Cirrus@Austlit

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.

A soap opera set, according to Moran in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'in a boarding house/university college called Thornleigh. It is populated by medical students, the inevitable good-hearted housekeeper, and a professor in charge'.

Starting Out replaced The Young Doctors in the slot immediately prior to the Nine Network's main evening news broadcast, where it did so poorly that it affected the latter's ratings and was rapidly pulled, to run out the remainder of its eipsodes in a later timeslot. However, as Moran points out, 'This fate was not deserved. The pre-news slot is very difficult to fill with a drama series, and The Young Doctors was one of the very few such fillers to succeed. Starting Out was not worse (or better) than the latter'.