Cirrus@Austlit

'Recounts the story of Victorian detective Colin McLaren who posed as a shady art dealer and infiltrated the Australian branch of the Calabrian Mafia. It would prove to be the most dangerous, exhausting and confronting 18 months of his life. But it was also the most thrilling time he ever knew and resulted in the biggest win of his career — seeing 11 of Australia's most villainous Mafiosi sent to prison.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 8/3/2013)

'Set in the picture-postcard community on Sydney's northern beaches, SNOBS is the story of unlikely friends - Abby, the daughter of a wealthy, middle class traditional family and Marian, a boy from a group of modern day nomads who have come to be known as Ferals - the arrival of whom upsets the peace of the community and is the catalyst for conflict, adventure and intrigue.'

Source: Screen Australia.

Fat Cow is a small and dying town. Desperate to keep the town alive, motel proprietor Cassie Brown claims that an '80s pop legend recently died in the town's motel, hoping to draw tourists to the location. When the story is punctured by visiting journalist Jack Green, he and Cassie combine forces to keep Fat Cow alive and solve a succession of mysteries on the way.

Fat Cow Motel was an interactive, multi-platform series. Each episode ended on a cliffhanger, and viewers were invited to solve the mystery at the official website before the resolution aired on the next week's episode.

'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.

'In one day successful city lawyer, Laura Gibson's world falls apart. Suddenly she realises she no longer knows her husband, her children, or where her all-consuming career is going. On a whim, Laura grabs at a position as magistrate in the small coastal town of Pearl Bay and with two bewildered kids in tow sets off to change their lives forever.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 18/9/2012)

'Inspired by true events, Stingers reveals the shadowy and ambiguous world of undercover cops — people with covert lives and constantly changing identities. They are police who defeat crime from within the criminal world — always without a badge and frequently without protection. The series follows the lives of the operatives as they befriend and betray those on the other side of the law. For these select few, it is a deadly way of life.The undercover cops of Stingers are a unique breed. They must juggle their own lives — love, laughter, family and humanity — with the tension of the criminal personas they adopt in their passion for justice.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 7/6/2013)

An edgy and off-beat crime series that relies heavily on humour, contemporary music, and a touch of the bizarre, centring on the character of Elvis Maginnis. An ex-cop from the wrong side of the tracks, Maginnis now runs his own dry-cleaning business but still finds himself drawn into the shady side of life.

'Elvis Maginnis is in trouble and it's his family (as usual) who have put him in it. This time, he's suspected of master-minding an armoured van robbery that netted 1.8 million dollars. Why? Because the overalls the bandits wore came from his drycleaning business and because the MO is identical to a previous robbery--one that the police suspect his cousin Declan of committing. That was also a case that Elvis had investigated while a member of the Armed Robbery Squad. Coincidence, or is Elvis just plain unlucky?'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive (http://www.australiantelevision.net/ggbg/series1.html). (Sighted: 7/9/2012)

'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.

'It's a story about justice...and the corruption of justice. JANUS is about the lawyers, police, judges and magistrates who work with a very imperfect system. The focus of our story will be the new Director of Public Prosecutions Officer, taking over the handling of all Committals for trial - the first sweeping changes recommended by the Janus Taskforce Committee.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 3/5/2013)

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.'

'The Logan family run a small hotel in the remote township of Cooma, a dusty yet peaceful place to call home. But the building of an enormous dam is about to turn Cooma into a wild new frontier. With the surge of hopeful immigrants, shady hustlers and colourful characters - life will never be quite the same for the Logan family - a dramatic existence seasoned with passion and danger, cultural intrigue and the inescapable bustle of change.'

Source: Publisher's blurb for the DVD release.

'The story of three young people recruited to a secret Australian Government intelligence agency to deal with difficult and occasionally violent security matters.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 6/2/2014)

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.

'In the great tradition of Agatha Christie... family and friends gather each spring at Aunt Alice's farm for a weekend of good company, sunshine and apple picking. When Damien arrives uninvited, followed closely by murder, the weekend turns sour... the pickings grim indeed. The stage is set for a riveting finale as the killer tries to remove anyone who poses a threat, and the innocent as well, in one devastating blow.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 17/6/2013)

Set in the late 1800s, Robbery Under Arms is the story of bushranger Captain Starlight, told from the perspective of young Dick Marsden. Dick and his brother Jim follow their father's footsteps, on the wrong side of the law. After they succumb to the impetuosity of a tossed coin and participate in the theft and subsequent sale of fifteen hundred head of cattle, the pair team up with the mysterious Starlight (the renegade son of a British noble family), and evolve from petty criminals to outlawed bushrangers, terrorising the countryside, often in partnership with their father Ben and Starlight's Aboriginal offsider Warrigal. Throughout this story, the brothers find themselves at odds with both their mother and sister and with the lives they could have otherwise led.

An adaptation of Robbery Under Arms, released as both a feature film and a mini-series: this is the latter version.

Ernie is a fourteen year old who lives with his alcoholic father in the harsh and lawless opal fields of inland Australia. When his precious cache of opals is stolen, Ernie determinedly sets out with a friend to find the thief.