AustLit

'[O]ne year after a devastating flood kills five locals [...] a new plant appears with the power to restore people’s youth.'

Source: Deadline (https://deadline.com/2018/06/abc-studios-international-scores-australian-crime-drama-from-the-kettering-incident-creator-1202403564/). (Sighted: 6/6/2018).

'After 18 years in prison, Viktor Khadem is a man who has almost given up on life. For his final 18 months, he is sentenced to Won Wron, a low-security prison in regional Victoria, where Senior Officer Matt Perry has established a unique program to rehabilitate broken men through giving them the responsibility for the rehabilitation of injured raptors – beautiful, fearsome proud eagles, falcons and owls. Against all odds, Matt takes on Viktor as his number one test case, introducing him to Yasmine, the majestic Wedge-tailed Eagle. If these two can tame each other, anything is possible. HEALING is a powerful, moving story of redemption, the discovery of hope and the healing of the spirit – in the most unlikely place, for the most unique men, through the most unusual catalyst.'

(Source: Screen Australia)

'In the life of all Prime Ministers, comes the moment that tests the mettle of the man. In the life of every nation, comes the moment that tests the mettle of its people.

'For John Curtin and Australia those two moments meet in 1941. This is where our story begins.

'As Leader of the Opposition, Curtin (William McInnes) seems poised to reach out and claim his rightful destiny - the Prime Ministership of Australia. But he refuses to make a desperate grab for power. He waits for the government to self destruct. With the war against Hitler intensifying, the last thing the public wants is a weak and bickering government.

'Curtin is the only man deemed fit for the job. Power becomes his. Curtin no sooner moves offices when the Pacific erupts. Pearl Harbour is bombed. For the first time, Australia lives in fear of invasion. The Japanese are working their way down through Asia with alarming ferocity. Australia is completely unprepared.

'Blow by blow, we follow Curtin - our guide, our confidante, through a chilling and tumultuous ride over six months behind the walls of power. We pick up and run to get our footage, pry through half open doors, eavesdrop in the corridors - whatever it takes to keep our subject in focus.

'Curtin lives and breathes his work and is forced to endure the deluge alone, while his wife Elsie, (Noni Hazlehurst) attends to her ailing mother back home. Then, Darwin is bombed. Australian defences are crushed.

'Curtin battles via cables with the Empire's heavyweight, Churchill, to reroute Australian troops to defend home soil. It quickly becomes a monumental battle of wills with Curtin fighting both Churchill and members of his own government. Curtin's health deteriorates rapidly as he desperately seeks support.

'This is a raw and intimate story of a driven and inspirational leader - a man who struggles to battle his own personal demons while serving and protecting a country at war.'

Source: ABC Television website, program guide:
Sighted: 24/04/2007

Set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, Thunderstone follows Noah Daniels who, with his family, lives in the underground colony of North Col, after all life on the surface of the Earth is destroyed by the impact of the Nemesis Comet. Fascinated with the holographic animals that the North Col colonists use to teach their children about the Earth's extinct species, Noah is accidentally transported forward in time, to the colony of Haven. 'Thunderstone' is the name given to the remnants of the Nemesis Comet, which allow Noah to travel through time.

Season one involves Noah's travels through time, in company with Arushka (a nomadic girl from Haven), in an attempt to repopulate the Earth with animals. Season two revolves around Noah's attempts to completely destroy the Nemesis Comet before it strikes the Earth, thereby preventing the apocalypse. Season three involves Noah's experiments in wormhole technology, his plans to set up a space colony, and the attempts of guerillas from the future to assassinate Noah before he can (allegedly) murder his own parents.

Season one has been released in its entirety on DVD, but neither season two nor season three have been made commerically available.

