Blue Heelers
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series that was produced by Southern Star Group and ran for twelve years on the Seven Network, from 1994 to 2006. Although based around the policing of the town, the series generally depicted the everyday lives and relationships of the residents of Mount Thomas, a fictional small town in Victoria.
The series was one of the highest-rated and most-awarded programs in the history of Australian television, having won 25 Logie awards, and having equal standing with The Don Lane Show as the most awarded show in the history of the Logies. It is also noted for its two main stars Lisa McCune, a four-time recipient of the Gold Logie, and John Wood, who also won Gold.
Overview
Blue Heelers was first aired on 18 January 1994, with the episode "A Woman's Place". The last episode, episode #510 titled "One More Day" aired on 4 June 2006. The series was produced by Southern Star Group for the Seven Network. During its 13-season run it won a total of 32 awards and was nominated for a further 50. This included 25 Logie Awards, five of which were the Gold Logie, the most coveted television award in Australia.As well as everyday policing matters, the series deals with many controversial and "touchy" subjects. The series was the first to examine the stressful world of young police officers who are "thrown into the deep end where they are left to sink or swim".
Police procedurals were enormously popular in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s, but by the 1980s they had been replaced by home-grown soap operas and mini-series, like Neighbours and Home and Away.
Blue Heelers, however, was Australia's most popular television drama while it lasted. The series drew more than 2.5 million viewers every week at its peak. Along with the long-running Crawford Productions series Homicide, Blue Heelers holds the Australian record for most episodes produced of a weekly prime-time drama. It was also nearly the longest-running series, but Homicide lasted one calendar month longer and, due to five feature-length episodes, had more time on air.
Blue Heelers was sold to 108 territories and gained international recognition in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada and other countries.
The series launched the careers of many Australian actors, such as Lisa McCune, Grant Bowler, Ditch Davey, Rachel Gordon, Tasma Walton, Charlie Clausen and Jane Allsop. While many of these actors are still best known for their work on Blue Heelers, some have gone on to bigger roles. Many other actors of today also appeared in guest roles, including Hugh Jackman, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Peter O'Brien, John Howard and Robert Rabiah.
John Wood, alongside Julie Nihill remained the only actors with Blue Heelers to remain during its entire 12-year run, portraying Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon and publican Chris Riley respectively.
Plot
The series primarily focuses on the daily lives of police officers working at a police station in the fictional small town of Mount Thomas in the Australian state of Victoria. Each episode is presented from the perspective of the officers. This was a specific technique that creator Hal McElroy chose to employ.The police officers, commonly referred to as "Heelers", are always active sorting out the town's many problems. These problems range from trivial complaints such as land and fencing disputes to more serious offences, such as homicides and assaults. The small town is also faced with many other significant occurrences including bank robberies, escaped criminals, police shootings, kidnappings and the acts of deluded criminals. Of these, one of the more significant events is the bombing of the police station during the show's twelfth season.
Whenever overwhelmed, the Heelers call on the assistance of the police in the larger town of St Davids, home of the resident police inspector Russell Falcon-Price. An antagonist in the series, Falcon-Price often tries to terminate the employment of the Mount Thomas sergeant or to close the entire station, which in reality would be almost entirely out of his control.
Along with their police work, aspects of the Heelers' personal lives are regularly featured, notably the relationship between Maggie and PJ, which ends with Maggie's death in one of the most watched moments on Australian television.
