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SONS AND DAUGHTERS |
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- 1982-1987 - 972 x 30 minute episodes - |
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Sons and Daughters was the Australian night-time
serial with, as the title song wailed, love and laughter, tears and sadness
and happiness... Well, it certainly had tears and sadness. The
Grundy produced series began screening in January 1982 on Channel Seven and
was an instant hit, with half-hour episodes screening Monday through to
Thursday in an early evening time slot. Clearly inspired by those earlier
tales of love and angst The Restless Years and The Young Doctors, Sons and Daughters concentrated on the family dramas
and romantic exploits of a group of fresh-faced youngsters making it in the
big bad world. Certainly the series used the same casting format to those
earlier soaps, with a sturdy bunch of experienced actors supported by a
repertory of attractive newcomers. Sons and Daughters also owed a lot to the In true
daytime tradition the main storylines centred on two interconnected families,
one wealthy and powerful, and the other ordinary and working-class. The
opening storyline neatly brought the two groups together and exposed a few
long hidden secrets when young working class hunk John Palmer (Peter Phelps)
met and fell in love with defiant rich-girl Angela Hamilton (Ally Fowler). As the
advertisements breathlessly announced, the two were in fact twin brother and
sister who had been parted at birth and raised separately. It soon transpired
that their unwed parents, Patricia Dunne (Rowena Wallace) and honest truck
driver David Palmer (Tom Richards) had taken one of the offspring each after
their affair ended and they went their separate ways, eventually both
marrying another. While a
shocked John and Angela, not surprisingly, soon parted, the scene was now set
for a torrid affair for Patricia and David though each was currently married.
Patricia to successful, but rather naive, businessman Gordon Hamilton (Brian
Blain) while David was stuck with kindly but dull hausfrau Beryl Palmer
(Leila Hayes). The other
major player was Fiona Thompson, played by former Number 96 favourite Pat McDonald. The wise
and worldly Fiona was light years away from nosey Dorrie Evans, the character
Pat McDonald had played in Number 96. A former madam, “Aunt Fiona” was
long acquainted with the parted lovers Pat and David, and was a strong woman
with all sorts of powerful friends and connections while offering a shoulder
to cry on and the wise voice of reason for the show’s other characters. She
had raised baby John, all the while secretly mourning the loss of her own
child, years before. Naturally
there were plenty of other glamorous adult children to go around. Most notable was Ian Rawlings as
Gordon’s spiteful, ambitious and womanising son Wayne Hamilton. Others in more
decorative but less interesting roles were former Restless Years actress Kim Lewis as Jill Taylor,
a former prostitute boarding with Fiona. Stephen Comey as Kevin Palmer and
Ann Henderson-Stiers as Susan Palmer were Beryl and David’s other children,
while Antonia Murphy portrayed Kevin’s fiancée Lyn and Andrew McKaige was
Susan’s fiancé Bill Todd. THE SERIES PROGRESSES
After
eighteen months of predictable soap romances and break-ups most of the
younger cast members had left the series, with the exception of “Mr Nasty”,
Wayne Hamilton. Several fresh faced replacements joined, most notably Amanda
Morrell (Alyce Platt) and Andy Green (Danny Roberts) who quickly found
themselves just as popular as their predecessors had been. Danny Roberts had
actually been one of the handsome young stars of Nine Network police opera Waterloo Station that was launched at the beginning 1983 but had quickly flopped. These new
characters worked well enough, though it had become obvious that the
youngsters were no longer the bread and butter of the series. Patricia, or
“Pat the Rat” as she became known, had quickly emerged as the show’s (and
Australia’s) leading star. Super-bitch Pat had frequent spiteful rows with
most of the other characters in the series while romances with David only
seemed to wane during her frequent affairs with handsome young (or wealthy)
toy-boys. One minute she would be ruined financially and on the verge of a
nervous breakdown while the next a rich new husband or a business scheme gone
right would return her to the top of the heap with her claws freshly
sharpened. Gordon had divorced Patricia after she had an affair with
