Grass Roots

Saw this while living in Australia. It's a great shame it has never been shown in the U.K., whereas cr*p like Blue Heelers has! Yes this is up there with the best in Aussie TV - I loved Grass Roots (also loved the whimsical Sea Change). I watched this with a big grin plastered all over my face - the heady, swirling, jazz soundtrack is delicious, as are the performances of all concerned.

Basically the storyline is about the Machiavellian machinations of the purveyors of local government, somewhere in NSW. Plot, counter-plot, blatant ambition, amoral and self-serving councillors and staff...just superb! Toe-curlingly realistic (probably!) and very well written. Sophie Heathcote (as Biddy Marchant) is especially worthy of mention as she just drips malevolence. I am so sorry to read that she died earlier this year.

Why do programs of this quality not reach a global audience and Neighbours, Home and Away etc do??? Grass Roots is as far from Lowest Common Denominator TV as you can get - I recommend it to you.

Really innovative (esp. with the already mentioned simultaneous plots) and genuinely funny series without any of the bloody canned laughter that is so prevalent in American comedies. Successful enough for us to get a second season on ABC soon, thank god.

This was a top-class Australian series about the machinations of local government councils.

I loved the comic tone, along with the serous dramatization and the character romance. Seeing the way the main protagonists played off each other and tried to outwit each other was excellent.

Usually I am very critical of Australian serio-comedy for it's fairly poor sense of timing. But this series had good pacing, and was very witty. My particular favorites were Geoff Morrell, Rhonda Findleton, Chris Hayward (who I still associate with SNOWY RIVER), and Rhys Muldoon.

Definitely a must see for anyone who can "get it".

This was a brilliant show. The most enjoyable part for me was the multiple story lines that ran over each episode. Geoffrey Atherden cleverly didn't start and finish each story at the same time like other tv series have, instead he had several plots going at once each at different stages of completion. Stories could start or end at any point in the season without effecting the quality of each episode. The cast was also fantastic, everyone played their roles with determination, trickery and humour. I have to give special mention to Rhys Muldoon and Geoff Morrel, Greg and Col were my favourite characters and I always enjoyed it when they argued over budgets and business plans. I really hope that Geoffrey Atherden makes a second series of Grass Roots, but even if he doesn't I'll always have re-runs

A masterpiece of television in the making, 'Grass Roots' sweeps away the mysteries of local government in a beachside suburb of Sydney, Australia. One wonders how many council employees have spilled the beans to the creators of this series! It's difficult to pick out any particular members of the cast, because they work so well together. No one is really a standout, which is probably how it should be. But mention must be made of the superlative production values, especially the camera work. A 5-star series right up there with 'Seachange' and 'The Games'.