Street's diegetic and non-diegetic music, as both are nearly always acousmatic. Generally the only clue one has that the characters are listening to the stereo, rather than us listening to a soundtrack is that when a scene ends the music cuts out abruptly. It's a trick that seems borrowed directly from Neighbours/Home and Away, but I am uncertain about what this feature does for the believability of S.S, given that they hardly ever vary the music the characters are listening to. There's a point where Rhian Shian is absurd, and that point was 2004 when 'Tiny Blue Biosphere' was released. The fact the McKay household had it cranking for the better part of 2009 deeply concerns me.***

Anyway, as if this one conversation were not enough, it turns out Nicole also called Gerald in the night, so when Maia gets to the hospital she and Gerald have the same conversation AGAIN about Nicole wanting to get in touch. Maia is again reluctant. Then Maia has some Nicole angst with Yvonne, which is the same conversation again. Skip forward to after the third ad break and here is Maia having the same conversation AGAIN with Tania. PLEASE CAN THIS BE CONDENSED? In the two days worth of Shortland Street time/15 minutes of screentime it has taken for Maia to twiddle her thumbs I have had more drama going to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Anyway the result is that Gerald and Maia are going to Tauranga to visit Nicole this week, apparently so we have something else to look at while everyone talks about her.

In the meantime, Brooke has tried to interfere with Daniel and Lauren's relationship, after their fight which involved Daniel sticking a picture of him and Lauren on his 'mylife' page (long may Shorty's alter-technology and askew reading of current teenage trends continue, if only for my amusement). Brooke manages to patch things up between them by pulling the old 'surprise dinner' trick. She and Lauren then bond by retelling their backstories, Lauren with her autistic brother, and Brooke with her poor little rich girl my 16th birthday party was ruined bit (I do believe this is the third or forth time Brooke has told us this story, I am starting to feel like I was there). Why are these people telling us things we already know? Lauren's character is becoming very difficult for me to watch. Her motivations are completely under-established and the current editing of her character, which is to draw out her secrets for as long as possible until it is revealed that she is merely sensitive and misunderstood, is unwarrented and frustrating. As TK said last night "she seems like hard work". This Mylife picture fight has been going on for at least three episodes, and it's final revealation- that Lauren feels strange about pictures due to her younger brother's autism, is totally underwhelming. It doesn't even make a lot of sense. Also, Lauren's eye makeup confuses me about whether it is meant to be day or night.

Brooke winds up telling TK she loves him and the cliffhanger is that he doesn't answer straight away. The pause after she tells him is delightfully awkward.

In other news, Tracey has worked out her brother the cop is bent as can be and she is mighty upset. Sarah Thompson (Tracey) does some fairly plausible tears and runs into the arms of Scotty. My most loathed Shorty camera framing device- the two heads in single shot close up- tells me they are about to make out, and for a second they almost do, but then Tracey pulls away. Shorty you tease! Just when I thought I had it all figured out.