australian television information archive

Airtight

Year: 1999
Produced by Airtight Productions, Greenboe Corporation Pty Ltd
Executive Producer: Norman Stephens
Producers: Ross Matthews, Ian Barry
Director: Ian Barry
Writer: Ian Barry

Set in the nuclear war-torn world of 2040, a congested city is shrouded in a deadly smog, where breathable air is obtainable only through labyrinth shafts that transport the precious gas from high in the atmosphere. These passages are kept functioning by an elite 'Air Force'. The team risk annihilation to expose a deadly blackmail scheme.

Cast: Grayson McCouch, Andrew McFarlane, Tasma Walton, Marshall Napier, Grant Piro, Danny Adcock, Frank Whitten, Richie Singer, Salvatore Coc, Alan Novell, Simone Kessell

Backlands

Year: 1999
An Australia/Germany co-production
Produced by Crawfords Australia and Bavaria Films GMBH
Executive Producers: Bruce Gordon, Tom Parkinson, Ueith von Furstenberg
Producers: Margot McDonald, Mike Bauml
Director: Martin Buchhorn
Writer: John Reeves

Julia Brandt, a German graduate, travels to Australia looking for adventure without telling her mother, only to find herself embroiled in drug smuggling and murder in the Outback. (90 min)

Starring: Denise Zich as Julia Brandt, Craig McLachlan as Det. Const. Steve McNamara, Sophie Heathcote as Sandy O'Brian, Susanne Lothar as Hanne Brandt, Nicholas Bell as Archie Wilson, Mark Mitchell as Chief Inspector Peck, Dieter Laser as Uncle Max, Brett Tucker as Mark Penhalligan, Oscar Redding as Tim Wilson, Bernard Curry as Jerome Delaunay

Note: German title is "Abschied in den Tod"

Close Contact

Friday, October 1, 1999 (Seven)
Executive Producer: Des Monaghan
Producer: Ian Bradley
Director: Scott Hartford Davis
Writers: Ian Bradley, Anne Lucas

Liz Price (Amanda Douge) is young, beautiful, successful and ambitious, a financial consultant who runs her life her way… or so she thought. Because one day her business partner—and married lover—Dave Wyatt (Daniel Roberts), is gunned down outside his front door, and suddenly Liz's life is no longer under her control—she's a marked woman.

On the other side of town, ex-SAS member Mike Heyns (Grant Bowler) is trying to make a living as a professional bodyguard, until he puts a bouncer in hospital and faces the loss of his security licence if he can't come up with money to settle the damages payment. Mike's lawyer is one Chris Price (Brett Climo)—Liz's ex-husband. Chris suggests that Mike become Liz's bodyguard—that way she's protected and Mike gets to keep his licence. But things are never that simple…

Liz does some checking through the company files and discovers that a million dollars in trust funds is missing—and it belongs to Tom McManus (William Gluth), currently serving a sentence for murder in Sydney's notorious Long Bay Prison. Liz concludes that Dave's killer was after the money. But he—or she—is not the only one, because Tom's gorgeous young wife, Cheryl (Kimberley Davies), is also keen on the cash…

Liz has to find the money—and it's Mike's job to protect her while she's doing it. But as they dig deeper into Wyatt's life things only get murkier, and Liz's own life is increasingly at risk.

The race is on to find the money and stay alive. Thrown together in a dangerous situation, Liz and Mike come to depend on each other more than they planned—but will they be able to keep each other alive? (100 min)

Starring: Amanda Douge, Grant Bowler, Kimberley Davies, Valerie Bader, Robert Grubb, Brett Climo, Angeline Neville, Marin Mimica, Paul Pantano, Abbie Cornish, Bogdan Koca, William Gluth, Gary Who, Anne Lucas, Daniel Roberts, Kim Lewis

Halifax fp: Swimming With Sharks

Year: 1999
Produced by Beyond Simpson Le Mesurier Productions Pty Limited
Executive Producer: Kris Noble, Mikael Borglund
Producers: Roger Simpson, Robyn Sinclair, Roger Le Mesurier
Director: Brendan Maher
Writer: Keith Thompson

Jane Halifax is summoned to investigate a murder in a high security prison. Five suspects and an impenetrable wall of silence. When the director of the Unit disappears, Jane's task is to work out what is holding them together and break the code of silence before it's too late.

