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SKYWAYS |
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- 1979-1981 - 188 x 60 minute episodes - Produced by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network - |
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Contents |
Crawford
Productions had successfully melded police procedural drama with domestic
soap opera with Cop Shop, and as that
series sustained top ratings for the Seven Network, a second, similar series
was created by Crawfords for Seven. The new series,
Skyways, was set in an airport. Crawford Productions had previously looked
to the sprawling, multi character Arthur Hailey tome Hotel to create
a weekly series / soap opera hybrid titled Hotel
Story which was ambitious in
scope albeit mostly confined to studio sets and shot on videotape.
Unfortunately Network Ten who initially commissioned the series pulled out of
the deal after only seven episodes had been shot, and before any had gone to
air. In any event the
same route was followed for the premise of this series whose stories and
characters seemed closely affiliated with those of Arthur Hailey’s Airport, a
bestselling novel that gives its overall premise in the title. Like the
novel, Skyways presented a
regular staple of airport and airline personnel with personal, professional
and family problems, and some examination of the activities of passing travellers. Stories focusing
on the passengers moving through the airport would feature defecting
athletes, customs cheats, drug smugglers, pimps and prostitutes, and escaping
fugitives. Their activities would be examined in stories basically self
contained to a single episode or the two episodes screened over one week, and
were enacted by weekly series guest stars. These events would involve and be
dealt with by the show’s cast of regular characters - the airport management
and administration personnel and the various pilots and flight attendants.
Story events ostensibly concerning the weekly guest characters would
frequently affect, comment on, or present a counter point to the program’s
ongoing storylines of the regular characters. Skyways was created by
Crawford Productions’ senior writer Terry Stapleton, and executive producer
Jock Blair, previously producer and storyliner of The Box and one of the initial creative forces
behind The Sullivans. The producer of
the new series was former Cop Shop
producer Graham Moore. Interiors were videotaped in the Cambridge Studios in
South Melbourne. Location footage was shot at Melbourne Airport. Skyways
premiered in Melbourne on 9 July 1979. Episodes of the
series were broadcast the “adult” 9.30 pm slot. SKYWAYS
TAKES OFF
The opening storyline focuses on the passing over
of Paul McFarlane (Tony Bonner) in the appointment of new head of the Pacific
International Airport. The retiring Harold Forbes (Charles “Bud” Tingwell) had unexpectedly appointed Derek Powell (Ron Falk),
who quickly demonstrated that he lacked the temperament to handle the sorts
of dramas the incumbent would face. After revealing himself as a panicky
coward in a hostage drama orchestrated by a divorced man whose wife has
absconded with his children on an outgoing flight, Paul was quickly appointed
to the role. His first order of business was to make a final decision on the
appointment of his assistant manager, a role that had been promised to
ruthless and ambitious Louise Carter (Tina Bursill).
Paul personally delivered his evaluation of her character, telling Louise she
was “ruthless and a manipulator and you’re not going to be happy until you
run this place.” Luckily for Louise, this was just the person he wanted, and
she was appointed to the role. This was also fortunate for the success of the
series, as Louise was the show’s standout character, and her portrayer Tina Bursill emerged as perhaps the show’s most charismatic
figure. Paul was divorced but lived with his adult
children. They were troubled and irresponsible Alan (Andrew McKaige) and
bubbly business college student Mandy (Gaynor
Martin). Alan was in the shadow of his disciplined and professional father,
and felt hopelessly inferior and unable to live up to his exacting standards.
