AustLit

Based on the real events surrounding the trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, who were accused of murdering their daughter Azaria at Uluru in Central Australia.

Frequently described as an 'Australian western', Five Mile Creek was based on Louis L'Amour's 1982 novel The Cherokee Trail, with the action moved wholesale to Australia.

A co-production between the Seven Network and the Disney Channel, the program, according to Moran in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'revolved around two women, Kate Wallace and the American Maggie Scott, who ran a stage way station at Five Mile Creek in New South Wales.' Moran also notes that it 'was the most expensive series ever filmed in Australia up to that time, costing Disney $12 million for the first two series, although this was still thought to be about half of what it would have cost in Hollywood.'

The series did poorly on Australian television but extremely well on the Disney Channel in the United States. According to Moran,

Five Mile Creek was a kind of stunning confirmation that Lew Grade was right all those years earlier in thinking that the Australian outback could be adapted to the genre demands of the western. Indeed in Five Mile Creek the reciprocal parallels and symmetries between America and Australia are pushed in a deliberate and warmly calculating way. The Australian bush is, as it were, transfigured so that it seems intrisically like part of the Old West.

In contrast to this Australian/American fusion that Moran notes in the program's sensibility, he also notes that it had the Disney Channel's 'cultural/commercial values written all over it.'

This bio-pic explores Johnny O'Keefe's rise to the top of the Australian music industry in the 1950s. Tough, pushy, passionate, and desperate to be a star, JO'K captured the devotion of a generation of fans, who called him the Wild One, and became Australia's first and only 'King of Rock.'

'One of Australia's most controversial murder trials. Hannah Jane was found with her throat severely cut - too severely for suicide. Her husband was the chief suspect and the case became an example of a jury being overwhelmed by questionable expert scientific evidence.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 21/9/2012)

Sydney doctor Alison places an advertisement in a single magazine, and arranges dates with five different men: each episode of the series follows a different date.

Dramatisation of the 1932-1933 Ashes tour of Australia, otherwise known as the 'bodyline' series, after the controversial fast leg theory bowling ('bodyline') practised by the English cricket team in an attempt to counter Don Bradman's skill as a batsman.

Albert Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, links the mini-series to the earlier Kennedy Miller production The Dismissal, arguing that 'Although ostensibly a change in subject matter (from politics to sport)', Bodyline is 'a further fascinating portrait in tyranny'. Moran also argues that the use of archival footage 'authenticated the series, augmenting its claims to truth, while the material shot for the series narrativised and dramatised the original footage'.

The series was shown over four successive weeks, and produced excellent ratings for Channel Ten.

Set in the world of law enforcement, vice, drugs, politics, and organised crime, Scales of Justice is a quasi-documentary comprising three self-contained stories. The first concerns a young probationary constable who finds himself torn between his moral obligations and loyalty. The second follows two drug squad detectives who allow themselves to be compromised to achieve ambition and power. The third story examines a young and ambitious attorney-general who finds himself in conflict with corrupt senior policemen and some major crime bosses.

The story of a disc jockey who is dying of cancer.

A ten-part drama series in which city sports journalist Robbo and his young assistant, country-raised feminist Jo, travel around Australia doing stories on different sportsmen and women. each episode focuses on a different sport.

Another of the ABC's now-obscure anthology programs, Premiere ran to only four short episodes. The program combined experienced script-writers with directors who had never worked on television before: at least two of the directors (Mary Lancaster and Peter Fisk) went on to work more extensively in television.

According to Moran in this Guide to Australian TV Series, the four episodes were 'Partners', 'Friends of the Family', 'Mr Elvey's Friday Nights', and 'And the Meek Shall Inherit the Earth'. Of these, only the latter is speculative fiction: it covers, according to Moran, 'the future faced by a wealthy industrialist who is cryogenically brought back to life after his death'.

Now an extremely obscure text, Timelapse, aired in 1980, followed the struggle for revenge of computer genius Douglas Hardy: cryogenically frozen in the late 1970s after a failed assassination attempt by corrupt politicians, Hardy is accidentally awoken in 1991, to find that the politicians of his own time have only increased their power. In this new fascist future, Hardy seeks revenge against those who tried to kill him.

In a 1981 interview with star Robert Coleby, Greg Flynn notes that 'Although a rocketing success with sci-fi enthusiasts, Timelapse received few critical bouquets' ('Robert Coleby: Levkas Man is Everyone's Cup of Tea', Australian Women's Weekly, Wed. 25 Feb. 1981, pp.170-71).

For example, one particularly scathing contemporary review (by Cul Cullen) notes:

'There is a whisper abroad that Colin Free wrote the script. I can't believe it. I hope he sues those responsible for this vile slander. ... Cleverly, the ABC has slotted Timelapse against very popular shows on the commercial channels. That way, you see, it might slip by unwatched by anybody.

'And no awkward questions will be asked as to why public money is wasted on such inept nonsense.'

Source: 'Culled Out', Australian Women's Weekly, Wed. 14 May 1980, p.213.

However, Albert Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, says instead that

'Timelapse was a surprisingly good thriller cum piece of adult science fiction much in the manner of the excellent British cult series Prisoner starring Patrick McGoohan. However, where Prisoner was ultimately metaphysical in suggesting the impossibility of either escape by the central figure or his capacity to overcome his captors, Timelapse chose to be more pragmatic in having Hardy finally defeat his enemies.'

