Melissa Tkautz
Housos is an Australian comedy television series created by Paul Fenech for SBS, that screens on SBS One. The series is a satirical parody of low income Australian residents of fictional suburb Sunnyvale, who are living in Housing Commission public housing. On 1 November 2012, a film based on the series was released in Australian cinemas, titled Housos vs. Authority. On 9 September 2012 it was announced that Housos would return for a second series, which premiered 22 July 2013.
Swift and Shift Couriers is an Australian comedy television series that first screened on SBS TV in October 2008. The series is produced, directed and written by Paul Fenech, who was also responsible for the comedy series Pizza. It is set around the staff who work at the 'Swift and Shift' Courier Company, in the central business district of Sydney. Episodes have been partly filmed in Egypt and Thailand. The second season of "Swift and Shift Couriers" began screening on 15 August 2011 on SBS One.
Pacific Drive is an Australian television series The series was conceived as a flamboyant, melodramatic soap opera and dealt with the lives of wealthy Australians living on the Gold Coast. Although criticised for being an Australian copy of the American soap opera Melrose Place, its outrageous storylines - including corporate scheming, various affairs, serial killers and a lesbian love triangle - saw the series gain a cult reputation.
Medivac was an Australian television drama series that ran on Network Ten from 1996 to 1998. There were 48 episodes produced. Medivac is an abbreviation of the term medical evacuation. The series was also known as Adrenaline Junkies overseas. Medivac was set in the emergency department of Brisbane's fictional Bethlehem West Hospital, where a dedicated medical team work in the demanding world of emergency medicine. The team specialises in the evacuation of disaster areas, journeying by helicopter to remote areas inaccessible by ambulance. They also work in the city streets and the suburbs involving themselves with the patients, their families and the police.
Echo Point was an Australian television soap opera produced by Southern Star Group for Network Ten on 1 June 1995 until 1 December 1995. The series was devised as an attempt by the Ten Network to rival the opposition soap Home and Away on the Seven Network. The series focused on several families and teenagers in a coastal community, and a key on-going storyline concerned renewed interest in a long-unsolved local murder mystery. Echo Point originally aired at 7:00pm weeknights to low ratings and the series was cancelled after a little over 100 episodes had been produced. The final episodes were aired in a late night 11.30pm slot. The only purchaser of the series in the UK was Central Television, the only member of the ITV network to screen it. Central screened the series at 1315-1345 in the summer of 1998 following the conclusion of A Country Practice. TV3 in New Zealand picked up the series for just a few weeks in 1996 but then later cancelled, the show featured former Shortland Street actor Martin Henderson.
Paradise Beach is an Australian television series made by Village Roadshow Pictures. It is associated with New World Television for the Nine Network that aired between 1993 and 1994. The series is set around characters living and working on Queensland's Gold Coast and was filmed largely on location, offering views of crashing waves, golden beaches and scantily clad young women and men. Paradise Beach was intended not only as a rival to Australian soaps Neighbours and Home and Away but also to be the first breakthrough Australian soap to make it in America.
E Street is an Australian television soap opera created by Forrest Redlich and produced by Network Ten from 24 January 1989 to 13 May 1993. Whereas Neighbours is set in a middle-class suburb, Home and Away in a seaside town, and Richmond Hill a semi-rural ordinary community, E Street was set in a tough inner-city district called Westside and stories revolved around the local community there. The moderately successful and sedately-paced Grundy serial Richmond Hill was cancelled by Ten to make way for E Street. Richmond Hill had also been successfully sold to ITV in the UK, and was rating in the high-20's in Australia, so it was a huge gamble by Ten to axe it and replace it with the untried E Street. Indeed, it would take 3 years for a UK broadcaster to pick up the soap and E Street initially rated somewhat lower than Richmond Hill in Australia, but audience research indicated that it attracted a significant proportion of the 14-35 audience and a large male viewership - a demographic highly prized by advertisers. Later, with racier storylines, the ratings climbed, eventually eclipsing the figures that Richmond Hill had attracted. E Street ran for 404 one-hour episodes. Like many Australian soap operas before it, E Street was broadcast as two one-hour episodes each week and until the premiere of HeadLand in November 2005, it had been the last Australian soap opera to screen its episodes in this format.