'The Federal Police reel in shock when their chief, Commander Rainer, is suspended from the force after a series of investigations into fauna smuggling are blown and an undercover officer murdered. It is up to the detectives to investigate their boss and everything points to the fact Bass has turned his back on law enforcement and is selling information to an international bird smuggling ring headed by well known criminal Brian Petrie.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 17/6/2013)

When the head of the Organization of Federal Emergency Services disappears, presumed murdered, rumours arise that he was involved in international espionage; in particular, German authorities arrive in Australia, seeking him for an act of industrial espionage in the 1970s.

'It's a story about justice...and the corruption of justice. JANUS is about the lawyers, police, judges and magistrates who work with a very imperfect system. The focus of our story will be the new Director of Public Prosecutions Officer, taking over the handling of all Committals for trial - the first sweeping changes recommended by the Janus Taskforce Committee.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 3/5/2013)

Ocean Girl follows the adventures of Jason and Brett Bates, who move with their mother (a reasearch scientist studying whale song) to an underwater research station near Port Douglas. There, they accidentally meet Neri, a young girl with super-human strength, the ability to breathe underwater, and an affinity for communicating with whales. As the series progresses through four seasons, the Bateses (and the audience) learn more about Neri's arrival on Earth, her home planet, and the ecosystem of their own home planet.

Ocean Girl, one of the earliest productions to come out of Jonathan M. Shiff Productions, is creator Jonathan Shiff's first science-fiction program; his name has subsequently become synonymous with children's science-fiction and fantasy television programs, through such shows as Cybergirl and H2O.

Ocean Girl is ecological science fiction, in that it uses the genre of science fiction to explore the consequences of exploiting Earth's resources. For example, as the program progresses, Dr Dianne Bates (mother of protagonists Jason and Brett) shifts from her early role as cetologist to a more active role as environmental protectionist, in response to the increasing threat of building large underwater constructions in the delicate ecosystem around ORCA. Similarly, season four shows the devastating effects of a 'Red Virus' on the oceans of Neri's home world.

A character-based television drama series about the lives of police officers in the fictitious Australian country town of Mt Thomas, this series began with the arrival of Constable Maggie Doyle (Lisa McCune) to the Mt Thomas station in the episode 'A Woman's Place'. Doyle and avuncular station boss Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon (John Wood) were the core characters of the series until the departure of Lisa McCune.

Immensely popular for a decade, Blue Heelers was cancelled in 2006 after thirteen seasons. The announcement was front-page news in Australia's major newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney's Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Age in Melbourne, and Brisbane's Courier Mail.

On June 8, 2006 Ross Warneke wrote in The Age:

'It's over and, to be perfectly blunt, there's no use lamenting the demise of Blue Heelers any more. When the final movie-length episode aired on Channel Seven on Sunday night, 1.5 million Australians tuned in, a figure that was big enough to give the show a win in its timeslot but nowhere near big enough to pay the sort of tribute that this writer believes Heelers deserved after more than 500 episodes.It is unlikely there will be anything like it again. At almost $500,000 an hour, shows such as Blue Heelers are quickly becoming the dinosaurs of Australian TV.'

Children's adventure television series about children who live on fictional Circe Island, a fishing community and communications base off the coast of Western Australia. The first series featured episodes in which the children outwitted adults, particularly the character Hermes Endakis. The series later emphasised environmental issues, particularly in the second series, where the children try to stop a big corporation from destroying their island.

'A hard-edged, gritty drama about the tense and claustrophobic world of a Major Crime Task Force set up to solve an urban terrorist bombing, a Task Force which brings together a crew of idiosyncratic, competitive characters over a knife edged maximum stressed two months. PHOENIX is no traditional cop shop or crime story. Its characters are not clean, super hero cops, just real police whose attitudes can be shocking and whose humour is grim and black.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 3/5/2013)

'Two social workers reach breaking point with the heartless welfare system which treats destitute children as criminals. Reaching out to these children means entering into the world of drain kids, pinball parlour pimps, graffiti gangs, the 14-year-old dealers and their 12-year-old customers. It's an exhausting and sometimes dangerous occupation but they care about the kids with a passion and the successes make it all worthwhile.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 28/6/2013)

'The suspect's house is under heavy surveillnace as the Major Crime Squad makes it's final preparations before moving in. The decision is made for Megan to approach the neighbour to get a closer observation point but Jock refuses to let her be told exactly what the police's interest is, despite Megan's insistence the danger merits telling her what's she and her daughter are getting involved in.