Poor Alan struggled with the constant clashes that he judged as “bad news”,
“a real downer”, and, “a heavy scene”. Mandy ran the household and was
referred to by Paul as his “chief advisor”. Also introduced was the hopefully amusing
mismatch romance between air traffic controller Simon Young (Ken James) and
bright and attractive Kelly Morgan (Joanne Samuel), who seemed to manage the
information desk for the entire airport single handed. Simon was presented as
calm and controlled in the control tower when directing air traffic or
talking down stricken planes. At other times he was a nervous and jumpy
virgin, under the thumb of his manipulative, overbearing and disapproving
English mother Mrs Young (Irene Inescourt),
a widow. She stifled Simon with her constant coddling while disapproving of
any potential romance with an Australian girl. Simon lived at home, sleeping
in his single bed in a room decorated with aviation posters. His lonely
mother strictly monitored his movements and liked nothing better to sit with
Simon watching BBC plays on television, while disapproving of Australians,
who she considered ill-bred. Dependable Ken James had seemed adept at
smoothing over bumpy story lurches and enlivening slow spots in his previous
long running serial role in The Box. There
he seemed skilled at maintaining his largely comical portrayal of egoistical
yet insecure TV star Tony Wild despite the apparently conflicting elements of
the character. Unfortunately in Skyways he
seemed unable to nail his new character down. At times James seemed to be
playing a caricature of a meek and downtrodden English boy with a clipped and
precise accent, yet in his appearance he looked much too old to pull this
portrayal off. He also proved himself unable to sustain the accent, and in
several scenes it wavers in and out as the dialogue progresses. In the
control tower scenes where Simon was an accomplished professional his
“English” accent seemed to desert him entirely. Then in the nervous
interludes where Simon tries to woo a bemused Kelly, James seems to be doing
an impersonation of the popular Arnold Feather character from Number 96 where Simon suddenly develops a
heretofore absent verbose and punctilious vocabulary. While Arnold seemed
funny, Simon sadly just seems like a clone. As if downtrodden mother’s boy Simon and his
manipulative mother didn’t provide enough irritating fussiness, Skyways also presented efficient but officious
administrator George Tippett (Brian James). Pompous
and self-important, George was always complaining, and was fond of making
“nice of everybody to let me know” type sarcastic jibes when he was apprised
of a change in the schedule or given a new problem to deal with. More interesting were those portraying the
dashing pilots and the attractive and compliant female flight attendants.
Bruce Barry relied on his natural screen presence and charisma as apparently womanising married pilot
Doug Stewart who romanced attractive attendant Jacki
Soong (Deborah Coulls).
Doug charmed Jacki into accompanying him on a
layover (in both senses of the word) in Hong Kong. Jacki
put aside her reservations in conducting an affair with a married man after
he convinced her that his marriage to Wendy (Anne Charleston) was effectively
now just a formality, and that he was not in the habit of having a new flight
attendant romance with each international trip. In a surprise revelation Doug
proved to be troubled and restless when attempting to make love with Jacki. Soon it seemed apparent that his “worrying
problem” mentioned in the program’s initial publicity was impotence. He
secretly checked out of the suite, leaving the hotel porter to relay the
message to the surprised Jacki that he has changed
hotels and will see her on the flight back to Australia. Meanwhile the handsome and polished Federal
Airways first officer Nick Granger (Bartholomew John) is chosen as poster boy
for a big new airline promotion. Disapproving George insists it is false
advertising given that Granger has never landed an actual passenger jet for real
and has only been chosen for the advertisements due to his handsome visage.
Nick is flying back in from Adelaide with Captain Gardener (Terry McDermott)
when a crack in the craft’s windshield prompts the shocked captain to keel
over with a massive heart attack. As the flight attendant Robyn Davies (Judy
Morris) helpfully declares, “shouldn’t we get the nose up? We’re losing
altitude!” Despite having never actually landed a passenger jet before,
nervous Nick, with the help of Simon Young in the tower, manages the feat
with aplomb. And just in time for the media launch of the airline promotion
which would be presumably assisted by this actual heroic act. (Simon had
eased Nick’s nerves by telling him to imagine that the plane load of
passengers he is carrying are not there - something
that the episode’s audience could easily do as well, since we never get to
see any of them.) In ensuing episodes Robyn was revealed to be a
lesbian who spurned Nick’s overtures and instead pursued her heterosexual
flat-mate Jacki Soong,
who rejected her advances. Soon afterwards Robyn was stabbed to death in the
shower in an episode cliffhanger. The killer was ultimately revealed to be
the crazed Fiona (Dina Mann), a murderously jealous admirer of Nick Granger. To cope with all this crime was airport security
officer Peter Fanelli (Bill Stalker), a tough
former policeman with a short fuse and tendency for violence. Just like Cop Shop’s JJ he was
basically above board but sometimes bent the rules. And like JJ he had a
live-in lady friend of dubious background: Fanelli
was shacked-up with Faye Peterson (Kris McQuade), a
former prostitute and heroin addict he had rescued from the gutter during his
