australian television information archive

Balmain Boys

Debut: Saturday, November 12, 2005 (Ten)
Executive Producers: Hal McElroy, Di McElroy
Producer: Rocky Bester
Director: Raymond Quint
Writers: Tony Morphett, Dave Warner

After an injury ends his law-enforcement career, a cop forms a detective agency with his lawyer brother. (100 min)

Starring: Jeremy Sims, Paul Gleeson, Fiona Press, Lara Cox, Mark Furze, Jeff Truman, Pippa Grandison, Imelda Corcoran, William Zappa, Natalia Novikova

Note: Balmain Boys was produced in 2001

Hell Has Harbour Views

Debut: January 30, 2005 (ABC)
Producer: Ian Collie
Director: Peter Duncan
Writer: Peter Duncan (based on a novel by Richard Beasley)

Hugh Walker (Matt Day) seems to have it all. He's 31, charming, handsome, and a senior associate in the largest law firm in the land. He numbers amongst his clients some of the country's most powerful banks and insurance companies, and his employers see him as a litigator who will eventually join their own esteemed ranks as a living God.

Oh, how Hugh longs for an office with a harbour view (and the things he will do to get one!)

There's just one small problem. A vow he made when he worked for Carneys, an ideologically sound law firm that acted for the little guys against the corporate monoliths. He promised himself that he would never cross to the dark side. Now when he looks in the mirror, he doesn't like what he sees. And his dreams, his alcohol fuelled nightmares, are filled with images of those he has skewered with justice's sword … farmers, paraplegics, brain-damaged children … they all come to visit him at night.

And his waking hours aren't helped any by the fact that he has fallen out of love with his fabulous girlfriend, Helen (Marta Dusseldorp) and in love with the divine Caroline (Lisa McCune). Deception mounts deception.

The closer you get to the top of the greasy pole, the more slippery it becomes. Hugh just manages to hold on … until he finds himself the only witness to a frantic, sexual indiscretion on the boardroom table, and the centre of a bitter power struggle between two warring factions within the firm's senior partners.

He seems damned whichever way he turns, and that harbour view is becoming more and more elusive…

Starring: Matt Day, Lisa McCune, Freya Stafford, Marta Dusseldorp, Peter O'Brien, Steve Bisley, Tiriel Mora and David Field

Hell Has Harbour Views is available on DVD from chaos.com

The Incredible Journey of Mary Bryant

Debut: 2005 (Ten)
Produced by Screentime Pty Ltd
Executive Producers: Bob Campbell, Des Monaghan, Andy Harris, Sue Masters, Justin Bodle
Producers: Greg Haddrick, Andrew Benson
Director: Peter Andrikidis
Writer: Peter Berry

Mary Bryant is a true life epic of an extraordinary young woman and her fight for the freedom and the dignity of her young family in the colony of Botany Bay, on the open seas of the Pacific Ocean, in the fine homes of Timor and the courts of Boswell's England.

Starring: Romola Garai, Jack Davenport, Alex O'Lachlan, Sam Neill, Tony Martin, David Field

Available on DVD from chaos.com

Little Oberon

Debut: September 18, 2005 (Nine)
Audience: 1.559 million viewers
Produced by Christie Films and The Grundy Organisation
Executive Producer: Stanley Walsh
Producer: Susan Bower
Director: Kevin Carlin
Writer: Peter Gawler

Sigrid Thornton portrays ailing eccentric artist Lola Green who lives in the sleepy mountain town of Little Oberon. Sparks fly when Lola is visited by her estranged and tempestuous daughter Georgie (Tasma Walton) and rebellious granddaughter Natasha (Brittany Byrnes Byrnes), and the tiny community is woken with a jolt.

There are secrets in the town including a long unsolved disappearance. Nothing is as it seems as magic stalks the streets and love, lust and mystery collide while the Greens - grandmother, mother and daughter - are at the heart of everything.

The telemovie was filmed on location in the Victorian towns of Marysville and Mount Macedon as well as the studios of Melbourne.

Starring: Sigrid Thornton as Lola Green, Tasma Walton as Georgie, Brittany Byrnes as Natasha, Brett Climo, Peter Rowsthorn, Alexander Capelli, Helen Dallimore, Sullivan Stapleton, Morgan O'Neill, Heidi Arena, Julie Eckersley, Katrina Milosevic, Sam Healey, Tim Amos, Syd Brisbane, Peter Houghton, Sweeney Young and Tony Nikolakopoulos.

Second Chance (aka Last Chance Paradise)

Debut: December 03, 2005, 9.40pm - 11.35pm (ABC)

Produced by: BBHTV in association with Network Ten, the Australian Film Finance Corporation, Screenwest and Daro Film
Director: Peter Andrikidis
Writer: John Misto
Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Vince Poletto, Jodie Dry, Genevieve O'Reilly, Rhys Muldoon, Tara Morice, Allyssa McClelland, Paul Pantano and Jonny Pasvolski.
Network: Ten

Second Chance tells the story of Alec Costello, an ambitious lawyer who is exiled to Broome in Australia's remote northwest. When he arrives he is immediately drawn into the sometimes mysterious, often eccentric but always amusing lives of this offbeat community. Filmed in Broome, Western Australia.