Cast: Rebecca Gibney, Martin Csokas, David Tredinnick, Peter O'Brien, Helen Jones, Nicholas Bell, Luke Elliot

Halifax fp: A Murder of Crows

Year: 1999
Produced by Beyond Simpson Le Mesurier Productions Pty Limited
Executive Producer: Kris Noble, Mikael Borglund
Producers: Roger Simpson, Robyn Sinclair, Roger Le Mesurier
Director: Steve Jodrell
Writer: Peter Gawler

Jane Halifax provides trauma counselling after a bus accident in a small Christian community. Barbiturates found in one of the driver's blood provides a focus for the town's anger, but Jane puts herself in the firing line by suggesting there are much darker forces at play.

Cast: Rebecca Gibney, Andrew Clarke, Robyn Nevin, Max Garner Gore, Frank Holden

The Potato Factory

Year: 1995
Produced by Golden Square Pictures (UK) Ltd, Screentime Pty Ltd
Executive Producer: Des Monaghan
Producer: Anthony Buckley
Director: Robert Marchand
Writer: Alan Seymour

Based on Bryce Courtenay's novel of the same name, this four-hour miniseries tells the story of Ikey Solomon, his wife Hannah and his mistress Mary, who get caught in the criminal world of early 19th-century London and the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land in Australia.

Cast: Lisa McCune, Ben Cross, Sonia Todd, Robert Grubb, David Ngoombujarra

Queen Kate, Carmel & St Jude

June 20,1999...
Executive Producer: Sue Masters
Producer: Chris Warner
Director: Moira Moss
Writer: Meaghan Smith

Three young women from the same country town complete their last year of school and move to Melbourne to share an inner city house and start their first year at University. Although they come from the same town, at the start of the year they hardly know each other. By the end of the year, it will be quite a different story.

The three girls couldn't come from more different backgrounds. The only girl amongst the six children of third-generation wool growers, Carmel McCaffery spent her school years commuting to the convent school in the next town. With the wool market in crisis, her family are now struggling to hold onto their modest family farm.

Jude Torres is the only child of a local textile designer and her Chilean doctor husband who "disappeared" in Chile when Jude was two years old.

Katarina Armstrong is the youngest daughter of a prominent country surgeon and his society wife. And while Manella might be home during the holidays, she has spent her school life boarding at an exclusive city girl's school. (4 x 50 min)

Cast: Elissa Elliot, Alicia Gardiner, Ingrid Ruz, Carol Burns, John Sheerin, Ben Mendelsohn, Suzy Cato, Victoria Eagger, Stephen Curry, Simon Bossell, Franko Milosinik, Justin Smith, Leon Teague, Bronwyn Jones

Secret Men's Business

Year: 1999 (ABC)
Executive Producer: Sue Masters
Producer: Sandra Levy
Director: Ken Cameron
Writers: Nicholas Hammond and Christopher Lee

A group of five school friends are brought together by the death of their old teacher and, although the men have seen each other over the years, they have never before dealt with the unfinished business of their youth, and the secrets and unsaid truths that were easier left unspoken. (90 min)

Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Marcus Graham, Simon Baker, Jeremy Sims, Jeremy Callaghan; Maya Stange, Tara Jakszewicz, Kate Agnesw, Ann Burbrook, Rhondda Findleton, Joel Edgerton

Time and Tides

Year: 1999
Produced by Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Executive Producers: Sue Masters, Don Reynolds
Producer: Bruce Best
Director: Michael Carson
Writers: Ro Hume, Bruce Best

A voyage back to their home town of 50 years ago proves to be a new beginning. (96 min)

Cast: June Salter, Dinah Shearing, Ron Graham, John Bluthal, Rel Hunt

Tribe

Debut: 1999 (Seven)
Executive Producers: Bruce Gordon, David Rouse, Tom Parkinson
Producer: Jock Blair
Director: George Miller
Writer: Jock Blair

A small group of tourists board an old sailing boat, The Sea Tramp, for a tropical island-hopping cruise through a largely overlooked corner of Micronesia. It should have been the holiday of a lifetime but five days from port they rescue Minh-Tam, a young Vietnamese woman from her sinking fishing trawler. As they attempt to outrun Minh-Tam's attackers, a fire breaks out and the boat sinks. Only a handful of the crew and passengers survive the twin perils of pirates and a fire to reach an uninhabited island that is too dangerous to live on and too dangerous to leave. (2 x 120min)

Cast: Antonio Sabato Jnr, Craig McLachlan, Joanna Cassidy, Rachel Blakely, Nadine Garner, Ling-Hsueh Tang, Paul Leyden, Beverley Dunn, Thaao Penghlis, Tayler Kane