time as a police detective. Now she is trying to improve herself by reading
Dickens. Fanelli admits he has never head of the
author, and disparages himself as just a “dumb Dago.” Early episodes examined
their tensions around Faye’s shady past and the possible implications it
could have on his career, and the potential for blackmail. Though a source of
tension for Fanelli, and for Faye who knew she was
at least the source of airport gossip and cocktail party whispers, Paul
seemed accepting of the situation. SERIES
FORMAT
The format of Skyways was
that each episode would focus on the particular drama of a guest character,
and would also examine the way this affected and advanced the ongoing
narratives of the regular characters. The guest character story would reach
its conclusion towards the end of the episode. A new thread with a new
character would be introduced at the episode’s close which clearly presented
the new problem, and that incident formed the episode’s cliffhanger. The next
episode would then explore this newly introduced problem. For instance when
an episode closed with a newly introduced man shooting himself in the airport
car park, the following episode examined his background and the reasons for
the deed. Paul haplessly had to witness the wealthy parents of the suicide
victim confront the truth that the father’s controlling and inflexible
attitude, and fervent disapproval of what they judge to be the son’s rather
ill advised personal association, led to feelings of rejection and
inferiority and ultimately the suicide. While the embarrassed, euphemistic
manner in which the bereaved parents refer to the son’s ill-advised
relationship suggests he might be gay, the script ultimately confirms that he
was actually at the airport to fly out to visit a “girl”. Nevertheless, for a
minute, the implication of a homosexual liaison had been planted - just as
Alan’s behaviour and
1960s hippie slang might well be trying to hint at a drug habit, something
that is also subsequently explicitly disavowed in dialogue after the seed was
sown. In any event following the series of heated clashes over the perceived
irresponsibility of his son Alan which just leave the lad feeling inferior,
the suicide incident prompts Paul to make amends with the boy. Later, two
episode guest stories, following the format of Cop
Shop, became common. These two part stories would be sandwiched between
episodes with a self-contained guest story. Skyways attempted to be
expansive in scope with its airport setting and the confluence of
international travellers,
occasional aircraft crises and troubled landings, and the international
stopovers of the in-flight staff. Unfortunately, with the program’s budget
and output of two episodes each week, this was difficult to execute
effectively. Low budget high-output programs such as these, for practical and
financial reasons, are only feasible when shot on videotape with the talky
interior sequences shot in the studio. The result was that the long stretches
of the drama that occurs indoors looked bland,
and the program’s rather meagre,
cramped and very beige office sets certainly didn’t help matters. To open
out the action, colour separation overlay, or Chroma key, video effects were utilised extensively. That
way the windows outside the airport manager’s office could show taxiing
planes while the control tower scenes would indeed show the vista of runways
and takeoffs. The external shots had been recorded months before and were
matted into the studio footage using video effects. Unfortunately these
effects when used in drama productions attempting to visually create a real
space look extremely unconvincing with the often different visual quality of
the two pieces of footage and the hazy lines that separate the joined images
- something accentuated whenever anyone steps in front of the inserted video.
Overall the artificial look of the many shots including these effects is very
distracting and certainly detracts from the drama. The program also featured a significant amount of
footage shot on location at Melbourne Airport. Certainly these scenes look
more effective than the Chroma key segments, however the (then) gloomy, brown-brick interior
walls of the expansive terminal buildings hardly come up well in the
videotaped footage that ultimately appeared on screen. After all, the real
life airport was not specifically designed or decorated to show up well on
television. In many airport interiors it seems only the natural light in the
space was used; with the video cameras of the day the resultant footage looks
spare and bland. While Cop Shop too
was contained mostly in videotaped interiors shot on sets, when the action of
that series went outside the footage was frequently videotaped in down-market
Melbourne streets, so the mundane look of the footage was appropriate, and
did not seem incongruous with the show’s studio scenes. In any event, they were
not trying to look luxurious or majestic. The attempts by Skyways to include spectacular airport footage never
really came off. Overall the series worked well for viewers happy
to accept an all-new guest cast and a new self-contained storyline inserted into
the drama each week. The program’s airport setting, which included an
adjacent hotel, allowed a wide range of possibilities in the guest
storylines. Given that their mere presence in the airport locale with some
interaction with the regular characters was the only proviso for the
inclusion of a guest character, a wide range of stories, from serious to
comic, could occur. Unlike a crime drama series where basically any guest
story would involve some sort of crime, all sorts of drama could readily be depicted by Skyways.
