Shortland Street is a New Zealand television soap opera. It was first broadcast on 25 May 1992 and currently airs on television network TVNZ 2. The following is a list of characters that appeared on the show in 2016 by order of first appearance. All characters are introduced by the show's executive producer Maxine Fleming. The 25th season of Shortland Street began airing on 19 January 2016 and concluded on 19 December 2016, and its 25th anniversary was in May 2017.[1]
In 2019, after Mo passed away, he finally decided to do the double mastectomy as the next stage to physically transition into a man. Kate even offered to help financially. However, on 14 February, he had second thoughts, and Kylie had to block his body to force Drew to stop the surgery, after Blue was just sedated, thus was in no fit state to retract. While Kylie initially faced backlash over the move, when Blue fully explained that he gained clarity from babysitting Billie, Drew and Harper's intersex child, he no longer feel the surgery to be a necessity.
He returns in October and Sophia King falls for him. While the two are hanging at home, Ben King rushes in and Sophia admits she likes Blue but Ben says that she can't like him like that because he has just found out from Kate that Blue is his son.
Kate Hannah (previously Nathan) played by Laurel Devenie,[2] made her first appearance on 10 March 2016.
After Rachel McKenna (Angela Bloomfield) leaves, she has a fling with Chris Warner (Michael Galvin) but after she finds out Mo Hannah has feelings for her, they both decide to stop seeing each other. Kate then starts a relationship with Mo and she moves in with Blue. Kate finds it difficult to accept that Blue wants to start transitioning to male, believing that he may want to change his decision down the track. She later accepts his decision. Mo's wife Margaret Hannah returns to Ferndale much to Mo's dislike. Kate then reminds Mo that Margaret is the biological mother to his children. As Mo and Margaret are about to sign their divorce papers, they have sex. Kate finds out and leaves Mo. She then moves in with Chris and they start a relationship, only to later break up with him and marry Mo. Her overprotective and overbearing ways with Blue also left him leaving in 2018 as he lives with his new girlfriend, a fellow art student in a studio apartment that Kate deemed unlivable. He also discovered that Zoe Carlson, her younger sister returned to Ferndale.
In May, with Kylie dealing with a miscarriage, and Nicole hit by Finn, and suffered broken femur, Kate and Vinnie are next in line to take over as Director of Nursing. But Nicole was well enough to resume her duties.
On 25 June 2018 Blue returned to celebrate her birthday, but Kate was abducted by the serial rapist just as she finished work and was in the carpark trying to buy extra supplies for home. Kate fought him off, so she wasn't raped, but she still suffered broken orbital bone, which prompted Blue to move back in to live with the Hannahs. Nicole and her actually felt more insecure and paranoid over the extra security measures put in place by Te Rongopai.
In 2018 cliffhanger, she was also involved in the plane crashed, which eventually killed Mo,[3] after Mo died, she had been in an on-and-off relationship with Chris Warner while she found out she is pregnant with a child of Mo. This storyline was actually written in lieu of Laurel's real-life pregnancy. After Koru, a baby boy was born in June, 2019, she decided to leave with him to live with Mo's extended family.[4] Kate returned with her baby to support her son Blue on 11 October 2019.
Kate would return briefly in 2022. Kate would make several appears in 2023, now working at Central Hospital. Kate appears briefly in January working alongside stepson Jack whilst he temporarily worked at Central’s emergency department. Kate next appears in December, having been brought in as a patient following an assault. Kate reveals she now a Nurse practitioner at Central and collaborates with Shortland Street CEO Esther Walker over a joint response to an ongoing drug crisis. Kate is last seen as an attendee at Chris Warner’s New Years Eve boat party.
Glenn Rickman, played by Will Wallace,[6] made his first appearance on 1 August 2016. When his daughter Lucy Rickman (Grace Palmer) arrived in Ferndale in 2014, she stalked Rachel McKenna (Angela Bloomfield). It is revealed that Rachel and her father Glenn had an affair ten years prior with Rachel at a conference in Nelson ultimately destroying his marriage to her mother.[7] Glenn also suffered with an alcohol addiction.[8]
Glenn arrives at Rachel's house party unannounced. He recognises her and introduces himself, but she doesn't remember him. Lucy then introduces Glenn as her father, much to Rachel's shock. Glenn starts to reconnect with Lucy claiming to wanting to make a mends. He meets with Rachel and tells her that he will make a donation to the hospital. He then holds a lunch at his apartment and invites Lucy, her boyfriend Ali Karim (Tane Williams-Accra) and Rachel along with her husband Chris Warner (Michael Galvin), Chris shows a strong dislike of Glenn. They all take a photo together as everyone is about to leave his apartment and when everyone has left he looks at the photo and zooms in on Rachel and himself. While Chris is away, he attempts to manipulate Rachel and get her to drink, but it is unsuccessful. He leaves but later comes back and drugs her. She gets him to leave but later falls into the pool, nearly drowning. He is later taken to hospital and after some tests are carried out he is told that he has a liver disease but he already knew. He asks Lucy to donate liver and his intentions of wanting to reconnect with Lucy are revealed as just wanting her liver. After consideration, Lucy says no and he goes overseas to get the procedure done illegally. Glenn returns and is seen in a hotel by Ali. Ali asks Glenn to see Lucy but he refuses. He eventually sees Lucy and tells her that he is in trouble with a dodgy gang that he had property development dealings with and that he had left the gang and they wanted him dead. He agrees to hand report the gang to the police, handing his evidence of their misconduct over to Detective Brent Cochrane (Kevin Keys). To get away from the gang, he takes Lucy and Ali to their family bach and announces he once sold the property in a desperate time for money but had recently bought it back in a trust for Lucy and Ali's expected daughter. They receive a phone call from a police officer telling them to stay where they are. Spooked, they decide to leave back to Ferndale but they are run off the road by Detective Cochrane who is revealed to be a corrupt detective working for the gang and he later sets the car alight. Lucy and Ali escape the car but they are unable to save Glenn and he dies.
