YMMV / Waterloo Road

• Anvilicious: The reason for the show's existence!
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Mr. Budgen's demonstration of proto-breakdancing to Bolton.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ruby Fry, Grantly Budgen and the uncredited blonde extra teacher who never gets named on-screen.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Ask any hardcore Rachel/Eddie 'shipper. Melissa doesn't exist and the Series 4 ending didn't happen.
• Heartwarming Moments: One episode has Bolton pen a poem dedicated to Muhammad Ali for the school talent show. However, when he notices how depressed Grantly is about his wife's failing health, he swaps Ali's name out for Grantly's without telling anyone and turns the poem into a rousing tribute, which culminates in him leading the entire assembly hall in chanting Grantly's name. Grantly is so touched that he seeks Bolton out after the show and hugs him.
  • Sadly subverted, when it's revealed that Steph Haydock paid Bolton to rewrite his song after she didn't manage to get anything prepared for Grantly's 25th year in teaching.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The extra who looks like Mel Gibson's ex Oksana Grigorieva (on left of picture)◊, when she kept appearing during the Rachel Mason era.
• Jerkass Woobie: Several, a number of them being teenagers with a Freudian Excuse for their Jerkassery.
  • Although Tariq being in a young offender's institution shows he was a Jerkass long before he was introduced, he's later revealed to have been badly bullied while imprisoned.
  • The programme tries to make Kyle Stack into one a few times but it's hard to make it stick when you consider that his previous actions have ranged from selling vodka at school to attempted murder.
  • Justin Fitzgerald's actions throughout Series 10 are a direct consequence of the end of his parents' marriage and his mother's nervous breakdown.
  • Rich Bitch and juvenile delinquent Gabriella Wark is resented by her parents for being indirectly responsible for her younger sister's death years before and is still The Un-Favourite in their eyes. The Woobie part is reinforced by her father striking her across the face after she steals a car.
• Moral Event Horizon: Max Tyler's a Jerkass from his first appearance and an adulterer to boot, but what really takes the biscuit is his physical abuse of Phillip.
  • School Governor Ralph Mellor hits it when he tries to swap his daughter Flick's positive drug test for her boyfriend Marley Kelly's clean one (saving her place at the school and his reputation, and getting rid of Marley in one go), and then goes far beyond it when he attacks Marley with a golf club and later drives a mechanical digger into the school.
  • Lewis Seddon crosses it when he tries to burn Jack alive.
  • As does Barry Barry when he starts people smuggling.
  • Small-time bullies Lisa Brown and Shaznay Montrose well and truly cross this line when they crash Gabriella's house party and utterly destroy the bedroom of her deceased sister with sadistic glee. It snaps Sue out of being an unprofessional Jerkass towards Gabriella and even disgusts Kacey who has more reason than anybody to hate Gabriella.
• Nightmare Fuel: Lewis Seddon trying to set Jack on fire.
  • Lorna Hutchinson's ex-husband threatening to kill Sonya if she crosses him again.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Rachel and Eddie are commonly referred to as Reddie. Kim/Andrew is known as Kandrew, but there's some debate over whether Tom/Izzie is Tizzie or Tozzie.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Scout and Maggie's actresses both later joined Coronation Street.
  • While Jenna Coleman was already known to fans of Emmerdale, her appearance in Series 5 came three years before she became known to everyone as Clara Oswald.
  • Matty Healy, whose mother Denise Welch played Steph Haydock, made a few background appearances in the show before going on to achieve fame in his own right as the lead singer of The 1975.
  • Jack O'Connell, who played troublemaker, Dale Baxter in an episode in season 2 portrayed “Cook” in Skins.
• Toy Ship: Denzil Kelly and Emily James.
• The Woobie: Kevin was in care because his father abandoned him and his mother, and his mother threw him out and left him to fend for himself at the age of 10.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A lot of popular characters only make a couple of appearances, for example, Dale Baxter, a misunderstood young boy who frequently plays truent, not because he hates schoolwork, but because of he is suffering from Overactive Bladder Syndrome, or Sameen Azizi, a girl who was deported and kept in a detention centre due to being an undocumented immigrant. Dale only gets one episode appearance and Sameen only 2 appearances. Many wish they’d had more future episodes where viewers could have found out the results of Dale’s medical treatment and if Sameen was ever able to return to England.

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