However probably the strongest element of Skyways was
its well-drawn and charismatic batch of regular characters. The beautiful,
intelligent and accomplished Louise, working to make it in a male-dominated
arena, and the somewhat inscrutable, but temperamental and troubled security
man Fanelli were the main standouts. NEW
ARRIVALS
By September 1979 actor Kerry Armstrong, released
early from the Network Ten serial Prisoner,
entered Skyways in the recurring
role of country girl Angela Murray. In the story Angela arrives in the city
seeking adventure, but finds that her free spirit and good looks are a recipe for trouble in the big smoke. Armstrong
compared the new character to her Prisoner role,
telling TV Week that “unlike Lyn, who was
unsure of herself and naïve, Angela is a very cluey
lady. It gives me a chance to use a different voice too. Lyn Warner had a
high-pitched country wail. Angela will be more sophisticated.” Of the
proximity with her Prisoner appearance
producer Graham Moore assured TV Week that
there would be no problems with the two characters appearing on air
simultaneously. “We think she’s a very talented young actress and we wanted
Kerry for this role because she was the right person for it,” he said. Of the
recurring nature of the part and how frequently she would appear Moore
explained that “we’ll just have to wait and see how the character develops.” [1] By the end of 1979, highly popular former Crawfords star Gerard Kennedy had begun making
appearances in the recurring role of Gary Doolan,
manager of Trans Asia Airways. A few months after his first appearances went
to air Kennedy was signed to the series on a more permanent basis when series
lead Tony Bonner announced his intention to quit his role. [2] Bonner
had also left his key role in Cop Shop at an
early stage of the series, and as he explained to TV
Week this was for strategic career reasons. “As an actor I can’t see the
benefit of playing the same character for 10 months each year unless the
character is a highly individual one where the writers are specifically
writing to explore different avenues or levels of that person’s life.
Unfortunately, writers are unable to do that with Skyways
because it is a two-hour format. I think a year is enough. It doesn’t allow
the character to become boring. I think it is unethical for an actor to put
his hand out at the end of each week when he’s not putting thought into the
development of his character. The joy of doing a long-running character is
the opportunity it gives you to explore different levels. My goal is to
extend myself and to find characters that I have to research and then can put
their hat on to capture, or recreate, some aspect of that person. Whatever my
peers say about me, personally or professionally, I doubt they’d ever say I
was lazy or uncreative.” On leaving Skyways Bonner
went into a role in feature film The Man from Snowy
River.
[3] THE
SERIES CONTINUES
When Bonner’s character departed, in the story
Gary Doolan was appointed to his position as head
of Pacific International Airport, while Louise Carter got Doolan’s
old job as head of Trans Asia Airlines. By the time of episode number 100,
broadcast in Melbourne and Sydney on 4 August 1980, Louise learns she was
partly appointed for window dressing: there can be strategic and marketing
benefits in having a female company boss. (And her stylish beauty won’t hurt
at press conferences and corporate meetings.) Louise discovers that her
supposed assistant Geoff Goodwin (Jeff Kevin) actually earns more than she
does, has greater authority, and that airline owner Sir Joseph Miles (Michael
Duffield) actually turns to Goodwin for the crucial
executive tasks. When Louise objects to Goodwin’s and Sir Joseph’s handling
of a scheduling clash by rerouting a KLM jet, she cunningly schemes with Doolan to deal with the stacked-up planes in a way that
will prove subtly embarrassing for the airline. Expecting an unfavourable reaction to her
scheme Louise executes it as a sort of coup de grâce prior to her planned resignation. She is
surprised when Miles is impressed with her skills, offers her a pay rise, and
organises a swift transfer to Hong Kong for
Goodwin. Meanwhile a friendly and co-operative relationship with Doolan has also been forged. Doolan
himself had also been manipulated by Sir Joseph, who had been secretly
instrumental in Doolan’s appointment. Doolan too called Sir Joseph’s bluff, and remained in his
position where the interplay between Gary Doolan
and Louise Carter emerged as a highlight in the series. Alongside this airport management intrigue the
weekly (two episode) guest story featured Mike Preston as a faded cockney
comic Harry Green. When Harry is held over at the airport en route to his scheduled farewell performance in New
Zealand, he begins to dwell on his situation of not being able to keep
audiences entertained as he once had, leading to a half-hearted suicide bid.