David. Gordon went on to marry Barbara Armstrong (Cornelia Frances). Barbara,
a no-nonsense rural neighbour, had been introduced in the show’s early days
as a guest character to last perhaps three weeks. Liking the character, the
producers quickly decided to make her a permanent character. [1]
The assertive Barbara quickly became one of the most popular characters in the
series with her vehement exchanges with Patricia particularly riveting. Eventually,
healthy ratings prompted Channel 7 to increase the number of (half hour)
episodes screened each week from four to five. To help fill this extra screen
time an additional family was integrated into the proceedings. The O’Brien
family, Mike (Ken James) and Heather (Rona Coleman) and teenage kids Katie
(Jane Seaborne) and Jeff (Craig Morrison) were introduced when they moved
into the house next door to Beryl Palmer. They brought with them a new
romantic interest for Beryl in the form of Mike’s brother Jim played by Sean
Scully, while their lives were endlessly complicated by the appearance of the
shady businessman Heather had worked for back in Perth, Roger Carlyle (Les Dayman),
and his son Luke (Peter Cousens), also a friend of Jeff’s. Though
initially successful and despite many varied storylines bringing them into
contact with other characters in the series (Mike and Roger in business
dealings involving Patricia, Katie’s business and romantic association with
Wayne - actually Wayne’s double, friendship between Beryl and Heather) their
storylines eventually petered out and within eighteen months the O’Brien
family and all the associated characters had been written out of the series. THE NEW BITCHES
Finally
after three years of ruining the lives of the other characters and winning
the coveted Gold Logie for her riveting if melodramatic portrayal, actress
Rowena Wallace finally decided to leave the series; news which no doubt gave
the producers a few nervous breakdowns of their own. After
several convoluted storylines Pat eventually departed but not before former
star of The Box, Judy Nunn, had joined the series
playing down-to-earth doctor Irene Fisher, and much vaunted replacement
bitches Karen Fox (Lyndel Rowe) and Leigh Palmer (Lisa Crittenden) appeared.
Shortly after that (possibly because the fireworks generated by Karen
and Leigh hadn’t sparkled quite as brightly as planned) former Number 96 sex kitten Abigail was brought on board as Caroline
Morrell, the recently returned mother of Amanda Morrell. Caroline
quickly took off as the most popular of the new strong women in the series,
finding herself in Pat the Rat territory with scheming, bitchiness and a
rocky reconciliation with her ex-husband, who had more recently been married
to Patricia in the series, Steven Morrell (Michael Long). Caroline blossomed
into a glamorous and somewhat sympathetic would-be business woman who was
nonetheless never nearly as nasty as Pat had been. The real nastiness was
left to Leigh (who ended up staying with the series one year) while Caroline
became more a chaotic comic heroine. Meanwhile the icy Karen Fox found her business association with Gordon had fizzled. In love with Wayne, she plotted to make him believe he accidentally killed courier Bob ‘Mitch’ Mitchell. Mitch was merely knocked out after an altercation with Wayne. Karen told Wayne she had disposed of Mitch’s body when she had actually paid him to disappear. Finally discovering that she had blackmailed him into marriage, Wayne threw her out, and Karen was later found drowned in ornamental lake on the Dural property. After a murder investigation well underway, Gordon’s friend Liz Smith returned and was horrified to learn of Karen’s recent death in the pond. Liz had slapped her during a verbal confrontation in the garden, sending a stumbling Karen into the pond. Liz didn’t know that Karen had been knocked out in the fall, and stalked off not realising she was drowning. While
these episodes were certainly a lot of fun to watch the decline in ratings
since the departure of Rowena Wallace’s Patricia convinced the producers that
Pat the Rat had to come back. With Rowena Wallace unwilling to return, in
true 80s super-soap fashion the writers developed a convoluted storyline with
former The Box sex symbol Belinda Giblin taking over the
role of Patricia. The script had her returning from South America and
plotting revenge, with a new cosmetic surgery face offered as explanation for
her drastic change in appearance. Happily emphasising the absurdity of the idea, the
writers highlighted the plastic surgery angle by making it the focal-point of
