AustLit

'Newton’s Law centers around Josephine Newton, a suburban solicitor with an over-developed sense of responsibility who attempts to return to her briefly glorious stint at the Bar. When Josephine’s low-flying solicitor’s practice is incinerated by a disgruntled client, she is persuaded by her old uni friend and admirer, Lewis Hughes, to trade the benefits of her brilliant mind for the lofty glamour of Knox Chambers. With her office destroyed, her marriage collapsing and motherhood fast losing its charm, Josephine decides it’s time to take her own aspirations off the back burner and resume her barrister’s robes. If only it were that easy to leave her old life behind!'

Source: Australian Broadcasting Commission (http://about.abc.net.au/abc-in-2017/drama-lovers/). (Sighted: 04/11/2016).

'Lisa McCune stars as Dr Sam Stewart, the Sherlock Holmes of tropical medicine and the head doctor in the only medical clinic for the Great Barrier Reef Islands. Sam leads a handful of dedicated practitioners hoping to extract the hidden secrets from venom that have the power to cure some of the world's most fatal diseases. On a daily basis, her small team of medics deals with everything from deadly snakebites and jellyfish stings, to divers with the bends and tropical diseases that can spread like wildfire. But it's not all medical emergencies and dramas for the vendomdocs on Hope Island. Life's also an adventure — wind surfing, scuba diving, abseiling, and at night, kicking back at the Backpackers Hostel, and in the steamy, romantic tropical nights at the end of a long day, maybe even finding love.'

Source: Australian television Information Archive. (Sighted: 1/5/2014)

Three students (one Australian, one German, and one Singaporean) become close friends while studying at a Singaporean boarding school. Disappointed by their inevitable separation at the end of the school year, they are delighted when a fortuitous combination of mobile phones, computers, and a thunderstorm transports them bodily into an Internet chatroom and, from there, into each others' houses. The three spend their days moving freely between Australia, Singapore, and Germany.

The program's official website describes it as 'a vibrant, engaging, contemporary comedy-drama aimed at "tweens" throughout the world.'

Source: Official website (http://www.agurlswurld.com/about/). (Sighted: 23/2/2012)

Based on various short stories by Paul Jennings, Wormwood follows the happenings in the small town of Wormwood, where the fact that the town's economy is based on the production and sale of worm excrement is not the strangest thing about the place.

Previous television series based on Jennings's short stories were Driven Crazy and Round the Twist.

'Based on the popular books by Rose Impey, this comedy-drama series features five 12-year-old girls on their quest for identity, individuality, belonging, family, friendship and how to have the most fun while trying to deny the existence of boys.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 3/12/2013)

'Enter the world of Medical Defence Australia, a medico-legal organisation that exists to defend doctors and where necessary compensate patients. All cases at MDA combine elements of law and medicine so each case is managed by a doctor and a lawyer who agree on how to proceed. It's a unique organisation that delves into morally complex and emotion filled relationships between doctors and patients.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive (http://www.australiantelevision.net/mda/mda.html). (Sighted: 22/2/2013)

Thirteen-year-old Lauren's life is confusing enough, with her mother remarrying, moving to another country, and introducing Lauren to a new stepfather and little stepbrother. But that's not nearly as confusing as the day two Nelfs (Santa's helpers) jump from his sleigh and into Lauren's life. With Santa's rounds finished for another year, Lauren is stuck with the bickering, meddling siblings until next Christmas. But when only Lauren can see them, her family start to think she's going mad.

'In one day successful city lawyer, Laura Gibson's world falls apart. Suddenly she realises she no longer knows her husband, her children, or where her all-consuming career is going. On a whim, Laura grabs at a position as magistrate in the small coastal town of Pearl Bay and with two bewildered kids in tow sets off to change their lives forever.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 18/9/2012)

One of Australia's highest rating dramas, All Saints is a Logie Award-winning Australian medical drama set in the fictional All Saints Western General Hospital in suburban Sydney. The stories originally focused on the nursing staff of Ward 17 run by Nursing Unit Manager Terri Sullivan. It was sometimes referred to as the 'garbage ward' because it took the overflow of patients.

