Emergency - Season 1 Backdrop Blur
Emergency - Season 1 Poster
NR 1 Seasons • 16 Episodes

Emergency - Season 1

Emergency is an Australian television series produced by GTV-9 in 1959. The series was set in the busy casualty department of a major Melbourne hospital, and is notable for being one of the first-ever dramas shown on Australian television. Made by Melbourne's GTV-9 in co-operation with the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and based on Britain's "Emergency Ward 10", "Emergency" starred Brian James as Dr. Geoffrey Thompson, Syd Conabere as orderly George Rogers, and Judith Godden as Nurse Jill Adamson. Moira Carleton also featured as Matron Evans. The series was produced primarily in the GTV-9 studio, with brief exterior sequences shot on 35mm film by newsreel cameramen. The episodes were not broadcast live, but were "kinescoped" to meet programming requirements, and facilitate later screening in Sydney. The series' premise was simple: a basic dramatic exploration of cases passing through the Casualty ward. Scripts were written by GTV staffers Roland Strong and Denzil Howson under pseudonyms. Sponsorship came from British Petroleum, and a contract was signed for 52 half-hour episodes. The series debuted on GTV-9 on 16 February 1959, and on Sydney's ATN-7 a week later. Critics initially appeared fairly neutral, however a highly negative article on the series in a Sydney newspaper caused BP to withdraw sponsorship 16 weeks into the series run. Faced with having to carry the production expenses alone, GTV-9 discontinued production, with the final episode airing in Melbourne on 1 June 1959.

Top Cast

  • Brian James

    Brian James

Overview

Emergency is an Australian television series produced by GTV-9 in 1959. The series was set in the busy casualty department of a major Melbourne hospital, and is notable for being one of the first-ever dramas shown on Australian television. Made by Melbourne's GTV-9 in co-operation with the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and based on Britain's "Emergency Ward 10", "Emergency" starred Brian James as Dr. Geoffrey Thompson, Syd Conabere as orderly George Rogers, and Judith Godden as Nurse Jill Adamson. Moira Carleton also featured as Matron Evans. The series was produced primarily in the GTV-9 studio, with brief exterior sequences shot on 35mm film by newsreel cameramen. The episodes were not broadcast live, but were "kinescoped" to meet programming requirements, and facilitate later screening in Sydney. The series' premise was simple: a basic dramatic exploration of cases passing through the Casualty ward. Scripts were written by GTV staffers Roland Strong and Denzil Howson under pseudonyms. Sponsorship came from British Petroleum, and a contract was signed for 52 half-hour episodes. The series debuted on GTV-9 on 16 February 1959, and on Sydney's ATN-7 a week later. Critics initially appeared fairly neutral, however a highly negative article on the series in a Sydney newspaper caused BP to withdraw sponsorship 16 weeks into the series run. Faced with having to carry the production expenses alone, GTV-9 discontinued production, with the final episode airing in Melbourne on 1 June 1959.

Recommendations

Sunset Beach

Sunset Beach is an American television soap opera that aired on NBC from January 6, 1997 to December 31, 1999. The show follows the loves and lives of the people living in the Orange County coastal area named Sunset Beach, on the coast of California. Although there is a town in California called Sunset Beach, the show's beach scenes were shot on nearby Seal Beach. The show was co-produced by NBC and Spelling Television. Sunset Beach won two Daytime Emmy Awards and was nominated another eleven times. The show also received twenty-two nominations for various other awards.

Sunset Beach

6.2 1997
Hawthorne

Christina Hawthorne is a compassionate and headstrong Chief Nursing Officer heading up a group of dedicated nurses at Richmond Trinity Hospital on the hospital's front lines. She does everything in her power to help her patients. When necessary, she takes on doctors and administrators who are overworked, distracted or just unable to see the human being behind the hospital chart. But the long days at the hospital and Hawthorne’s intense focus on helping others take a toll on her personal life.

Hawthorne

7.0 2009
Bad Girls

Bad Girls is a British television drama series that was broadcast on ITV from 1 June 1999 to 20 December 2006 and starred Simone Lahbib, Mandana Jones, Debra Stephenson, Linda Henry, Jack Ellis and many more throughout the eight-year run. The series was broadcast in 17 countries and was produced by Shed Productions, the company which later produced Footballers' Wives and Waterloo Road. It is set in the fictional women's prison of Larkhall, and features a mixture of serious and light storylines focusing on the prisoners and staff of G Wing. From 2010, the UK broadcast rights were bought by CBS Drama, and is repeated regularly – as of September 2012, the channel is re-running the series again in a late-night time slot.

Bad Girls

7.6 1999
North of 60

North of 60 is a mid-1990s Canadian television series depicting life in the sub-Arctic northern boreal forest. It first aired on CBC Television in 1992 and was syndicated around the world. It is set in the fictional community of Lynx River, a primarily Native-run town depicted as being in the Dehcho Region, Northwest Territories. Most of the characters were Dene. Some non-native characters had important roles: the restaurant/motel owner, the band manager, the nurse and the town's main RCMP officer. The show explored themes of Native poverty, alcoholism, cultural preservation and conflict over land settlements and natural resource exploitation. Originally somewhat light-hearted, it quickly became a more dramatic and ponderous series.

North of 60

5.9 1992