Harry’s storyline also involves his beleaguered agent Brian McKenzie (Jon
Sidney), struggling to prop Harry up while his own marriage to Ilona (Penne Hackforth-Jones)
falls victim to her infatuation with another traveller Sven Sorenson (Serge Lazareff).
When Harry is forced to step in to support a traumatised Brian it serves as the booster needed to restore
his confidence. Meanwhile Ilona comes to her senses
after Sven is revealed as a thief and a con artist; their problems patched-up
the three make their exits as their flight leaves for New Zealand where Harry
presumably gives a successful farewell performance. Of the role Preston
reported that “It’s one of the best guest roles I’ve ever played. The story
of Harry Green is so true to life. His crisis is a frank reaction of the way
many showbiz people react when they find they can no longer attract
audiences.” [4] By this stage regular cast members Bruce Barry
(air captain Doug) and Deborah Coulls (flight
attendant Jacki) had departed. Kelly had married
Simon and she now worked as secretary to the head of the Pacific
International Airport. Though Paul exited the series by moving to London, his
children Alan and Mandy stayed on. Alan was now the barman at the airport bar
and started a romance with Angela, while Mandy became engaged to Nick. Mandy
was now a flight attendant for the fictional Trans Asia Airlines. In the
story her first flight as a trainee took her to Hong Kong. While Jacki Soong’s Hong Kong
stopover with Doug at the start of the series had been depicted via grainy
stock footage film intercut with Jacki on a hotel room studio set attended to by an Asian
porter, this time fresh location footage would be shot. Mandy’s portrayer Gaynor Martin was flown specially to Hong Kong and
Crawford Productions hired a local crew to shoot footage of her visit which
was used in the episode featuring Mandy’s stopover. At the time Martin told TV Week that “Crawfords want Skyways to be as close to reality as possible and, for
that reason, research trips to Hong Kong like mine will prove invaluable.
That’s why Australian television is going ahead so fast, because we are
aiming for authenticity and quality like never before.” [5] Indeed to help keep things accurate Skyways had its own technical advisor, former pilot
Captain Stuart Archbold. Three years after retiring from flying 747s for
Qantas, 60 year old Archbold became the series’ advisor when it began
production. He was previously a fighter pilot in World War II and had flown
with Charles Kingsford Smith in the Southern Cross. After the war he piloted
various commercial jets and had made two flights in Concorde before his 1977
retirement. Tragically Archbold, who had become a
close friend to many of the regular actors on the show, was killed in a
glider crash during a production break in early 1980. [6] As the series continued the range of different
weekly stories with wide variations in style and tone - and enacted by
familiar television performers - helped keep things interesting. In a story
that screened December 1980 actor Lesley Baker, previously the Prisoner thug Monica Ferguson,
played a guest role that followed her real-life situation of being mother to
a disabled son. Baker, who had left Prisoner to
care for her three year old son who has Psycho-Motor Retardation due to brain
damage at birth, agreed to the role as it was true to the actual problems
faced by such parents. In Skyways she
played Gladys Skinner, mother to a 25 year old disabled man Danny (Peter Finlay), who finally reconnects with the man she suspects
to be Danny’s father, Father James O’Neill (Kit Taylor). Baker told TV Week that “I requested that the script be altered in
a couple of places in line with what I know the problems to be, and the
writer and producer agreed.” [7] Then
in January 1981 Judy Nunn had a guest starring role as Bessie Langhurst, an Amelia Earhart
type aviatrix flying an antique World War II Beecraft
Staggerwing bi-plane that mysteriously lands on the
field adjacent to the airport that had been the old landing strip, decades
before. Bessie wears 1940s aviation gear and is the image of a woman flyer who mysteriously vanished on a solo flight in 1944. [8] Former Number 96
regular Bunney Brooke had also had a guest starring
role in Skyways, which had been
taped in June 1980. The actor later described the role, her post Number 96 career, and the break-up of a long term
relationship for TV Week. “I took on all
sorts of little parts because I was frightened of the Flo
Patterson character from Number 96. I had
to prove again that I was an actor, not just a character. The end of that
relationship knocked me rotten, it was very important to me and I had a
breakdown. I couldn’t handle it and I’ve handled a lot in my time. And I was
really trying to make a decision about getting out of the business. I didn’t
want to stay in it if I wasn’t offering anything. Number
96 was a tremendous peak for me and I began to think maybe I didn’t
have it any more, maybe I didn’t have any more
characters left in me. It was a good time to take stock of myself. Then the
episode of Skyways came along and it
really was the first thing I was game to attempt. I was scared doing it and I
was nervous even though I didn’t look it. But I managed to come up with
something entirely new and I realised I
hadn’t lost it. That role restored my belief in myself.” [9] After just over a year on air, TV Week had reported that Skyways was
rating well in Melbourne, but was less popular in Sydney. To address the
issue, the series producers planned to include Sydney set - and shot -
storylines. [10] Kerry
Armstrong was returned to the series to reprise her role of Angela Murray on
a recurring basis in early 1980. By July that year she had been signed to the
series on a permanent basis that would see her in the series until June 1981.