In 2004 Network Seven producers overhauled the series in an effort to increase the show's gradually dwindling audience. They achieved this by closing down Ward 17 and transferring some of the staff to the Emergency Department managed by Frank Campion. Several other new lead characters were also introduced. The changes also saw the storylines begin to focus more on the lives of the doctors and nurses.

Another significant change to the series came in early 2009 when the producers introduced the Medical Response Unit. Central to this development was the helicopter which took doctors to rescue situations outside the hopsital and which in turn brought patients to the All Saints Emergency Department. The show's name was also changed at this time to All Saints: Medical Response Unit. The increased production costs created by having scenes shot on location played a part, however, in the series being cancelled mid-year. The series ended with the Emergency Department and Medical Response Unit teams having a dinner to farewell the last remaining original character, Von Ryan on her final day at All Saints.

All Saints was popular in many countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Iran.

'Inspired by true events, Stingers reveals the shadowy and ambiguous world of undercover cops — people with covert lives and constantly changing identities. They are police who defeat crime from within the criminal world — always without a badge and frequently without protection. The series follows the lives of the operatives as they befriend and betray those on the other side of the law. For these select few, it is a deadly way of life.The undercover cops of Stingers are a unique breed. They must juggle their own lives — love, laughter, family and humanity — with the tension of the criminal personas they adopt in their passion for justice.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 7/6/2013)

'Murder is the ultimate crime. It touches the lives of ordinary people, casting its long shadow over the glossy cityscape and glamorous haunts of the sprawling metropolis. For homicide detectives Steve Hayden and Tessa Vance, solving a murder is a journey from darkness into light. An urgent, vicious confrontation with evil, a walk through the devil's own world.

'Tessa and Steve are the elite new face of homicide. She is young and brilliant, he is logical. She is instinctive, he goes by the book. She's complicated, he's down to earth. Together this powerful partnership must confront and overcome the intrigue, fear and shattered lives which murder leaves in its wake.'

Source: McElroy All Media (http://www.mcelroyallmedia.com.au/index.php?page=murder-call). (Sighted: 19/4/2013)

The authors above are those credited as script-writers for the series. A number of other authors were also credited with 'story': Jennifer Rowe is the most frequently credited, but other authors credited with 'story' are Leanne Williams, Duncan Ball, Kel Richards, Jenny Pausacker, Kerry Greenwood, Richard Hall, Peter Gawler, John Banas, Jean Bedford, Karen Petersen, and Helen Robinson.

'Jane Halifax is called out of semi-retirement to advise in the murder trial of a former patient who is accused of burning his parents to death. Realising the accused may not be guilty, Jane begins to suspect his brother, who seems to be living a bizarre double life.'

Source: Screen Australia

'Set in a newspaper, MERCURY looks at the lives of journalists and their relationships with the paper and each other.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Water Rats is an Australian police television series which was broadcast on the Nine Network between 1996 and 2001. The series was based around the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime across Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney Harbour.

An American/Australian co-production, this series was a revival of the original 1964 - 1967 series Flipper.

The show's production is sharply divided between seasons one and two on one side and seasons three and four on the other.

Seasons one and two aired in first-run syndication in the US, as American television networks turned away from funding comparatively expensive one-hour dramas in the late 1980s and 1990s. These two seasons were made in Australia and took advantage of local directors and other crew, but, notably, the script-writers were exclusively American (as far as they have been traced).

For seasons three and four, Flipper left first-run syndication and aired in the US on the new network PAX TV (now Ion Television). These two seasons were also made in Australia and directed by Australians, but for the first time, they also used Australian script-writers: of the writers who have been traced for seasons three and four, all of the season three writers and the majority of the season four writers are Australian.

For full information on the script-writers, see the list of episodes on the film details page of this record.