AustLit

'The Secret Life of Us is a 'high end' television drama series, defined by 'adult themes, sexual references and low-level coarse language', first screened in Australia and the United Kingdom in mid-2001, and surviving for four seasons until late 2005. Developed by Southern Star, with the Ten Network, and Optus Television (a US-based pay TV service), it was the first Australian drama series to be commissioned by the United Kingdom's Channel 4. Eighty-six episodes were screened prior to cancellation. At the peak of its popularity, the series had been sold into a dozen or so (mostly European) territories, and against the usual odds, secured airtime in the United States, where it was picked up by Trio, a small west-coast cable network. It gained positive critical recognition, and fared well at television markets worldwide. Back in Australia, commentators linked the show with the return of the Ten Network to 'credible' drama after a hiatus of two decades (Sams 2001, 37), and with the emergence of a 'sophisticated and quirky' youth sub-genre (Idato 2000, 2), before enthusiasm cooled around series two and three, and series four drew the by now largely neglected narrative to its almost unnoticed conclusion. The project offers a suggestive case study of momentary trends in domestic drama production, within material received as confidently articulating Australia's globalizing television culture at the millennium, inviting exploration of what John Hartley (1992, 102) has seen as the fundamental 'impurity' of national television, and the productivity of its identification as a 'fundamental criterion for cultural studies'.' (Author's introduction p. 51)