Emmerdale Farm in 1988

1988 was Emmerdale Farm's 17th year. Storylines included Alan Turner going into partnership at Home Farm with Joe Sugden, Dolly Skilbeck's affair with Stephen Fuller, Kathy Bates' wedding to Jackie Merrick, the beginnings of Joe Sugden's relationship with Kate Hughes and Nick Bates foiling a post office raid. 102 episodes were broadcast this year.
==Production==
The previous year, Stuart Doughty was announced as Michael Russell's successor as producer. Doughty began his run with Episode 1235 (30th March 1988). Having left Brookside to join Emmerdale Farm, Doughty was keen to bring the show up to date by increasing the amount of scenes per episode and perking up cliffhangers to encourage audiences to come back for the next episode. He also expressed an interest in taking the show out of its reliant studio set, wanting to take advantage of both the rural setting of the show and other locations. As a result, the show did its first ever filming abroad as Kathy and Jackie Merrick enjoyed their honeymoon in Tunisia.
Finally, on 6th January, the programme became fully networked for the first time - meaning that the same episode was shown at exactly the same time in all ITV regions - in the 7.00pm slot. A massive achievement for the programme, this enabled publicity for the serial to be far easier and an extra push was made in London, the hardest region for the programme to crack, with an extensive billboard campaign.
There were a number of cast additions this year. Madeleine Howard was cast as Sarah Connolly. The character only appeared this year in April but would return as a regular in 1989. Joe Sugden found romance with Kate Hughes, portrayed by Sally Knyvette, and Kate's two children, Rachel and Mark Hughes, also arrived in the village soon after, portrayed by real life brother and sister Glenda and Craig McKay. Elsewhere, Richard Franklin debuted as Denis Rigg in August and Debbi Blythe and Jack Carr returned as Marian Rosetti and Tom Merrick respectively. For both characters, this would be the last time they appeared in the serial. Clive Hornby also took a break from the programme in the summer, returning later the following year.
==Episodes==
==Main Cast==
Ranking	Character 	Played by 	Duration 	Number of Episodes	Running total	Previous year's ranking
1 	Dolly Skilbeck 	Jean Rogers 	Full year 	102 	898 	1
2 	Matt Skilbeck 	Frederick Pyne 	Full year 	100 	1268 	3
2 	Annie Sugden 	Sheila Mercier 	Full year 	100 	1226 	12
2 	Joe Sugden 	Frazer Hines 	Full year 	100 	1036 	4
5 	Amos Brearly 	Ronald Magill 	Full year 	99 	1258 	6
6 	Henry Wilks 	Arthur Pentelow 	Full year 	96 	1248 	6
7 	Kathy Bates/Merrick	Malandra Burrows 	Full year 	95 	283 	11
8 	Alan Turner 	Richard Thorp 	Full year 	93 	572 	4
8 	Caroline Bates 	Diana Davies 	Full year 	93 	438 	4
11 	Nick Bates 	Cy Chadwick 	Full year 	91 	191 	15
11 	Jackie Merrick 	Ian Sharrock 	Full year 	91 	668 	6
11 	Sandie Merrick 	Jane Hutcheson 	Full year 	91 	557 	10
11 	Seth Armstrong 	Stan Richards 	Full year 	91 	711 	10
14 	Phil Pearce 	Peter Alexander 	Full year 	83 	204 	14
15 	Archie Brooks 	Tony Pitts 	Full year 	79 	265 	12
16 	Jack Sugden 	Clive Hornby 	Until September 	64 	812 	2
17 	Eric Pollard 	Christopher Chittell	January to February, April to July, September onwards 	54 	119 	20
18 	Jock MacDonald 	Drew Dawson 	Until May and from September 	43 	210 	18
19 	Robert Sugden 	Richard Smith 	Until May and July to September 	42 	127 	17
20 	Ruth Pennington 	Julia Chambers 	Until July 	42 	90 	19
21 	Kate Hughes 	Sally Knyvette 	From August 	36 	36 	-
22 	Donald Hinton 	Hugh Manning 	January to February, July to September, November and December	35 	569 	21
23 	Rachel Hughes 	Glenda McKay 	From September 	26 	26 	-
24 	Mark Hughes 	Craig McKay 	From September 	25 	25 	-
25 	Bill Middleton 	Johnny Caesar 	Until April and from October 	23 	150 	22
26 	Denis Rigg 	Richard Franklin 	August to November 	20 	20 	-
27 	Samuel Skilbeck 	Benjamin Whitehead 	January, March to April, June, November and December 	15 	296 	16
28 	Marian Rosetti 	Debbi Blythe 	July to September 	10 	61 	23
29 	Sarah Connolly 	Madeleine Howard 	April only 	7 	7 	-
30 	Tom Merrick 	Jack Carr 	January to February only 	5 	70 	-
==Storylines==
to be added
==Who lives where==
to be added
==Awards and Nominations==
to be added
Category:1988
Category:Emmerdale year-by-year