'With admissions caught on tape, the police raid the house, taking the suspects into custody. Goose and the forensic team move quickly to secrure the ample physical evidence allowing the detectives to confront the bombers with the overwhelming evidence resulting in quick confessions.

'With the job done, the Deputy Commissioner arrives to offer his congratulations but pulls Jock aside to tell him he'll be under investigation by IID.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 11/6/2013)

The first television program from prolific children's television producer Jonathan M. Shiff, Kelly follows the adventures of a police dog who, after being injured at work, is sent to recuperate in the country; here, Kelly becomes the constant companion of Jo Patterson and her friend Danny Foster, and manages to ferret out some criminals even in the country.

'An insight into the private and working lives of barristers.'

Source: Screen Australia.

G.P. is an Australian television series that ran for eight seasons. Set in and around a fictional general medical practice in an inner-city suburb, the storylines explore the professional and personal lives of the doctors and staff who worked there.

Home and Away is a television serial created by Alan Bateman and produced by the Seven Network. The idea for the series came to Bateman (then head of drama at Seven) after he stopped to buy ice-creams in a small country town in southern NSW. While chatting to some locals, he learned that the town was unhappy about plans to build a home for foster kids from the city. At that time, Channel Seven was still smarting from its decision to let Neighbours go to the Ten Network, where it had become hugely popular, and was looking to create another series to rival its success. Bateman saw in the idea that became Home and Away the potential for plenty of storylines and conflict by having streetwise city kids being relocated to a small regional environment,

In the beginning, the series focused on Pippa and Tom Fletcher, who, being unable to have children of their own, decide to become foster parents. When Tom is retrenched from his city job, the couple buy the rundown Summer Bay Caravan Park and move there with their five foster children. Soon after arriving, they also take in troublesome Bobby Simpson.

The series debuted in January 1988 with an hour-long telemovie. Although this rated well, the series itself took some while to develop an audience. Having learned their lesson from the Neighbours debacle, Network Seven gave its new show time, and its ratings gradually increased. As with Neighbours, the Home and Away series and performers became very popular in the United Kingdom.

Like the earlier Crawford's series The Box, Prime Time was concerned with television production. In this case, the programme focused on the fictional Lockhart Productions and its prime-time current-affairs program, Assignment: according to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'although there was no physical resemblance between actor Chris Orchard and real-life current affairs host and company owner, Mike Willesee, nevertheless the reference was clear.' The show was produced in such a way that, according to Moran, its 'format was flexible enough to allow both the presence of ongoing narratives about the principal characters as well as featuring guest characters, narratives and situations arising out of the stories that Assignment was focusing on.'

Unlike The Box, Prime Time was not successful, though Moran emphasises that Channel 9, the network airing the program, 'did much to snatch disaster from the jaws of victory by scheduling Prime Time on Thursday and Friday nights'.

A children's television series, Zoo Family followed the adventures of Dr David Mitchell, veterinary surgeon at Melbourne Zoo, and his children Susie and Nick (all of whom live within zoo grounds). Additional characters include the head groundsman, a young vet graduate, the zoo manager, and the zoo trustees. According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,

The latter are perpetually scheming over trust money under their control and it is left to the others to ensure that animals and enclosures are maintained. Beyond this human family, the larger family of the series is animals in the zoo. Each episode features a particular animal or group of animals in the zoo. Successive episodes concern such events as the discovery and treatment of sore eyes on a seal, taking delivery of male and female cheetahs, and building a new enclosure for a bull elephant.

The series, Moran concludes, 'had the solid, even dull, worthiness that is so much a feature of Crawford's.'