In Our Blood

I have to give this a high rating cas it is Aussie drama at its best. The way it was set in a period of so much uncertainty. I won't spoil this as it needs to be watched! The story line used, the way it was created into a musical and the way one tv ad that gave shock value to everyone who watched it back in the 80's!

This tv show needs to be watched by the new generation of kids not just for education purposes but also to respect the people who started organisations and worked extremely hard for love and acceptance!

Well done to the cast, crew, creators and anyone who is involved in this production on this awesome Aussie drama!!

As an Australian migrant, watching this series felt both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar, because of some of the places depicted central to the plot (St. Vincent's, Hyde Park, Surry Hills, etc). Unfamiliar, because of the fear and stigma that was prevalent at that time (not that's fully gone in certain spaces even today). As a person who was not yet born at the start of the AIDS epidemic, a series like this can help some of us understand how far we have come and what it took to get here.

There were many parts of the series that filled the gaps in my head, or just things that I took for granted. Like the gallantry of the lesbians on bikes (yes, it's called differently, but it may be flagged as an offensive word without context). Or the level of engagement and involvement of the community when it comes to sexual health treatment, research and education that exists even today. Or the humble beginnings of organisations like ACON. All of these stories are impactful and profound to this day.

Another memorable aspect of the series was the occasional breakout into song that was emotive and didn't feel contrived in any way. There was also one scene portrayed at st. Vincent's chapel in the hospital in the last episode that was well written and portrayed.

However though, not a perfect show. One could always argue that the community wasn't represented enough. Granted, the vernacular in the early 80's wasn't as rich as it is today, so this could have been difficult, but not impossible. Although Tim Draxl played his role well enough, I was not convinced of the casting choice as he doesn't look like your average politician in Canberra. So that took a while to translate. There was also the politics of one particular state that got singled out, and I realised the series had the liberty to, as it was funded by that state. I'm not sure if other states escaped historical attention because of this. And lastly, the editing in the last episode could have been better - some predictable scenes could've been shortened or eliminated altogether to make it less protracted, but that may be my own take.

Overall though, a solid 9/10 for a memorable, thoughtful portrayal on the history of a painful subject in Australian (and much of the world's) history.

This is a bait and switch - the first few minutes suggest a journey into the flamboyant though ultimately tragic world of gay men in Sydney in the 1980s. I was hoping for gay clubs, seedy back-lane adventures, inter-personal drama between hot young guys and some cool on-location shots paying homage to Sydney. Unfortunately the show very quickly switches focus to the inter-personal drama between bureaucratic grey-people in Canberra. Boring and disappointing. Other things that don't help include the blatant pro-Labor propaganda and anti-Christian vibes - once you notice propaganda it ceases to be effective and it takes away from the believability of the actual storyline and personalities.

"In Our Blood" covers, in a semi-fictional way, how Australia addressed AIDS in the 1980s. From the first day of the Hawke government, Health Minister Dr. Neal Blewett gathered a team about him that tackled the issues in a pragmatic way.

In the night that the first part was shown, ABC repeated a documentary from 2007 which featured interviews with some of the characters portrayed in the new series. Bill Bowtell was prominent in the fight to contain Covid-19, having been an adviser to Dr. Blewett when AIDS was emerging.

The series shows the lack of understanding of the disease in the early days. It demonstrates how Australia's response was so much more practical than the measures taken in other countries where right-wing evangelists ensured that the action taken by government was restricted (did someone mention USA?). I remember people saying that AIDS was God's myxomatosis punishing gay people for their lifestyle. Then the Grim Reaper campaign stressed that it would become a threat to everyone if not defeated.

Some of the personal stories are fictional but some are true. It all seems like yesterday but it was 40 years ago. How time flies!

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There's little doubt that everyone connected to In Our Blood had only the best intentions, but that doesn't excuse this being a cheap, misguided and very poorly executed account of the AIDS crisis in Australia. The weirdness starts with the drama's approach to history. Events and characters are "fictionalised" - except they're not really. Matt Day's Minister of Health is clearly Neal Blewett, and couldn't really be anyone else. The saintly Caroline, who heads the public health campaign, is clearly Ita Buttrose, and couldn't be anyone else. Stranger still, Matt Day appears to be doing a rough impersonation of Blewett, while Caroline is dressed and coiffured like a mean parody of Buttrose. Fictionalising doesn't fool anyone; it only does a disservice to those extremely well-known real life figures. But it's with the fiction that In Our Blood comes really unstuck. There are no characters, just cliched archetypes. And for the most part they mouth dialogue that sounds like it's lifted directly from news articles, government reports and AIDS pamphlets of the day. We're treated to whole scenes of ludicrously stilted dialogue that has all the finesse of an industrial health and safety video. Production values are rock bottom, with Brisbane doing a pretty poor job of trying to pass for Sydney. And there are historical clunkers throughout. Uniformed police officers have long hair (very long hair) in one scene. And the writers clearly have no clue about the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who did not don habits as a lifestyle choice, but to make some serious political points. The musical numbers are High School Musical level (your local high school, not the TV show). And the lipsticked chorus anachronistically imposes 2020s notions of gender diversity on the 1980s in a way that completely misrepresents the gay community of that time. In the few moments where In Our Blood comes close to being dramatically effective, it is painfully obvious that it is also borrowing shamelessly from Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. Entire scenes were clearly "inspired" by Kramer's infinitely superior work. Aside from Tim Draxl, who struggles manfully to inject some real human emotion into his scenes, the performances are consistently well below the standard you'd expect of a program produced by our national broadcaster. And that's putting it as kindly as possible. Yes, it's important that the lessons of the AIDs years are not forgotten. But there are more than a few landmark dramas on the subject, from Kramer's aforementioned work to Tony Kushner's magnificent Angels In America. In Our Blood really has nothing especially worthwhile to add, and I can't help wishing those responsible hadn't bothered.