Armstrong explained to TV Week that
“They have decided to expand the character and give her more depth.” Said
series producer Graham Moore “Kerry’s character is very successful and adds a
lot of colour. She causes a few shocks at Pacific
but she is totally lovable. We are glad to have Kerry back.” [11] Also
brightening up the series was attractive blond model Kylie Foster who joined
the series playing naïve country girl Belinda Phipps who creates a stir by
moving in with strait-laced George Tippett. It was
Foster’s first ever professional acting role, and she impressed the producers
with her talent to the extent that her initial three month contract was
extended to six months. Said Graham Moore “Belinda Phipps has a great
involvement with George Tippett which gives us good
storylines.” [12] A later addition to the regular cast was popular
comedian and former Bellbird veteran Maurie Fields who came in as the airport’s lazy new
deputy head porter Chas Potter. A comedy character for the series, Chas was
quickly nicknamed The Judge - because he sits on cases for so long - and he
usually just ordered the junior porters around instead of doing any lifting himself. Despite also being somewhat a nosey stirrer and
the shop steward of the porters’ union, Chas was overall a pleasant person.
Said his portrayer “I think he’s a very real character - I’ve met a lot like
him in my life. There’s a touch of comedy in the role - and I like playing
comedy. He’s one of those real bumblers who would
never admit it.” [13]
Meanwhile original cast member Joanne Samuel left the series in early 1981.
As she told TV Week “it was a very
difficult decision for me to make. Crawford Productions have been very good
to me and the cast means a lot to me. But I just felt that the character had
gone as far as she could. I was beginning the feel frustrated by the scope of
the character and I felt that as an actress, there are other things I’d like
to try to extend myself.” Ultimately Crawford Productions convinced Samuel to
continue with the series several weeks beyond the expiration of her original
contract to allow her character, Kelly, to be written out of the storyline in
a satisfactory way. Said producer Graham Moore “Kelly is about to come in for
a fairly stormy period in her life. She will play a vital role in the
storylines before we, unfortunately, have agreed to
write her out.” [14] In the
story, Kelly suffered a traumatic miscarriage leading to the disintegration
of her marriage to Simon. It was also announced that Bartholomew John would
be leaving and an actor sought to play the replacement for his character of
Nick Granger, who would be nicknamed “Biggles”. [15] FORCED
LANDING
In the event any concerns that these cast
departures might affect the popularity of the series became moot when it was
announced production would end before they had even made their on-screen
exits. News of the program’s cancellation came
in February 1981, and it was reported production would cease 17 April. Said
cast member Ken James “The cancellation came as no great shock because,
during the past 12 months, there have been reports that Skyways wasn’t rating very well in Sydney. The series
has also been running for two years, which is a long time. I like to think of
it as ceasing production. Channel 7 has been very good to give us 12 weeks
notice. Normally they’d only give us four. Television is a business. You only
produce what the public want to see. And they like police shows.” Andrew McKaige, another original cast member still in the
series, said that “It’s perhaps the best thing that could have happened in
the long run. I’ve been in it for two years and it’s time for me to move on.”