An adventure series following the experiences of a naval patrol boat, Patrol Boat rated reasonably well on Australian television and sold well overseas. Made in co-operation with the Royal Australian Navy (which, Moran points out in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'had been trying to get something similar onto the screen for almost eight years'), the series made use of two naval patrol boats for open-sea shooting, including (for the second series) the Fremantle class patrol boat HMAS Defiance.

Moran notes that 'Guest stories included pursuing drug runners, helping a stranded refugee boat and destroying an old mine that had become dangerous to shipping. Each self-contained episode was constructed around two stories, one usually working around an individual sailor while the other concerned a larger group'.

Patrol Boat was the first program in which series creator James Davern's production company, JNP Film, had an active involvement, but Moran notes that JNP Film 'simply packaged scripts for the first series'. Their involvement was greater in the second series, which was made much later.

Chopper Squad follows the adventures of a helicopter surf rescue team based on Sydney's northern beaches, as they deal with various difficult rescues and occasionally come into close contact with desperate criminals.

The program suffered from long hiatuses between the pilot and series one, and between series one and series two. Furthermore, Don Storey notes, in his Classic Australian Television, that

Unfortunately, the quality of the scripts varied immensely. Some episodes had excellent dramatic narratives, and the viewers would be on the edge of their seats watching the rescue process. Other plots were contrived merely to justify the use of a helicopter, or to show off some other facet of the surf rescue operation, or were just corny. This variation in quality occurred not only from episode to episode, but quite often within an episode.

However, Storey concludes that

If the scripts left a lot to be desired, the same could not be said for the other aspects of the programme. The actors all gave good performances, and the technical quality is excellent by any standards. Extensive external location work was used, with internal sets being kept to a minimum. The camerawork is second to none, highlighting the magnificent scenery of the Sydney coastline to great effect.

Albert Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, notes that 'World distribution rights to the series were bought by Paramount Pictures, which sold the production to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Britain'.

'Bluey faces one of the most difficult decisions in his life on the force when a close friend and colleague is kidnapped and held hostage in exchange for a crim in Bluey's custody.

'The Assistant Commissioner will not yield to these terrorist actions and Bluey has to come up with a darn good plan in order to get his friend back - alive.

'Bluey tries to buy time in order to find the kidnappers, little realizing that he is on the wrong track. By the time he realizes the error it looks as if Bluey will lose, not only the crim in his custody, but also his friend.

'It is then that Bluey plays his hand just as dirtily and nastily as the people he has to deal with.'

Source: Synopsis held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection (RMIT).

The script held in the Crawford Collection in the AFI Research Collection contains the following character notes (excluding regular characters):

'JOE FULCHER Late forties. A rugged, hard bitten violent man with a working class background. Reared in atmosphere of violence and acceptance of law breaking, the oldest off-spring of the Fulcher family. A hostile anti-social group who drew strength from their collective stand against an establishment they were convinced thought itself better than they. An engrained belief that the establishment deserved an insult or loss by their hand. And success against the establishment was a family celebration. Congratulations. A family sense of pride. A strengthening of family loyalty. A concentration of their collective hatred against society and especially the symbol of the society and its repressions directed against them .... the police force. JOE carries this family heritage as a series of automatic emotional responses that will at time [sic] of stress and insecurity, over-ride his common sense and self control. He's an ambitious man. Has taken responsibility of his two younger brothers to widen their prospects .... to move from the small-time mentality of the family, to ambitious works and in this regard he has shown a considerable skill. And success. Feels an over-powering need to protect his young sister. This is motivated two-fold. By his concept of the family versus establishment's hostility. And by his continuing guilt over the oldest sister's suicide.

'PAUL HENDY Mid-thirties. Educated but draws little comfort or reassurance from it. Sensitive and ashamed of it. An upward achiever who finds himself introverted ...... and suffers an edge of tension because of it. Insecure and a seeker of approval from others. Something of a physical coward ... but intelligent. Coldly calculating. Ruthless with deep feelin [sic] of others, and perceptive enough to see some of his own shortcomings, and be both vaguely amused and frustrated with them.

'SWANSON Early thirties. Tall. Thick set. A straight forward aggressive approach to life. Doesn't let anything complicate his life for too long. He shapes people to fit his needs and if that fails or frustrates him his solution is aggressively simple .... thump or kill. He likes to eat. Likes to be physical in the way he moves. His bulk, his fitness, reassures him. He moves on a person with his physical presence. Domineering them physically. And he likes to dominate.

'ESMA FULCHER: Late twenties. Quiet. Sweet natured. Intelligent and ashamed of her family. But retaining at the same time a sense of family loyalty. An unhappy person.

'AL FULCHER: Late thirties. Cocky but easily thrown. He draws support from herd conformity and hints at anything less than total family support fill him with an uneasiness that projects itself .... together with all other emotions .... straight onto his face. Violent.

'PETE FULCHER Late twenties. Good looking in a working class, slightly overweight, obvious manner. He thinks himself more cunning and clever than is the reality. Tends to look to Joe ... or Al for his lead. Untrustworthy. Unreliable. Violent.

'STRIPPER: Late twenties. A stripper.'