AustLit

'Jennifer Haywood, a high profile actress, moves to the Gold Coast to start a new life for her daughter, Natalie, and herself. She brings with her a colourful household: her boyfriend William; Lilly, the nanny; Doris, the cleaner; and Mopsy, the dog. Life seems almost perfect until her ex-husband Jack is cast as her lover in the series in which she is currently starring.'

Source: Screen Australia.

The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):

'JANIE SOMMERS: An extremely attractive young woman of twenty-five. She's well educated and intelligent. Been Barrett's "girl" for about 18 months. A position she loathes, but is of her own making. She wants to ruin him completely. The arrival of Gardiner onto the scene has given her such an opportunity.

'FRANK GARDINER: Twenty eight years of age. Intelligent but not highly educated. Good looking with an athletic build he's naturally attractive to women. A quiet and introspective nature. He has a third dan grading in Goju Kai and worked as an instructor in Sydney for a while. He's strangely honest and doesn't immediately accept Janie's proposal that he unseat Barrett and take over the organisation. His ambitions don't run that high. Drives.

'JAMES BARRETT: A fat obnoxious fifty year old gentleman who thinks he has the world in his grasp and also everybody in it. Nobody just "works" for Barrett. They belong to him. He's a successful solicitor who used his knowledge to set up a large and extremely profitable gambling organisation.

'JIM STEVENS: About 45 years old. Tending to paunch and bald. An accountant with a wife and two children. A solid middle class citizen with an ulcer.

'BARBIE STEWART: A prostitute. About 30 years. Not a street walker. A little classier. Does her hussling [sic] from pubs and clubs. Attractive. Does well in her trade. Known to the police. She has the odd soft spot.

'FREDDIE: Barbie's bludger. He runs several girls. A smallish birdlike man with a ready oily smile.

'DOCTOR THOMAS Doctor at the hospital. A resident. About 40 years. The police know him. A quiet man.

'PROSTITUTES: Three of them. Different types (no dialogue).

'VI STEVENS Wife of Jim Stevens. A little over-weight. Not attractive but not repulsive either. Another solid nebulous middle class housewife.

'INSTRUCTOR: Karato [sic] (DOJO) instructor. (actual)

'STUDENTS: Advanced (actual)

'WOMAN: TAB enthusiast'.

The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):

'TERRI STANDISH: A policewoman for over ten years. She is well known to Yarra Central. Respected with an excellent police record. She has a mild and gentle nature.

'HELGA STEINER: About fifty years of age. A prisoner in a German prison camp for Jews. Although herself not being Jewish she refused to give up her husband who was, and was therefore detained with him. The experience brought her close to insanity by the end of the war when she was released by the allies [sic]. She recovered with the help of her husband and migrated to Australia, to lead a fairly good life. Her husband's death triggers her unstable mind and the sight of uniforms, especially police, unlocks the horrors of the war.

'Terri Standish out of uniform is a friend but once in uniform she sees only the Gestapo whom she must destroy.

'SUE EDWARDS: Young policewoman. Fairly new to the game but she's known by all at Yarra Central.

'HILDA SCHMIDT: Large German woman. Also has a fear of the police syndrome.

'STEPHEN PECK: Hungarian Jewish estate agent. A greasy little man who worries only about his business.

'VICKY NOLAN: A spoilt seventeen year old. Her father dotes on her and she thinks she can get away with anything.

'MRS NOLAN: Her mother. Well spoken. Has all but ignored her daughter in the last seventeen years. Must drive.

'NORMA BARRET: Seventeen. Hates police after her boyfriend was gaoled.

'CAROL WRIGHT: Considers Barret as her protege. A tough crim who has seen the inside of Fairlea many times.

'DRUNK: Some slurred dialogue.

'CONSTABLE A: Young. No lines.'

Grigor Taylor's first role after leaving the highly rated Matlock Police, Silent Number focuses on Dr Steve Hamilton, a doctor working for the New South Wales Health Department. Hamilton has chosen this path because he couldn't afford to start his own practice, and thought, even before he is seconded to the NSW Police as a police doctor, that this would be more rewarding than work as a GP. This situation causes some tension with his wife, who would rather he worked shorter hours for higher pay in private practice.

According to Don Storey in his Classic Australian Television, Silent Number suffered somewhat from the close attention of censors after early episodes were deemed too violent, which led to the Australian Broadcasting Control Board decreeing that all episodes must be submitted to them for assessment prior to screening. Storey also notes that Silent Number was screened in Melbourne opposite Matlock Police, which seriously damaged its ratings.

Nevertheless, Storey concludes that 'Silent Number was quite a good series. If you allow a certain suspension of disbelief for the premise - real police doctors rarely, if ever, get involved with criminal detection the way Steve Hamilton does - the only valid criticism that could be levelled against it is the "cheap" look that using videotape gives to the interior scenes.'

Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, concurs with this assessment, noting that 'producer Roger Mirams and writer Ron McLean put their heads together to come up with a successful formula for the crime variation. They reasoned that because both medical and police series were popular, a series about a police doctor had to very popular. It wasn't. Again, though, the series is very watchable. Never profound, it does succeed as entertainment.'

Division 4, which Don Storey notes in Classic Australian Television was 'the only drama series on Australian television to rival the popularity of Homicide', was created as a vehicle for Gerard Kennedy, who had risen to popularity playing the complicated enemy agent Kragg in spy-show Hunter, after Tony Ward's departure left Hunter's future in doubt.

According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian Television Series:

The series differed from Homicide in being more oriented to the situation and milieu of a suburban police station staffed by a mixture of plainclothes detectives and uniformed policemen. This kind of situation allowed Division 4 to concentrate on a range of crimes, from major ones such as murder to minor ones such as larceny.

Though set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Yarra Central, 'Sets were constructed that were replicas of the actual St Kilda police station charge counter and CIB room, with an attention to detail that extended to having the same picture hanging on the wall', according to Storey.

Division 4 ended in 1976. Storey adds:

Division 4's axing was a dark day for Australian television, as within months the other two Crawford cop shows on rival networks, Matlock Police and Homicide, were also axed. It was widely believed, and still is, that the cancellation of the three programs was an attempt by the three commercial networks--acting in collusion--to wipe out Crawford Productions, and consequently cripple the local production industry.