AustLit

Returning, after his father's death, to the town named in honour of his ancestors, Dr Andrew Murcheson takes over the family medical practice, renews his relationship with an old flame, and stirs up long-forgotten family secrets.

Source: MemorableTV.com (http://www.memorabletv.com/australia/tvam2.htm). Sighted: 7/10/2011

Episode 1000 of the long-running soap opera Number 96.

According to MemorableTV.com, this was a failed pilot, in which Sergeant McManus of the Missing Persons Bureau investigates the disappearance of a Russian consul's daughter.

Source: MemorableTV.com (http://www.memorabletv.com/australia/tvam.htm). Sighted: 7/10/2011

Devised by American screewriter Anne Hall, The Unisexers was a short-lived series that followed the travails of a group of young people collectively running a jeans-making business in a large inner-city house, from the same production company that produced Number 96.

Unlike Number 96, however, The Unisexers ran for only three weeks, five nights a week. According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,

'Ironically, given that the timeslot had been such an important factor in the success of Number 96, The Unisexers timeslot [prior to the main evening news] in Sydney and Melbourne proved to be a major part of its downfall. Producers and writers felt particularly circumscribed in terms of what they could show and talk about at that time because of the large number of children viewing then'.

The first episode of The Unisexers is available to watch on YouTube (in black and white).

• Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SYqFbfO4c
• Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI6_tNGKa_A&feature=related
• Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AGsCMlyb-c&feature=related
• Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmIpzjK9504&feature=related

(Sighted: 7/10/2011)

A highly successful soap opera, Number 96's permissive and adult tone emerged, in Moran's terms, from 'the atmosphere of censorship liberalisation that had occurred in Australia in the early 1970s, and the intention to screen the serial in a late evening timeslot'. As such, the programme interspersed the domestic and romantic storylines that usually drive soap operas with plots exploring rape, drug abuse, and homosexuality. For example, the long-running character Don Finlayson (played by Joe Hasham) was an openly gay character whose relationships attracted neither censure nor any unusual degree of attention from his neighbours, showing him as unusually (for the time) integrated into a mainstream community.

According to Moran, 'Number 96 moved the Australian television soap opera completely away from its radio predecessor by organising a series of simultaneous storylines with various characters moving in and out of these, the storylines lasting only two to six weeks on air.' Long-running storylines included the 'Knicker Snipper' (a msyterious figure stealing the residents' underwear) and the Pantyhose Murderer (a serial killer).

As the show's ratings began dropping in 1975, various attempts were made to revitalise interest in the series, including killing (or otherwise writing out) long-running characters, increasing the amount of location shooting, and publicising the increased amount of nudity in the show (including both female and--briefly--male full-frontal nudity). Despite this, ratings continued to drop to the point where the show was cancelled in July 1977.

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.