Cirrus@Austlit

Created by Reg Watson for German television, Verboten Liebe took its core concept from Australian soap opera Sons and Daughters, including the idea of two siblings separated by their parents who later fall in love (the 'verboten' love of the title). The program was also influenced by American soap opera Ryan's Hope, and, running as it did for more than four times its predecessors' 900 episodes, developed into a series of its own.

After its cancellation, it was revived as Verboten Liebe: Next Generation in 2020.

Like previous Grundy production Waterloo Station, Richmond Hill was an attempt to replicate Crawford Productions' success with the police-drama/soap-opera fusion that was Cop Shop. But like Waterloo Station, it was unsuccessful, limping through a year's worth of poor ratings before being cancelled.

Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series that the program was

designed to fit on the other side of the main evening news, thus hopefully holding viewers already hooked by Neighbours. Although the program had its share of younger characters, it is chiefly remembered for its older players, including the monumental Maggie Kirkpatrick as the pretentious butt of much of the comedy, veteran Gwen Plumb as the caring owner of a boarding house, and Ross Higgins as the police sergeant trying to hold it all together.

Moran also notes that the serial cost $8 million to produce.

A daily television drama series set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough, Neighbours chronicles the lives of the residents of Ramsay Street. The series initially revolved around three families: the Ramsays (at number 24 Ramsay Street), the Robinsons (at number 26), and the Clarkes (at number 28). The scope of the series has since broadened to include new Ramsay Street familes.

A serial set in the fictional Waterloo Police Station, Waterloo Station had strong soap-opera tendencies: Moran notes in his Guide to Australian TV Series that 'It was rightly seen at the time as trying to fuse The Restless Years with Cop Shop, but without much success'.

Despite focusing overtly on the police and trainees at the station, 'there was', Moran notes, 'little emphasis not only on crime but even on the station itself. Instead, the action moved between the station, a boarding house and the homes of a policeman and a detective who coincidentally are married to sisters. The latter locations, in particular, enabled the series to focus on young people as well as some of the older figures.'

The program was axed after three months on air.

Designed as an antipodean counterpart to glossy American soap operas Dallas and Dynasty, Taurus Rising (which traced the rivalry of two affluent families, the Drysdales and the Brents) cost $4.5 million to produce, but did so poorly on air that it was rapidly shifted to a weekend timeslot (according to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series) and ultimately ran to only nineteen episodes. It did, however, later sell to overseas markets, where it was marketed as an extended mini-series.

Sons and Daughters explores the dramatic incidents in the lives of the wealthy Hamilton family and the working-class Palmer family. The premise that underpinned the show's early years concerned the character John Palmer, on the run from the Melbourne police, who suspect him of murder. He travels to Sydney and falls in love with the wealthy Angela Hamilton, but they are later revealed to be twins who were separated at birth and raised separately: John raised by the wise former prostitute Fiona Thompson before returning to live with his father and Angela raised by her mother, who subsequently married into money. More wealth later arrives through the introduction of the Morrell clan, who have managed to marry their way into the Hamilton family.

Television series.

Prisoner told stories of the inmates of Wentworth Detention Centre, a women's prison. The show had its roots in the similar UK drama series Within These Walls, but presented storylines with a much harder and sometimes controversial edge, including themes such as lesbianism, murder, and drugs.

Key characters in the series included Bea Smith (aka Queen Bea), who ran things from the prisoners' side, and prison guards Joan 'The Freak' Ferguson and Vera 'Vinegar Tits' Bennett. Other inmates included the elderly Lizzie Birdsworth and lesbian Franky Doyle.

Another soap opera from Grundy's, The Restless Years followed a group of teenagers from the end of school to early adulthood: the 'restless years' of the title.

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

On paper, The Restless Years should not have worked because the central idea of a group of teenagers and adults variously involved with a kids' refuge was not a particularly strong one. Nevertheless, the series did click with audiences and the program built up a loyal band of viewers who tuned in each evening to watch this tale of lost, confused teenagers and adults. Chief among the latter was the essentially castrating mother played by June Salter.

Mimicking the title of Lesley Stern's article (below), Moran sums up The Restless Years as 'this most Freudian of serials'.

According to Don Storey, in his Classic Australian Television, The Young Doctors was the result of Grundy's association with Ron McLean, who devised a pilot for a program called City Hospital at the same time as he was developing the ultimately unsuccessful King's Men.

Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, notes that

The domain of the serial was young viewers, and accordingly the emphasis was on romance and relationships at the Albert Memorial Hospital. Divorce, sex, social and medical problems were all off-limits for this deliberately lightweight serial concerning the various doctors, nurses and patients at the hospital.... However, shootings, bombings and invasions by dangerous psychotics were all permissable ways of removing regular characters and rearranging relationships.

Though less critically and commerically successful than its rival The Sullivans, The Young Doctors ran for five years, ultimately amassing more screen time than either The Sullivans or Number 96.

Another Grundy soap opera, Until Tomorrow, according to Moran in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'presented a handful of talking heads who did very little and did it very slowly, with a great deal of talk and agonising over matters.' Made in imitation of American day-time soap operas (and therefore one of only a handful of Australian soap operas to have aired outside prime time), the program was made on a low budget and filmed on a limited number of indoor sets.

The Two Way Mirror was intended as a pilot for the kind of 'sexy' soap opera that would compete with Number 96.

According to producer-director Alan Coleman in his autobiography:

The programme, if successful, was to be set in a cosmetic and fashion house–and featured a two-way mirror through which characters could watch nude photographic sessions–or whatever–that would take place in the studio next door. (One Door Shuts, p.266).

The series was not picked up after its initial pilot was filmed.