Blue Heelers

I am really enjoying this program. It's so much better than any of the modern television cop shows. Has a bit of a light hearted feel at first with most of the crimes being minor events.

I like that there's good rapport between the characters and the actors seem to fit very well.

The show should have ended with the departure of Lisa McClune. After that it gets darker. The characters are less interesting. And more and more of the main characters, leave the show, and it just doesn't have the same field anymore.

The first couple of seasons has such a great chemistry between characters. Maggie Doyle is my favorite character played by Lisa McClune.

This show and Water Rats seem much better written than most police shows on television.

Pretty good police procedural until it went down the tubes after the bobbing of the police station and the killings. After that it seemed the writing went down hill. All the characters started acting like idiots.

Blue Heelers, is truly one of Australia's most successful television programs. However i feel that the current series is really de-grading to the previous series. What i mean is that it's is just not as good as it once was. I feel that now the show has been axed, it is just too over due. Blue Heelers has definitely run it's course and in my opinion should have ended with the death of Maggie Doyle (Lisa McCune). The reasons for this is because Magggie was Blue Heelers, she was indisputably the most successful cast memeber and really captured the audience and was the 'golden girl' in Mount Thomas. Her sudden death was devastating and should have resulted in the show being canceled.

I found this online earlier this week and have only worked my way thru a few episodes so far. But I'm really enjoying it. I'm not sure what time period it's supposed to be set in. I understand that it ran from 1994-2006. But the vehicles seem a little older than that and it seems like women have a tough go of it there which kind of makes me wonder if it's supposed to be set a decade or two earlier in time.

BH is broadcast in Italy by a second-class network that airs every episode three times a day (at breakfast, lunch and in the night) to make the most of it, and which recently made news because of the high ratings of their "Bonanza" repeats (go figure!!).

So, at first I wasn't surprised to find a series like this on the channel, because when you first look at it it looks poor, drab, dreary and totally 80's styled, like a bad remainder from the bargain bin.

At the same time I became totally addicted with "Murder Call", to the point of waking at 6AM during weekends just to watch it, and when it dawned on me it was the same production company I simply had to find out what was causing this gap.

After careful study, I have to say that there is no real "gap": yes, you can see more money being thrown in MC, but at the same time the series have such different settings that BH is definitely making a choice, and their choice is to be real. Yes, a lot happens in Mt.Thomas for such a small place, but you also see the policemen spending most of their days networking in the community, accompanying witnesses home and filing, and this is very real. The actors look ordinary, but this just adds to the greatness of BH, because would you believe a model serving as a PC in Mt.Thomas?

And you can see no one was hired for their looks, but for their talent instead: all the actors manage to deliver a lot, from the divertissement episodes (ie: The beauty pageant) to the more dramatic ones. Not to mention the Maggie-PJ chemistry, where their performances are perfect beyond belief.

The writing in this show is great, and the dialogues are as real as you can get. Another great point is that every few episodes there's a very "pervy" storyline, like the ones you can experience in Murder Call, and they are always a work of convoluted genius.

Need I say I became addicted to this show as well? Definitely worth a try!