Cirrus@Austlit

'There's soul searching all round when Senior Sergeant Lance Rorke dies in a freak accident during a Water Police operation. What was supposed to be a simple surveillance of suspected drug importers, turned into a high-stakes, high-energy shoot out with gun runners. Everyone feels they could have done something to save their friend.

'Alex, whose informant led them to the container wharf where the shootout took place, blames herself for pushing for Water Police involvement hoping to get one over the drug squad. Reilly's car broke down on the way to the scene causing him to abandon it and continue on foot, leaving behind his two-way radio. From a distance he could see the impending danger, but without a radio he couldn't warn his colleagues. Quinn who'd had a big night out was caught short by nausea and the vital seconds he took to vomit saw him arrive on the scene too late.

'Perhaps the heaviest weight is on Hawker's shoulders. He's the man responsible for everyone and their actions. Keeping the group together as ever is Jack Christey. He mourns a good friend but know they cannot blame themselves for the actions of a scumbag. But all the self-examination doesn't stop.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 12/6/2013)

'A day in the life of Helen Blakemore. Blakemore has applied for a job as security manager for an American Bank in Chicago. With this exciting prospect virtually in the bag, Blakemore arrives at work to a Water Police station in chaos as a bomb threat evacuation is currently underway. Blakemore decides that the station will have to learn to cope without her, and that today is the day that everyone has a lesson to learn.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 12/6/2013)

'The Metro is a funky inner city block where there are as many stories as there are apartments, where a cafe and a community police station make up the ground floor, and where the penthouse (and indeed most of the building) is owned by a corrupt businessman who enjoys the irony of living 'above the law'.

'Created by veteran Australian television writer Tony Morphett (Blue Heelers, Water Rats) and wife Inga Hunter, Above The Law invites the viewer into a 'vertical village' where a host of colourful characters form firm friendships and relationships based on humour, respect, love and lust.

'When 'Vegas' Pete Murray is sent to jail, his unsuspecting daughter Olivia (Alyssa-Jane Cook) is forced to move into The Metro. While she confronts her father's murky past, she finds herself struggling to control his empire, and learning to live with the other inhabitants of The Metro.'

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

'"Kiwi" Dave Crow escapes from custody and makes it his personal mission to make Frank's life a misery. Kiwi Dave's vendetta takes a toll on Frank's relationship with Louise.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 12/6/2013)

'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.

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.

A character-based television drama series about the lives of police officers in the fictitious Australian country town of Mt Thomas, this series began with the arrival of Constable Maggie Doyle (Lisa McCune) to the Mt Thomas station in the episode 'A Woman's Place'. Doyle and avuncular station boss Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon (John Wood) were the core characters of the series until the departure of Lisa McCune.

Immensely popular for a decade, Blue Heelers was cancelled in 2006 after thirteen seasons. The announcement was front-page news in Australia's major newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney's Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The Age in Melbourne, and Brisbane's Courier Mail.

On June 8, 2006 Ross Warneke wrote in The Age:

'It's over and, to be perfectly blunt, there's no use lamenting the demise of Blue Heelers any more. When the final movie-length episode aired on Channel Seven on Sunday night, 1.5 million Australians tuned in, a figure that was big enough to give the show a win in its timeslot but nowhere near big enough to pay the sort of tribute that this writer believes Heelers deserved after more than 500 episodes. It is unlikely there will be anything like it again. At almost $500,000 an hour, shows such as Blue Heelers are quickly becoming the dinosaurs of Australian TV.'

Set in Sydney, The Sum of Us explores the relationship between Harry, a charming, beer-drinking, down-to-earth widower, and Jeff, his gay son. Harry is the caring 'mate' whose open-mindedness borders on being annoying. Jeff unsuccessfully searches for love with the unwanted guidance of his father.

Frank is drawn to Vanuatu by a summons from his brother Charlie but, arriving to find Charlie dead, he is drawn into the orbit of his brother's partner Viv and Viv's unhappy wife.