[16] Cast
member Bill Stalker presented his own take on why the series ended. “When I
first looked at the scripts it looked like the adult sex sizzler of the 1980s
but then it became Little House on the Prairie with
wings. Suddenly I found myself comforting kids in wheelchairs. The first
fortnight Fanelli lost his ‘bastards’, the next
fortnight he lost his ‘bloodies’ and he had little to say after that.” [17] The anonymous TV Week
columnist The Watcher bemoaned the
show’s demise. The Watcher praised Skyways for its high technical standard and its cast of
“top performers” and noted that the series featured some very important
technical innovations. The Watcher
observed that in the Australian television industry it seems that programs
must either “win big, or miss out altogether,” and in the columnist’s opinion
the key reason the series ended was because the network failed “to get its
programming act together.” The Watcher also
pointed-out that in its two-year run, Skyways failed
to win a single award for itself or its crew. The column quoted one unnamed
actor as recently saying “I can’t accept the show was so bad that we didn’t
even rate a mention in any award in that time.” [18] Proposed as a replacement for Skyways was the new police drama series The Squad. Ian Crawford of Crawford Productions said that
“We believe the time is right for an action police show. The Squad will look at police procedure from the point of
view of the detectives and will explore their working relationships in
considerable depth.” [19] A key
element of The Squad was that it was
set, and shot, in Sydney. Though a pilot was made with TV Week publicity trumpeting the program’s cast which
included John Gregg, Frank Gallagher, Ken Goodlet,
Roger Ward, Louise Howitt and Andrew Clarke, The Squad never went into regular series production. One Skyways cast
member who beat the axe was Gaynor Martin. Martin,
who played Mandy in the series, was contracted directly to Crawford
Productions. As she explained to TV Week, “When
I joined the series two years ago, I signed a contract with Crawfords, not Skyways, for
three years.” Martin admits that when Hector Crawford announced the program’s
demise she had tears in her eyes, “It came as such a shock and I thought of
the friends I’d be losing. It’s the first time I’ve been involved in
something like this.” [20] The
day after production on Skyway ended
Martin described the final taping sessions for TV
Week. “It was so sad. It was awful. I hated it. I kept looking around the
studio at the various sets and thinking how much I was going to miss all the
friends. The final scene called for me to be quite emotional - that was easy.
But I wasn’t emotional for reasons involved in the scene. I was emotional
because it was the end of a great two-year run.” [21] In the
event Martin was added to the regular cast of Crawford’s new Network Ten
series Holiday Island as the beautiful but
mercenary schemer Kylie. Actor Bill Stalker also survived the demise of Skyways, and he was moved over to Cop Shop to reprise his character Peter Fanelli. In the story, having endured the loss of
girlfriend Faye who was killed in a parachuting accident, Fanelli
left the airport and returned to the police force - making the switch to the Cop Shop series as a new Riverside detective. Then actor
Brian James reprised his Skyways
character of the pompous prig George Tippett in the
later stages of Holiday Island. Tina Bursill enjoyed
continued success in a series of high profile roles repeating her Skyways persona of a cool, elegant businesswoman. First
she played a senior, high-powered executive in the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation series Winner Take All in
1982. According to the TV Week gossip
column she even designed her character’s wardrobe for the show. [22] Later,
in the popular soap Prisoner, Bursill was a big success as a businesswoman of a
different variety: the cruel and ruthless brothel owner Sonia Stevens. Skyways also marked the first screen pairing of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan - later the romantically linked
teen stars of Neighbours - who here guest
starred as eleven-year-old squabbling siblings temporarily left stranded at
the airport by their pilot father. Skyways had spent two years on air and a total of 188 episodes were produced, with the final episode originally going to air on 27 July 1981 (due to differing production schedules, Fanelli had already made his onscreen Cop Shop debut by this point.) In the late 1980s Channel Seven repeated Skyways in Melbourne weekday afternoons. The series was screened in the United Kingdom on Astra Satellite channel Lifestyle during 1990, stripped Monday to Friday in an afternoon slot. Starting January 2006 the WIN Television network in Australia repeated Skyways 3.00 AM each Thursday morning as part of its Crawford’s Australian Classics series. |
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Originally uploaded May 2000 Updated 13 November 2008 |
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