One of the most favourite show of Australian TV, a record-holder and long-liver, had a great success on the TV-screens of Europe, Canada and Hon Kong.
For the whole 13 years a small town Wandin Valley became a home for each Australian, who love a genre of soap opera. And the characters of the soap, doctors of the local hospital and members of their families became national idols.
The series was a good mixture of drama and comedy, attracted the broad audience with characters of different age and well thought-out love suspense and, besides, with an impressive spectrum of vital issues: its episodes for the first time touched upon a subjects of unemployment, suicide, AIDS, rights of aboriginals and etc.
Truth to tell, it was aggravated with all excesses of the typical soap opera, was stretched out so long and in that way to the end there was almost nobody from first characters, the most part of them was perished, as for ladies, they permanently had accidents, which shocked a mass Australian audience.
David, whose screen career began from such experiences, often with a touch of irony recalled his early project. It's no wonder, when we know, that he had occasion to participate in it three times during the years in different guises. (How it is typically for the series of such scale!)
"I made a couple of visits to the Valley", - David will say later with a smile. Let's visit it too.
♦ Learning the Lessons
Season 8, Episodes 5-6
1988
A second David's visit to Valley was much more comical and valuable.
This time David appears as a young policeman Scott Galbraith, who was sent for some his sins to a provincial town to replace for the some time a local minister of justice Sergeant Frank Gilroy.
Frank Gilroy was one of the most beloved series characters, so the replacement, even only for the some time couldn't stir up enthusiasm by the audience.
Moreover a strange cop tried to join a next rising love-pair of the series, in that way forming a non-isosceles triangle.
Inspired with love to young Jo Loveday, a poor fellow Scott realizes soon, that he has a luckier rival - a handsome doctor Michael Langley.
Alas, it is clear, Joe's kindly feelings are not for Scott.
Plus to all that, according to the script, he must provide the lion's share of the comic element.
In that way the boy arrives nothing: the local girls don't like him, the local boys play tricks on him, and the local dogs try to drag him from the motorbike and to bite.
The question is what they all didn't like? Perhaps, all depends on his red socks?
After all Frank Gilroy comes back to his place and the audience, having felt the difference, loved him since that time much more.
Cast:
Shane Porteous ...Dr. Terence Elliott
Lorrae Desmond ...Shirley Dean Gilroy
Diane Smith ...Dr. Alex 'Fraser' Elliott
Kate Raison ...Cathy Hayden
Nicholas Bufalo ...Dr. Ben Green
Josephine Mitchell ...Jo 'Loveday' Langley
Brett Climo ...Michael Langley
David Wenham ...Scott Galbraith
and the others...
TV- series