AustLit

'Lindy Chamberlain’s story has figured in Australia’s collective conscious since 1980, when a wild dog took her defenseless baby in a random horrific attack. But it quickly became much more than that. The intrigue of the mostly unknown and untamed outback, of parents – particularly mothers - not behaving to conventional expectations; ruthless media, self-serving politicians and cowboy police, and the “trial of the century” all combine to make this a universal story that still resonates today.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Documentary based on the Jimmy Barnes autobiography.

'House of Bond is a dramatised account of the life of Alan Bond, from the 1960s to the 2000s. Part One details Bond’s prominence as a property investor and entrepreneur finishing with his greatest triumph as head of the syndicate that won the 1983 America’s Cup. Part Two sees him expand on a global scale before his hubris saw his empire spectacularly falling down becoming embroiled in a number of WA Inc. scandals including the bailout of the Rothwells Bank and the stripping of Bell Resources.' (Production summary)

Jack Irish becomes entangled in a missing persons case, which leads to a false accusation of murder, and a mystery that stretches to a remote village in the Philippines.

'A sweeping saga of empires rising and falling as the world’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, fights to maintain and expand the mining dynasty left to her by her father, whilst her children sue her for their share of the multi-billion dollar inheritance.' (Production summary)

'A character drama set in 1969 in Kings Cross; the time and place Australia came of age and the new generation broke all the rules. It was the Summer of Love. Mick Jagger was in town, Australia was glued to the telecast of the moon landing and American sailors clashed on the street with anti-Vietnam war protesters. We follow Joan Millar, 28, a maverick midwife returning to Australia and five young pregnant women, whose choices for their babies and own lives exemplify the radical changes at the heart of the cultural and sexual revolution. Their lives intersect between a maternity hospital, a home for unwed mothers and the wild streets of Darlinghurst.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 13/2/2014)

When Detective Bennett O'Mara finds a chocolate wrapper on a strangled girl, it leads him to enigmatic chocolatier Juliana Lovece. Just as this perceptive woman gets under his hardened skin, he suspects she may be at the centre of an increasing murder count.

'In Hopetoun there are few rules... And even fewer willing to follow them.

'In this town moral codes are muddied by circumstance and opportunity. There's gold for the taking, cash being splashed and power wielded ruthlessly with little regard for right and wrong. It's hard to know the good guys from the bad when guns, blades and fists speak louder than any law.

'This is the world of the Wild Boys, a high-energy adventure series about a gang of bushrangers whose charisma is as captivating and entertaining as their extreme exploits in the Australian bush.

'Set in 1860s NSW at the frontier - where gold has lured the opportunistic away from the still fledgling main colonies - Wild Boys follows four men on the outside of the law as they come up against authority, the rich and greedy and the foibles of their own hearts.

'Jack, Dan, Conrad and Captain Gunpowder are the Wild Boys.

'Jack wants enough gold to head west, buy land and settle down with Mary, Hopetoun's publican, butcher and brothel owner.

'Dan wants enough gold to head west and buy women (any women, really).

'Captain Gunpowder just wants to have fun with Jack, Dan and his cache of explosives (and maybe win the heart of a certain school teacher).

'And Conrad doesn't really care about money; he just wants to elope with the mayor's daughter Emilia.

The Wild Boys are making plans for the future, but for now they will have to make do with each other - staging hold-ups and keeping one step ahead of traps, trackers, and other outlaws.

'The question is: Are they smart enough to stay ahead of Fuller, Fife and Scanlon (each of whom has a very good reason to want the Wild Boys dead)?'

Source: Wild Boys official website )http://au.tv.yahoo.com/wild-boys/) (Sighted: 30/08/2011)

'Billy Connolly plays Steve Myers, a lawyer who became a fisherman from frustration. When his one piece of property, his boat, is struck by lightning and destroyed he is denied insurance money because it was 'an act of God'. He re-registers as a lawyer and sues the insurance company and the church under the guise of God, defending himself. The accident leads him to a friendship and eventual relationship with a journalist, Anna Redmond (Davis).' (Source: IMDB)

Sent to Ireland to trace the ancestors of her employer, a beleaguered US senator, a young woman finds herself in the middle of a village's annual matchmaking festival.