the storyline: Patricia returned to Australia calling herself Alison Carr and
did not reveal her true identity to anyone, not even her faithful socialite
friend Charlie Bartlett (Sarah Kemp.) This placed Patricia/Alison in a good
position to exact revenge as her former enemies had absolutely no idea who
they were dealing with. Meanwhile
David had tracked down a meek and tearful Patricia look-alike who had
undergone plastic surgery in the same hospital at the same time, while also
suffering amnesia. Mistakenly identifying her as Patricia, David married this
gentle-natured woman and brought her home to Australia where she tried to
come to terms with her previous incarnation as an arch-bitch. Implausible
as it all sounds, rather than pine for the original Pat, die-hard fans seemed
to rejoice in the audacity of the writers and the series remained compelling
as ever, while crazy and outrageous Dynasty style plots and major
catastrophes balanced somewhat uneasily alongside more down-to-earth plotlines
like Charlie being re-united with her adult son Adam (Adam Briscombe), Adam’s
romance with a mellowing Leigh, and Beryl’s romance with new neighbour Rod
Campbell (David Bradshaw.) Despite
Belinda Giblin’s excellent performance as Alison and the cavalcade of
big-haired super-bitches and over-the-top plot-lines, the ratings failed
achieve their former glory resulting in further cast changes. Leigh Palmer
departed, and Charlie’s adult children, and Rod Campbell and his daughter
Jessie (Annie Jones) came and went. However there were bigger plans afoot
behind the scenes and soon after a more drastic purge of characters would
occur. CAST SHUFFLES
Samantha
Morrell (Sally Tayler), Amanda’s rather similar sister who had conveniently
joined the series earlier in the 1985 season just as Amanda left, was
hurriedly written out shortly after 1986 season began on air. Recent cast
addition Willie Fennell, who played the comical elderly blunderer Spider
Webb, also made an abrupt departure. Dr Irene Fisher, a fun character with an
eye for the gentlemen, and surprisingly the highly popular Barbara Hamilton
were also hastily written out of the series in a very rushed and
unsatisfactory manner. Barbara’s portrayer Cornelia Frances described her work on
the series in her 2003 autobiography ‘And What Have You Done Lately?’ She
had wanted to stay with the series, having described her work on the show as
“one of the most enjoyable professional periods I have ever had.” Meanwhile
a host of new and mostly younger characters were quickly introduced. These
included handsome hunks Glen Young (Mark Conroy) and Craig Maxwell (Jared
Robinson), Fiona’s prickly niece Janice Reid (Rima Te Waita), vivacious
Debbie Halliday (Shannon Kenny), Fiona’s old friend May Walters (Georgie
Sterling), and temperamental young fashion-designer Ginny Doyle (Angela
Kennedy). There was a new love interest for Caroline in the form of
businessman Doug Fletcher (Normie Rowe), and other twists saw the
re-emergence of Susan Palmer (now played by Oriana Panozzo.) According
to the producers these new characters were added in an attempt to recapture
the more down-to-earth nature of the earlier episodes, while the big business
intrigue and outrageous plotlines were markedly toned down. Fiona and Janice
now lived together in the new boarding-house they opened. Their characters
began an on-going comedy double-act, while the house itself became a new
vehicle to bring guest characters into the proceedings. Craig Maxwell
identified Beryl as his long lost mother. It was soon learned that Craig’s
mother was actually Beryl’s look-alike, the similarly-monikered Ruby (also
played by Leila Hayes), an unscrupulous tart. Craig also formed an enduring
romantic association with chauffeur Debbie. Glen quickly caught Alison’s eye
and a turbulent love affair resulted. Mark
Conroy and Jared Robinson had clearly been cast for their model-like good
looks and, especially for Conroy in his opening scenes, the opportunities for
showcasing these newcomers bare-chested, in tight jeans or in tiny swimming
trunks were rarely missed. Clearly Conroy and Robinson were key figures in
the show’s attempted revamp, and unusually for cast newcomers, instantly
gained a position in the show’s opening titles “mug-shots” montage. Usually
new characters, even much publicised key characters like Caroline and Alison,
would wait several months before their picture made its way into the opening
titles. Sadly
these attempts to revitalise the series were not particularly successful.
