AustLit

Mini series tracing the devastation wreaked on Darwin by Cyclone Tracy during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1974.

According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, the mini-series fall roughly into three sections: the period immediately before the cyclone (in which the main characters are introduced), the night on which the cyclone hit, and the aftermath. As with so many disaster films and mini-series, Moran notes, Cyclone Tracy 'focuses on ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary event. The action is mostly documentary in tone and feeling, though one strand concerned with an American adventurer and a cargo of drugs is melodramatically quite out of keeping with the other stories.'

Moran notes that, American drug-runners aside, the mini-series works because of 'the low-key realism of the stories and the performances, the excellent special effects and sets, and the skilful integration of actual footage'. The program cost $4.5 million to produce.

Mini-series tracing the struggle between two sisters for control of an international fashion house.

According to Moran in his Guide to Australian TV Series:

Body Business was shot in Sydney at the relatively low cost of $3 million. The series was overseen by current PBL head, Jane Deknatel, following the departure of Ian Bradley. Like Kings, The Great Bookie Robbery and Glass Babies, Body Business continued PBL's stress on contemporary genre series, in this case offering viewers a solid piece of melodrama. However, unlike the great 1980s exercise in the genre, McElroy's Return to Eden, Body Business only achieved moderate viewing figures and has not attracted any permanent admirers.

A group of circus 'freaks' put a property developer on trial for bulldozing their circus to make room for condominiums.

An advice columnist goes into hiding after her husband is killed by a car bomb meant for her, but she is still stalked and terrorised by someone who inexplicably knows where she is.

A hated man returns to the community that ostracised him, but despite his new wealth, he refuses to help the dying community.

Harold Parkhurst poisons his wealthy cousin, knowing the death will be put down to her heart condition–but he reckons without her garrulous cockatoo.

A surgeon begins getting mysterious phone calls after he performs a heart transplant.

'lt's about a successful airline pilot, Willie Tremaine (Nielsen), who is involved in a crash in which 53 people are killed. Although Tremaine is exonerated, a bitter, crippled newspaper reporter, Jack Pettitt (Morris), drags his name through the papers and threatens his family.'

Source:

'Top Stars in New TCN9 Series', Australian Women's Weekly, 20 June 1973, p.10.