The Season 5 premiere could be described as extraordinary, but that would be an understatement. 

When the fourth season of Offspring came to an end last year, a mixture of emotions were felt: sadness, anger, confusion, denial.

Dr Patrick “hottie” Reid had been killed off the show and pretty much every Offspring fan (read as Dr Patrick fan) flocked to social media with tearful selfies as they bereaved the television character.

Ahead of the Season 5 premiere next week which Asher Keddie dubbs to be the best ever, Channel Ten has kindly released the episode in advance in a limited online edition.

When I streamed the pivotal episode on my laptop yesterday, I was sceptical of course because I just did not understand how Offspring could be the captivating show it has been without Nina AND Patrick.

But… I did not cry a bit!

The episode was written so beautifully and was extremely clever.

Maintaining sensitivity to the dark storyline of Patrick’s demise, the writers tackled Nina’s life six months later with a real approach absent of any extravagant unbelievable soapie style twists.

No her counsellor Laurence wasn’t actually making the moves on her.

Yes she returned to work with some hesitation and understandably her colleagues were apprehensive about the situation.

It was beautiful to see her younger sister Billie as her biggest source of support

And yes Nina experienced her first big O in six months (thanks to Billie – watch the ep before jumping to conclusions on this one).  But in all seriousness, it is this kind of trivial and hilarious storyline that really made a die-hard fan like myself realise that it isn’t the end of the world.. after all Matt Le Nevez will be starring on Love Child but that’s a completely different story.

There were imaginary sequences with a ghost-like Patrick figure, but this not only helped Nina’s character move on, but aided the audience in doing so too.

After watching that episode I have to agree that this is going to be the best season yet!

A massive thumbs up to Debra Oswald, Michael Lucas and the entire team behind the Logie award winning drama.

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