Former fans did not return to the series, while young newcomers to soap
viewing seemed to prefer Neighbours, a more clean-cut serial that had
been launched at the start of 1985. FINAL REVAMPS
Towards
the end Beryl and Gordon, who had stood as the more stable halves of the two
original parental relationships in the series, decided to get married. They
did not seem particularly well matched; the move seemed a fairly arbitrary
method of revitalising
the characters who had come somewhat surplus to requirements in the evolving
storylines, despite their importance to the character structure at the start
of the series. Finally the producers did manage to lure Rowena Wallace back
to the series, though sadly, what would have been top news two years before
seemed pallid indeed to an indifferent viewing public who had switched off in
droves from a series obviously past its peak and showing no sign of
improving. Rowena’s on-screen re-appearance (not playing Patricia but rather
Pat’s long-lost identical twin sister, Pamela Hudson) sadly came too late to
save the series and indeed coincided with both the shift to a non-ratings
time slot and the news that the series had been quietly axed. Poor Rowena
played out her scenes to little fanfare and the series quietly ended (in
Melbourne, at least) well into the summer non-ratings period of December
1987, shortly after Rowena’s 10 week stint ended. Though
David Palmer had departed at the end of 1986, many old hands stayed on to the
end: Fiona, Charlie, Beryl and Gordon, Wayne and Andy all remained, while
successful characters Alison and Caroline continued their outrageous
scheming. Sons and Daughters was one series to really pick-up
on the current tastes and trends of the day with the early cloning of The Restless Years before adopting the tone of the glamorous US
super-soaps just coming into vogue. Apart from Return to Eden which lasted just one season, Sons and Daughters is the one successful Australian soap to
deal with wealthy and powerful business people and their money-making
schemes. While this led to successful ratings at the time it seems Sons and Daughters dated rather quickly when the vogue passed. THE 96TH PARALLEL
There are
also some interesting parallels between Sons and Daughters and the grand-daddy of all
Australian soaps, Number 96. Both
series were made in Both
series ran a similar length, but ten years apart; Number 96 ran from March 1972 to August
1977 while Sons and Daughters ran from January 1982, with
the final episode airing in
IMPACT
In all
972 half-hour episodes of Sons and Daughters were produced. The series was
screened in the UK in the late 1980s to some success. Early episodes of the
show were repeated by Channel 5 in the The show
has also been repeated several times in Australia since its original run but
has never reached true cult status. Network Seven repeated the series in an
early morning weekday slot in the late 1990s. Then Australian pay-TV operator
Foxtel repeated the series on the UK-TV channel (well, the series had
achieved success in the country). Starting 1997 Foxtel broadcast the entire
series at the accelerated rate of five half-hour episodes a week. The final
episode was reached in April 2000. In the late 1990s Sons and Daughters was repeated on the PRIME network which
transmits to country regions of PRIME
viewers really were left hanging when Sons and Daughters disappeared. The various
storylines all seemed to be building to a climactic high-point in preparation
for the end-of-year cliffhanger for 1985. Unlike some years, this time the
writers managed to place practically all of the characters in some sort-of
perilous position for the year’s final fade-out, with at least two involved
in a potentially deadly disaster. PRIME’s
final episode finished with Gordon’s recently appeared brother James (Nick
Tate) announcing to Gordon, Barbara, Wayne and Caroline that he was going to
marry Alison and his wedding present to her was giving her control of his
business involvement within the company, making the despised Alison their
business partner. A worried Fiona was hiding her illness (cancer) from
everyone while her doctor, Irene, was pressuring her to get treatment. Andy
was enmeshed in a troubled romance with a blind-girl Kelly, while Charlie was
impersonating a prim academic to impress her new beau Tom. David’s new wife
Sarah - initially believed to be an amnesia-suffering Patricia - had run off
and left him, and Beryl had ended her romance with neighbour Rod Campbell
after he had raised his hand to hit her. Had the series remained on-air, we
would soon have seen that year’s big cliffhanger. This included a
claustrophobic Caroline locked in a cupboard during a robbery of the Hamilton
mansion while Gordon and Barbara were away, attending Wayne’s wedding to Mary
Reynolds (Tessa Humphries). Meanwhile in Melbourne, Beryl looked on
helplessly as Rod’s jealous housekeeper Doris Hudson (Carole Skinner) locked
herself in the house alone with Beryl’s baby son Robert threatening to
smother him to death. Alison had learned the true identity of Wayne’s fiancée
(she was actually his long-lost sister) and she and James rushed in his small
plane to stop the wedding. Miles from civilisation their plane ran out of
fuel, and crashed into dense forest. In
October 2006 the Seven Network began repeating Sons and Daughters at 10.30 am weekdays. This repeat
run started from episode one but was discontinued in March 2007. In July 2008
the Seven Network resumed rerunning the serial, at midnight each Wednesday
night (technically Thursday morning). [3] Two
special DVD retrospectives featuring selected episodes of Sons and Daughters were released in 2006 and in 2007. REMAKES
Sons and Daughters has inspired five remakes produced under license from the original
producers and based, initially, on original story and character outlines. The
remakes are Verbotene Liebe (“Forbidden Love”), |
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Originally uploaded May 2000 Last updated 16 July 2009 |
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