AustLit

A thirteen-episode sit-com from the production company that was shortly to launch soap-opera Number 96.

The premise involves three men and two women who, for purely economic reasons, share a basement flat: Jeremy (who works in television), Mark (a medical student), Bob (an accountant), Jennifer (a university student), and Laura (a model and receptionist).

The program's tension comes from their landlord Tinto, whose prurient distress at the mixed-gender tenancy leads him to attempt various methods of evicting them.

According to Don Storey, on his website Classic Australian Television:

'The Group relies, in classic sit-com tradition, on misunderstandings and misinterpretations of events to generate comedy, which are usually the result of the scatter-brained antics of Laura. There is no underlying social comment, other than the overall theme of not judging by appearances as Tinto does. The sole purpose of The Group is to entertain, and this it does.'

Though The Group was popular with audiences, it was not picked up for a second season for various reasons, including (according to Don Storey) the lack of overseas sales, Bruce Gyngell's departure from the Seven Network, and Cash Harmon Television's planned production of Number 96 for the Ten Network.