AustLit

Produced by the same television production company responsible for the successful medical drama G.P., Law of the Land moved away from the inner-city urbanity of G.P. Set in the fictional small town of Merringanee, series one involves the arrival in town of young magistrate Peter Lawrence, who (thanks to a stolen car and a long-buried body) learns that the locals have their own way of enforcing the law.

Series two involved a different character, Kate Chalmers, unravelling the truth behind Peter Lawrence's death.

The program ran to a total of four thirteen-episode series, yet it is obscure enough today that little information about it is readily available.

Cinematographer Brendan Lavelle did, however, contribute an article to Metro Magazine ('A Day in the Life: The Work of a Cinematographer', issue 99) while he was working on the series.

Reporter Judith Wilkes leaves her husband and two sons in Sydney and goes to Malaysia to cover the story of the Vietnamese boat people. She becomes romantically involved with Kanan and strikes up a friendship with Lady Minou Hobday, who keeps a regular vigil at Turtle Beach, where the refugees try to land. Hobday's obsession with the beach is due to her secret hope that one day her own children will arrive there. Accompanying Hobday one night, Judith witnesses a brutal massacre by the Malaysians, which spurs her on to expose the horrors of the internment camps at Bidong.

Brides of Christ is set in the mid-1960s, a time when the Catholic Church and its followers were struggling with the changing face of the Church, including the death of the Pope and the controversial issues of abortion and contraception. Told in six parts, the narrative follows Diane, a young woman who has walked away from her fiancé to join a convent after being sure she has a calling to the faith. Diane is forced to face her own demons, however, and eventually has to decide whether she can teach what the Church preaches, or if it's simply impossible for her to reconcile all the contradictions of the faith and uphold her vow of obedience.

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.

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.'

Television mini-series that dramatises the arrest, conviction for drug trafficking, and execution of Australians Kevin Barlow and Geoff Chambers.

Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, suggests that Barlow and Chambers 'is less interesting than its two fictional successors, Ring of Scorpio and Bangkok Hilton', in part, he suggests, because 'at the time more than 60 per cent of the Australian public was unsympathetic to their predicament'.

Moran also notes that the mini-series--which 'set Barlow up as the innocent victim at the expense of Chambers, who emerges as the shadowy and villainous figure'--drew criticism from the families of both the deceased.

Mini-series that traces the first tour of England by the Australian national rugby league team, the Kangaroos.

When first aired, the mini-series drew harsh criticism from the family of English captain Albert Goldthorpe, who complained that 'Goldthorpe is depicted as a player "not adverse to foul and dubious practices".' In contrast to this, Goldthorpe's granddaughter argued, 'He was a gentleman who was known as the Prince of Rugby League.' This criticism was supported by Dally Messenger's grandson, who argued that 'The film-makers have squeezed a series of incidents into one match.'

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 8 June 1988, p.69.

A series of documentaries about Australians from all walks of life, the series was produced and hosted by former television current-affairs presenter Michael Willesee.

Among the best-known people included in the series were infamous singer/dancer Lola Montez, actor Errol Flynn, athlete Betty Cuthbert, actress Lottie Lyell, radio personality Jack Davey, boxer Les Darcy, and Gallipoli hero Private John Simpson. The series also explored the lives of the Durkin family (Soldier Settlers), aviator Clyde Fenton, Sister Mary Mackillop, WWII nurse Vivian Bullwinkle, press baron John Norton, and General Henry Gordon Bennett, who fled Singapore in 1942, just prior to the island being invaded by the Japanese, leaving his army behind.

Television mini-series following the events leading up to Australia's 1983 win in the America's Cup under the auspices of Alan Bond.

Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series that

1986 was an apposite year to show the series as Bond's company prepared for the next challenge in early 1988. Once Australia had lost the Cup back to the US in 1988 there was little life left in the series. In addition Bond's business dealings were becoming public and throwing a less than flattering light on this tycoon of industry. In 1988-89 he lost control of the recently purchased Nine Network and by 1992 bankruptcy was only a breath away. The Challenge, especially in its portrait of Bond, was destined then to become a historical curiosity.

A made-for-television film in which a private detective and a criminal struggle for possession of a priceless opal.

A made-for-television film tracing the adventures of apprentice horse trainer Dave Powers and race horse Archer, who in the 1860s travel 600 miles to compete in the Melbourne Cup.