Rajiv Prasad, played by Mel Odedra,[9] made his first appearance on 4 October 2016.
Rajiv arrived to Shortland Street as the new DHB representative sent to remove hospital CEO Rachel McKenna (Angela Bloomfield) due to some misguided decision making after relapsing to her alcoholism. A former Accountant, Raj became interim CEO and drastically cut costs to the emergency department, despite revealing he was also formerly a doctor. Noticing his emotional nature around young girls, Nicole Kruse-Miller (Sally Martin) learned his daughter had gone missing 5 years prior in Christchurch and had never been located. This revelation lead to Raj befriending Bella Durville (Amelia Reid-Meredith) and a romance soon looked promising. However Raj's emotive nature lead to Chris Warner (Michael Galvin) replacing him as CEO and he committed to departing to try reconcile with his grieving wife. Raj returned 2 years later to stand down Chris, Te Rongopai Rameka (Kim Garrett) and Boyd Rolleston (Sam Bunkall) over an ethical breach. Resuming duties in ED, Raj became convinced his missing daughter had been admitted as a patient and began to suspect she had been kidnapped. The similarities proved to be a coincidence and he departed Ferndale knowing his grief was still overpowering.
Raj returned in May 2022 and removed Chris as CEO after a sexual harassment complaint. His wife Misha (Pamela Sidhu) was admitted to hospital after suffering a dog attack and it soon became apparent she was suffering crippling anxiety following the disappearance of their daughter. Struggling from years of caring for his wife, Raj started a passionate affair with Misha's doctor Jack (Reuben Milner). Misha soon started to recover after trialling an experimental drug and Raj broke Jack's heart, opting to move out of Ferndale with his wife.
Ruby Flores, played by J.J. Fong,[11] made her first screen appearance on 8 November 2016.
Later, at a hospital function, she sings to Nicole. The pair kiss and then have sex. Guilty Nicole tells Leanne about the affair and Leanne calls Ruby a home wrecker and tells her to resign from her job, but she refuses. Nicole then goes away to a holiday home with her kids, but Vinnie turns up and takes the kids away. Ruby arrives at the home and her and Nicole have sex again. Nicole tells her afterwards that it was a mistake and she does not want to see her again. Ruby later leaves Ferndale.
Chops is a brown poodle and Diane's dog. Chops constantly comes around to Drew McCaskill and Harper Whitley's house. Drew, having a dislike to dogs, gets flea bites from him. When the couple try to return Chops, they find Diane collapsed in the garden and realise Chops came to them for help. Drew puts Chops in a dog pound, and later learns that Chops was euthanised. However, Leanne Black discovers there was a mix up and a German Shepherd, also called Chops, was euthanised instead. Chops goes to live with a family friend of Diane.
Hawks meets Sass Connelly (Lucy Lovegrove) in the Shortland Street Hospital reception when he carries in a fish he had just caught on a fishing trip. It later emerges that he is a doctor and is currently stepping in at the hospitals Emergency Department. Sass seems to be easily annoyed by Hawks, only to later show their true feelings for each other. Hawks suddenly leaves Ferndale, much to the annoyance of Sass and she goes on to date Mason Coutts (Colin Moy). Hawks returns again suddenly, and its not long after that Sass's relationship with Mason becomes emotionally abusive of which Hawks helps her out of. He goes to Syria to serve for war. Sass is later informed that Hawks has died. Later, this is proven to not be the case as Hawks calls Sass via video call and tells her he is alive and has lost a leg. Sass goes to Syria to see Hawks and the pair later call Sass's family. Sass tells them that she is with the man she loves and her and Hawks plan to stay in Syria for a while. It was later mentioned that they managed to move to Italy, so Hawks can receive better treatment.
Hawks returns in the first episode of 2019 as he was identified as the fisherman that save Sally, a pet dog. His heroics prompted a photo shoot to salvage positive publicity, with the cost of his prosthetic leg replacement to be sponsored by the hospital. However, he did not return with Sass. Te Rongopai, being impressed with Hawks after he jumped in to save a patient that collapsed in the waiting room, convinced her to get TK to ask for his old job as an ED doctor, which Hawks accepted. He mentioned that his relationship with Sass has soured, but it was partly due to him suffering from excruciating phantom limb pain. Boyd, however, managed to introduce a non-surgical mirror box technique as part of Hawks' physiotherapy. He was then suggested for deep brain tissue stimulation. Despite the third electrode briefly stopping his ability to speak due to its proximity to Broca's Area, he is responding well to treatments.