Episodes
Cast
Main
Recurring cast
| Actor | Character | Episode count | Reference |
| Arianthe Galani | Helena Hasham | 6 | |
| Beth Buchanan | Susan Croydon | 15 | |
| Brett Climo | Robbie Doyle | 9 | |
| Catherine Wilkin | Sally Downie | 14 | |
| Damien Fotiou | Vinnie Morelli | 3 | |
| Danny Adcock | Barry Baxter | 8 | |
| David Lyons | Jason Tyler | 3 | |
| Debra Lawrance | Grace Curtis | 26 | |
| Dennis Miller | Pat Doyle | 14 | |
| Emily Browning | Hayley Fulton | 9 | |
| Frances O'Connor | Gabe Greenway | 3 | |
| Helen Thomson | Dr Tatiana Zylinski | 6 | |
| Jack Finsterer | Detective Constable Johnny Kowalski | 4 | |
| Jeremy Kewley | Tony Timms | 23 | |
| Josh Lawson | David Murray | 5 | |
| Kevin Harrington | Charlie McKinley | 4 | |
| Martin Copping | Boyd Spurling | 5 | |
| Marty Fields | Sgt. Roy Holland | 4 | - |
| Matt Passmore | Brad Fingleton | 5 | |
| Merfyn Owen | Father Brian Hegerty | 11 | |
| Michael Isaacs | Clancy Freeman | 11 | |
| Mirrah Foulkes | Deborah Masters | 3 | |
| Neil Pigot | Inspector Russel Falcon-Price | 42 | |
| Peta Doodson | Inspector Monica Draper | 33 | |
| Rachel Blakely | Gina Belfanti | 10 | |
| Reg Evans | Keith Purvis | 5 + | |
| Richard Carter | Les Anderson | 4 | |
| Richard Huggett | Detective Constable Sean Neale | 6 | |
| Roger Oakley | Russ Cavell | 4 | |
| Roy Billing | Senior Constable Ian Goss | 5 | |
| Sarah Chadwick | Acting Sgt Lindy Schroeder | 3 | |
| Stephen Curry | Eddie Dodds | 3 | |
| Steve Mouzakis | Theo Kallergis | 5 | |
| Suzi Dougherty | Dr. Mel Carter | 30 | |
| Tara Morice | Melanie Anderson | 5 | |
| Terence Donovan | Ian Waldron | 3 | |
| Terry Gill | Superintendent Clive Adamson | 5 | |
| Terry Serio | Mick Doyle | 8 | |
| Todd MacDonald | Brendan Maguire | 3 | |
| Tottie Goldsmith | Fay Tudor | 3 | |
| Vince Colosimo | Bill Lapscott | 3 |
Production
On average, 42 episodes of Blue Heelers were broadcast per year on Australian television, with each episode comprising fifty scenes. One episode was made every week. The scripts were written to a formula which allowed one day for rehearsal, two days on location and two days in the studio. Episodes were shot eight to ten weeks ahead of their scheduled broadcast date. There were 16 episodes in various stages of production at any one time. In addition, there were always seven complete episodes waiting to go to air. Apart from the regular cast members, the show employed 4,300 guest actors annually, plus 30 extras every week. A total of 150 people were involved in some way with the show's production each week, including cast members, crew, wardrobe, publicists and writers.Conception and development
Blue Heelers creator/producer, Hal McElroy, conceived the idea of Blue Heelers when he heard that an eighteen-year-old friend was planning to become a police officer. Intrigued, he inquired as to why this young boy, fresh out of school, would want to become a police officer, as opposed to the many other opportunities he had open to him. McElroy soon discovered that, at the time, a staggering 60% of Australian police officers were under the age of 26. This, coupled with McElroy's desire to create a country cop show, formed the basis of the programme. When this same young officer left the force only a year later due to the shooting death of his colleague, McElroy was even more intrigued to learn about the very fickle, yet rewarding job of policing the community. McElroy continued his quest by asking ex-police officer Michael Winter to write down what it was like to be a city cop who transferred to a country town. These became the ideas that Blue Heelers was based around. Michael Winter also conceived the name of the programme by recounting the common names for a country police officer: "tyre-biters"—referring to the fact that country cops are often involved in car chases—and "blue heelers"—referring to their blue uniforms and overall similar appearance and persona to a Blue Heeler dog, a protective and intuitive breed of Australian dog. From the time that McElroy's idea was initially conceived, to the time the programme was ready to air, three years passed.During the early development of Blue Heelers two completely different pilots were shot: one depicting the story from the perspective of a police officer and the other from the perspective of a criminal. When these were presented to the Seven Network, the network committed to 13 episodes of the first pilot. The pilot went on to become the official first episode of Blue Heelers, telling the story of a new cop in town, Maggie Doyle, and her beginnings in Mount Thomas. Hal McElroy chose to discard the second pilot, realising it was a fatal mistake to be "with the criminals as they plotted the crime". He also conceived his rule that the producers of the show "couldn't have a camera in a room unless there was a copper there as well". Hence, the basis of the show being from a police officer's perspective became a firm reality..
Hal McElroy gives his police adviser's opinion:
By creating the programme, McElroy and Morphett hoped to close the gap between to police and the public. They hoped to show the human side of the policing and that, like other citizens, police officers have feelings, regrets, aspirations and fears. They also hoped that the show would act as a tribute to the courage of police officers, who risk their lives everyday, never knowing if they would return home at the end of the day.