AustLit

'Frank's leadership is put to the ultimate test when the ED team is held hostage and a deadly plan unfolds. In the bedlam that follows, threats are made, tempers are stretched and lives are lost. And at the end of it, Frank makes a decision that looks likely to cost him his job.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 12/6/2013)

'Von never makes it to the charity ball when her little friend Zac's condition begins to deteriorate. Terri and Malcolm bond at the ball but Terri is shocked to discover Rose suffers from bi-polar. The revelation causes problems between Mitch and Rose. Kylie drinks too much, Scott puts more moves on Andrea and Luke's date is horribly raped outside the ball venue. Meanwhile, Connor and Bron are on night shift in Ward 17.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 25/6/2013)

'Maori detective Tito Ihaka (Temuera Morrison), is sent to a police training conference in Sydney following complaints about his rough tactics when arresting a cop-killer in his native Auckland. To keep him out of trouble, he is teamed with police media officer Kirsty Finn (Rebecca Gibney), and together they are assigned to review the three-year-old unsolved murder of supermodel, Julia Renton. The investigation at the time of the murder concluded that it was a random sex-killing, but with the unique combination of Finn's PR skills and Ihaka's direct approach of frightening people, the two not only find themselves in political hot water, but they uncover the sinister truth behind the killing.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 25/6/2013)

One of Australia's highest rating dramas, All Saints is a Logie Award-winning Australian medical drama set in the fictional All Saints Western General Hospital in suburban Sydney. The stories originally focused on the nursing staff of Ward 17 run by Nursing Unit Manager Terri Sullivan. It was sometimes referred to as the 'garbage ward' because it took the overflow of patients.

In 2004 Network Seven producers overhauled the series in an effort to increase the show's gradually dwindling audience. They achieved this by closing down Ward 17 and transferring some of the staff to the Emergency Department managed by Frank Campion. Several other new lead characters were also introduced. The changes also saw the storylines begin to focus more on the lives of the doctors and nurses.

Another significant change to the series came in early 2009 when the producers introduced the Medical Response Unit. Central to this development was the helicopter which took doctors to rescue situations outside the hopsital and which in turn brought patients to the All Saints Emergency Department. The show's name was also changed at this time to All Saints: Medical Response Unit. The increased production costs created by having scenes shot on location played a part, however, in the series being cancelled mid-year. The series ended with the Emergency Department and Medical Response Unit teams having a dinner to farewell the last remaining original character, Von Ryan on her final day at All Saints.

All Saints was popular in many countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Iran.

'Staff in an emergency department of a large Australian hospital have become addicted to the adrenalin rush they experience while dealing with life and death emergencies.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Cody investigates the apparent suicide of a well-known jockey.

Inspired by A. B. Paterson's classic poem and set in a fictional Snowy Mountains township called Paterson's Ridge, this turn-of-the-nineteenth-century adventure concerns wealthy cattle-station owner and widower Matt McGregor and his three children, Colin (the town preacher), Rob (played by Guy Pearce), and Danni (the tomboyish youngest daughter). Unresolved sexual tension comes in the shape of Matt's independent, free-spirited childhood friend, the recently widowed Kathleen O'Neil, who returns to Paterson's Ridge with her son after having spent many years in England.

An Australian television series which deals with the New South Wales Police Rescue Squad and its work attending to various incidents from road accidents to train crashes.

Television mini-series that traces the political concerns and upheavals of the immediate post-war period in Australia.

Moran notes, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, that the program, in addition to the three political leaders that are its focus, introduces such historical figures as B.A. Santamaria, Edgar Ross, Lloyd Ross, Dr H.C. Coombes, Frank Packer, and Arthur Calwell.

Moran suggests that the program's weakness lies in its treatment of the central figures: 'Menzies is a one-dimensional unprincipled villain, ambitious for power. Evatt, too, seeks power and is personally vain even to the point of eccentricity. Chifley, on the other hand, is a saintly avuncular figure who struggles to bring alive his vision of 'the light on the hill'. This leads to drama which is too black and white and simple-minded.'

Three sisters find their fortunes suddenly and dramatically changed. By agreement with their father, if the three manage living together and running a hotel in the Bondi region of Sydney for a year, the hotel will be theirs.

The series was not a success with reviewers or viewers, and the Canberra Times later described it as 'acclaimed almost universally as a disaster of epic proportions' (David Vine, 'Fact, Fantasy, and the TV Hype-artist', Canberra Times, 22 August 1988, p.6).

Dancing Daze was an ABC production about two sisters who move to the "big city" to pursue dance. 

Jane Campion directed one episode, collaborating with producer Jan Chapman for the first time. 

'One of Australia's most controversial murder trials. Hannah Jane was found with her throat severely cut - too severely for suicide. Her husband was the chief suspect and the case became an example of a jury being overwhelmed by questionable expert scientific evidence.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 21/9/2012)

'A young dancer witnesses a mass drowning tragedy at a beach and has to watch one young man die on the sand despite intense efforts to save him.

'Her distress turns to abject fear and confusion, however, when she learns these events actually took place some 45 years before.

'A clever, offbeat mystery, Kindred Spirits links two actual catastrophes in this fictional story about a young woman caught between reality and a strange tie with the past.'

Source: ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/abccontentsales/s1169477.htm). Sighted: 1/6/2012).

'Drama based on a bizarre murder trial which scandalized the people of Sydney in 1865. Louis Bertrand a society dentist, mesmerist, frustrated actor and womaniser, was determined to have Mrs Kinder, a woman of dubious morals, to himself. He openly plotted to murder her hapless multi-cuckolded husband, Mr Kinder. But did he actually commit the crime? In court a strange tale unfolded, recalled by his young dental assistant/part-time magician.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 21/9/2012)

Another of the ABC's now-obscure anthology programs, Premiere ran to only four short episodes. The program combined experienced script-writers with directors who had never worked on television before: at least two of the directors (Mary Lancaster and Peter Fisk) went on to work more extensively in television.

According to Moran in this Guide to Australian TV Series, the four episodes were 'Partners', 'Friends of the Family', 'Mr Elvey's Friday Nights', and 'And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth'. Of these, only the latter is speculative fiction: it covers, according to Moran, 'the future faced by a wealthy industrialist who is cryogenically brought back to life after his death'.