Sheila Kennelly

Home and Away

Floss McPhee

Home and Away is set in the fictional town of Summer Bay, a coastal town in New South Wales, and follows the personal and professional lives of the people living in the area. The show initially focused on the Fletcher family, Pippa and Tom Fletcher and their five foster children Frank Morgan, Carly Morris, Steven Matheson, Lynn Davenport and Sally Keating, who would go on to become one of the show's longest-running characters. The show also originally and currently focuses on the Stewart family. Home and Away had proved popular when it premiered in 1988 and had risen to become a hit in Australia, and after only a few weeks, the show tackled its first major and disturbing storyline, the rape of Carly Morris; it was one of the first shows to feature such storylines during the early timeslot. H&A has tackled many adult-themed and controversial storylines; something rarely found in its restricted timeslot.

Number 96

Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon of the Cash Harmon Television production company, produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects. The premise, original story outlines, and the original characters were devised by David Sale who also wrote the scripts for the first episodes and continued as script editor for much of the show's run. The series proved to be a huge success, running from 1972 until 1977. Number 96 was so popular it spawned a feature film version, filmed in December 1973. Number 96 was known for its sex scenes and nudity, somewhat risque at the time, and for its comedy characters. The series was the first Australian soap opera to feature an openly gay character.

The Flying Doctors

Merle Dempster

The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.

Kingswood Country

Kingswood Country is an Australian sitcom that screened from 1980 to 1984 on the Seven Network. The series started on 30 January 1980 and was a spin-off from a sketch on comedy program The Naked Vicar Show that had featured Ross Higgins as a blustering bigot. It was produced by RS Productions.

Anzacs

Mrs. Baker

Anzacs was a 1985 5-part Australian miniseries set in World War I. The series follows the lives of a group of young Australian men who enlist in the 8th Battalion of the First Australian Imperial Force in 1914, fighting first at Gallipoli in 1915, and then on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.

All at Sea

Mrs. Hand

A saucy comedy treat from the vaults that stars cast members from "Blankety Blanks", "The Celebrity Game" and "No 96" as a group of misfits attempting to run a holiday resort. The adventures of various guests and staff at Sea Island Resort in Queensland. It is run by Mr Blimer with the help of John Bright. Blimer tries to seduce his assistant; a waitress, Joy, is constantly harassed by the guests but is working her own agenda; employee Mike likes Maryanne but winds up sleeping with the seemingly proper Miss Farrow; Arthur Pickering, is a government minister; a reverend, Parslow, is actually a thief.

Puzzle

Mrs. Foster

Franciscus searches for the urn that contains the remains of Buddha but instead finds danger and intrigue.

The Tale of Ruby Rose

Cook

The year is 1933. Ruby Rose (Melita Jurisic) is an Australian woman living with her Welsh immigrant husband Henry (Chris Haywood) in the Tasmanian highlands. Cut off from her superjudgmental family, for whom Henry had once worked as a humble farm hand, Ruby remains isolated in her tiny house. Superstitiously terrified of the dark, she begins developing her own folklore about the inky blackness that surrounds her each night; this folklore eventually develops into Ruby's own personal religion, created to ward off the evils that she imagines lurk in every corner. Only by venturing out of her house and rekindling her relationship with her embittered father is Ruby able to exorcise her fears. Almost hypnotic in its stark beauty, Tale of Ruby Rose is proof enough that writer/director Roger Scholes deserves to be far better known.