Cirrus@Austlit

Set in a small, fictional, New South Wales country town called Wandin Valley, A Country Practice focused on the staffs of the town's medical practice and local hospital and on the families of the doctors, nurses, and patients. Many of the episodes also featured guest characters (frequently patients served by the practice) through whom various social and medical problems were explored. Although often considered a soap opera, the series was not built around an open-ended narrative; instead, the two one-hour episodes screened per week formed a self-contained narrative block, though many of the storylines were developed as sub-plots for several episodes before becoming the focus of a particular week's storyline. While the focus was on topical issues such as youth unemployment, suicide, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, and terminal illness, the program did sometimes explore culturally sensitive issues, including, for example, the Aboriginal community and their place in modern Australian society.

Among the show's principal characters were Dr Terence Elliott, local policeman Sergeant Frank Gilroy, Esme Watson, Shirley Dean Gilroy, Bob Hatfield, Vernon 'Cookie' Locke, and Matron Margaret 'Maggie' Sloan. In addition to its regularly rotating cast of characters, A Country Practice also had a cast of semi-regulars who would make appearances as the storylines permitted. Interestingly, while the series initially targeted the adult and older youth demographic, it became increasingly popular with children over the years.

A thirteen-episode sit-com from the production company that was shortly to launch soap-opera Number 96.

The premise involves three men and two women who, for purely economic reasons, share a basement flat: Jeremy (who works in television), Mark (a medical student), Bob (an accountant), Jennifer (a university student), and Laura (a model and receptionist).

The program's tension comes from their landlord Tinto, whose prurient distress at the mixed-gender tenancy leads him to attempt various methods of evicting them.

According to Don Storey, on his website Classic Australian Television:

'The Group relies, in classic sit-com tradition, on misunderstandings and misinterpretations of events to generate comedy, which are usually the result of the scatter-brained antics of Laura. There is no underlying social comment, other than the overall theme of not judging by appearances as Tinto does. The sole purpose of The Group is to entertain, and this it does.'

Though The Group was popular with audiences, it was not picked up for a second season for various reasons, including (according to Don Storey) the lack of overseas sales, Bruce Gyngell's departure from the Seven Network, and Cash Harmon Television's planned production of Number 96 for the Ten Network.