Cirrus@Austlit

'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)

'They've each been given a $20,000 head start but there's still time for you to catch up with Loc Minh, Clare and Patrick Gormley, Basia Lem, Seth Wallace, Kyle Richter and Katherine Ingram as they take off in pursuit of their dreams. Shepherded by company representative Garret Quinn, a reformed maverick trying to redeem his reputation in the eyes of his multi-national banker bosses, seven young adults try to make their mark on the world with their own dynamic and innovative ideas. Will they accomplish their cherished objectives or go with their failed ambitions like lambs to the slaughter?'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 22/10/2012)

'Based on the stories of Paul Jennings, DRIVEN CRAZY follows the adventures of the Bourke family as they travel around Australia in their old Chevy wagon.'

Source: Screen Australia.

One of Australia's highest rating dramas, All Saints is a Logie Award-winning Australian medical drama set in the fictional All Saints Western General Hospital in suburban Sydney. The stories originally focused on the nursing staff of Ward 17 run by Nursing Unit Manager Terri Sullivan. It was sometimes referred to as the 'garbage ward' because it took the overflow of patients.

In 2004 Network Seven producers overhauled the series in an effort to increase the show's gradually dwindling audience. They achieved this by closing down Ward 17 and transferring some of the staff to the Emergency Department managed by Frank Campion. Several other new lead characters were also introduced. The changes also saw the storylines begin to focus more on the lives of the doctors and nurses.

Another significant change to the series came in early 2009 when the producers introduced the Medical Response Unit. Central to this development was the helicopter which took doctors to rescue situations outside the hopsital and which in turn brought patients to the All Saints Emergency Department. The show's name was also changed at this time to All Saints: Medical Response Unit. The increased production costs created by having scenes shot on location played a part, however, in the series being cancelled mid-year. The series ended with the Emergency Department and Medical Response Unit teams having a dinner to farewell the last remaining original character, Von Ryan on her final day at All Saints.

All Saints was popular in many countries including the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Iran.

A teen drama set in a school divided between mainstream high-school students and students with the potential to compete in sports at an Olympic level.

The two series had distinct storylines.

Series one:

The first day at any new school is always tough but when your schoolmates can run 100 metres in 11 seconds, clear 1.8 metres in the highjump and include the national junior champions in ten Olympic sports...you have to be a winner. (Via Screen Australia)

Series two:

The second series follows the fortunes of the soccer team as they strive for a place in the league play-offs. The team's problems on the field are complicated by problems off the field as allegiances and alliances between the kids (divided into Book Worms and Sports Freaks) shift and develop. (Via Screen Australia)

'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.

'FALLEN ANGELS focuses on and around a community legal centre in Endeavour Park, a fictional suburb in the sprawling outer west of Sydney.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 25/6/2013)

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 drama series set in a sports academy. The various stories target issues of interest to teens. The young athletes' loves, disappointments, families, schools, and rivalries are seen in sharp contrast to the tremendous pressures and unique demands of the international sporting world.

'A 10-part series about the prison psychologist Louisa Correlli who has recently begun working in the male prison, Blackstream. The series deals with her experiences in dealing with the inmates and staff of the prison. In particular, it deals with her relationship with one of her clients, a prisoner by the name of Jones.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 4/6/2013)

G.P. is an Australian television series that ran for eight seasons. Set in and around a fictional general medical practice in an inner-city suburb, the storylines explore the professional and personal lives of the doctors and staff who worked there.

A one-hour soap opera focusing on life in a gritty inner-city suburb.

Home and Away is a television serial created by Alan Bateman and produced by the Seven Network. The idea for the series came to Bateman (then head of drama at Seven) after he stopped to buy ice-creams in a small country town in southern NSW. While chatting to some locals, he learned that the town was unhappy about plans to build a home for foster kids from the city. At that time, Channel Seven was still smarting from its decision to let Neighbours go to the Ten Network, where it had become hugely popular, and was looking to create another series to rival its success. Bateman saw in the idea that became Home and Away the potential for plenty of storylines and conflict by having streetwise city kids being relocated to a small regional environment,

In the beginning, the series focused on Pippa and Tom Fletcher, who, being unable to have children of their own, decide to become foster parents. When Tom is retrenched from his city job, the couple buy the rundown Summer Bay Caravan Park and move there with their five foster children. Soon after arriving, they also take in troublesome Bobby Simpson.

The series debuted in January 1988 with an hour-long telemovie. Although this rated well, the series itself took some while to develop an audience. Having learned their lesson from the Neighbours debacle, Network Seven gave its new show time, and its ratings gradually increased. As with Neighbours, the Home and Away series and performers became very popular in the United Kingdom.

The 1986 television series is set seven years after the events of the 1983 mini-series. Stephanie Harper, Australia's richest woman, is happily married to her plastic-surgeon husband. Her two children are now young adults, involved in the Harper 'empire' but with their own problems. The release of Jilly Stewart from prison starts a dramatic chain of events.

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.

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.