Loosely based on Louis Nowra's own experiences as a young theatre practitioner, Cosi follows protagonist Lewis, an unemployed actor who joins a government program to help rehabilitate mentally ill patients in a Sydney institution. Among the patients are psychopathic firebug Doug, pathologically shy Henry, lovesick Cherry, forlorn Ruth, recovering drug-addict Julie, and ever-demanding Roy. Hoping to realise his dream of staging a production of Mozart's Così Fan Tutte, Roy begins takes over the inexperienced Lewis's program, even though oblivious of the fact that none of the other patients can sing opera. As Lewis attempts to keep control of the inmates, his own life begins to spiral out of control. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Lewis finds himself drawn to Julie. He is also sacked by the hospital administrator. Having come so far with their production, however, he and the actors secretly rehearse at night. Errol, the head of nursing, tells his supervisor that the group is preparing a variety show to be performed for the health minister's forthcoming visit. On the night, they instead present their somewhat chaotic version of Cosi.

Spotswood, a small moccasin factory controlled by Mr Ball, is slowly declining as a profit-making organisation. This friendly but financially imperilled 'home-away-from-home' for a number of likeable, slightly off-kilter employees is suddenly faced with unexpected disruption when a time-and-motion expert is brought in.

'In 1910 the Australian Government passed a law requiring all boys aged between 14 and 17 years of age to register for compulsory military training. Will Barnes is a 14-year-old conscientious objector who refuses to register. He is sentenced to three months training at Fort Queenscliff, where he meets a lot of opposition, but also wins his share of admirers for sticking to his beliefs.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive (http://www.australiantelevision.net/more_winners.html). Sighted: 10/11/2011

'Robbie, a young high school teacher becomes a martial arts champion. After Robbie witnesses the murder of the local thug and drug pusher, he finds himself in the ring, competing with the killer.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 13/2/2014)

'A thriller dealing with the murderous pursuit of obsessive love.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 6/8/2013)

A fictionalised version of the theft of somewhere between $6 million and $12 million from the Victoria Club on 21 April 1976. Although technically an unsolved crime (since the only man charged, Norman Lee, was acquitted), the details were revealed in the mid-1990s by Lee's lawyer, after all the men involved had either died or disappeared.

Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, describes the program as 'a tough action mini-series that had a drive, grittiness and ferocity seldom seen in an Australian series':

The Melbourne landscape of wet suburban streets, city skyscrapers, flyovers, passing trams, cobbled laneways and sleazy shopfronts has never looked better, and the impression of a mean, tough, merciless universe is more than reinforced by the driving complex narrative and the excellent playing of the principals.

The program aired on the Nine Network to positive reviews and strong audience figures.

An attempt to re-invoke the popularity that police procedurals had enjoyed a decade earlier, Special Squad was the most expensive program produced in Australia up to 1985 (at $150,000 per episode), yet received such lukewarm ratings that Channel Ten chose not to commission a second series.

According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series,

it was good to watch, with expert stunt work and special effects. With well-paced narratives, intelligently and nicely worked out situations and plenty of emphasis on the villains and victims, Special Squad was just as watchable and entertaining as Homicide had been in its last series.

According to Moran, the failure of Special Squad lay both in its difference from and its similarity to Homicide. The novelty (of Australian accents and Australian locations) that had helped make Homicide so successful was no longer in play, and 'the sight of tough men (on both sides of the law) made the program [Special Squad] seem very old-fashioned. In addition, the plethora of other Australian dramas on air at the time gave viewers more than enough alternatives.'

'In the glittering world of high fashion, beauty is only skin deep! Barbara Kennedy is a successful business woman in the fashion and modelling industry. In the lead up to the Annual Fashion Designers Awards night, her boyfriend finally proposes to her. But everything else is not going well. On the evening of the awards, Barbara realises that one of her own models is her illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption years earlier. Worse than this she is about to walk into the hands of a murderer.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 28/6/2013)