Explore TV Series

Home and Away is set in the fictional town of Summer Bay, a coastal town in New South Wales, and follows the personal and professional lives of the people living in the area. The show initially focused on the Fletcher family, Pippa and Tom Fletcher and their five foster children Frank Morgan, Carly Morris, Steven Matheson, Lynn Davenport and Sally Keating, who would go on to become one of the show's longest-running characters. The show also originally and currently focuses on the Stewart family. Home and Away had proved popular when it premiered in 1988 and had risen to become a hit in Australia, and after only a few weeks, the show tackled its first major and disturbing storyline, the rape of Carly Morris; it was one of the first shows to feature such storylines during the early timeslot. H&A has tackled many adult-themed and controversial storylines; something rarely found in its restricted timeslot.

Compass is an Australian weekly news-documentary program screened on ABC Television on Sunday nights. Originally presented by Geraldine Doogue, the program is devoted to providing information about faith, values, ethics, and religion from across the globe.

Based on Captain James Cook's three voyages. It was on his first voyage, in 1770 (while in the South Pacific region to observe the transit of Venus), that Captain Cook discovered the east coast of Australia. He later recommended Australia as a future British colony. The series was financed by $5 million from Revcom France, $2.25 million from the ABC and the rest from 10BA tax money.

The True Believers is a 1988 Australian mini series which looks at the history of the Australian Labor Party from the end of World War Two up to the Australian Labor Party split of 1955. It was co-written by Bob Ellis who focused on three characters "Chifley, the unlettered man of great dignity; Menzies, who used to stand for something but eventually stood only for Menzies; and Evatt, the grand idealist... It's almost like Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1. It's a chunk of national history during Australia's great era of change after the war."

Based on the life of Emma Eliza Coe, known as the "Queen of the South Seas", whose strength and cunning staved off the colonial struggle involving the United States, Great Britain, and Germany while she built her own empire. Emma’s father, the first consul in Samoa, taught his daughter at an early age the bitter truth about the fickleness of men.

The series explores the diversity of Australia's landscapes, from the seas to the arid interior; the effects of the extremes of flood, drought and bushfire; and examines the impact of 200 years of European settlement on the land, its plants and animals.

Richmond Hill was an Australian television

Always Afternoon is a 1988 Australian mini series about German internees in Australia. It was a co production between Germany and Australia. It inspired a series of paintings by Ross Watson.

The Dirtwater Dynasty is a five-part Australian drama miniseries, first screened on Network Ten in 1988. The Dirtwater Dynasty was directed by Michael Jenkins and John Power. The Dirtwater Dynasty is the story of embittered rivalry, triumph and despair, spanning three generations and eight decades. Born in the London slums in 1878, Richard Eastwick comes to Australia at age 20, with nothing but a handful of courage and a dream. He acquires land, marries and raises a family, makes loyal friends and bitter enemies. Two world wars and the economic depression take their toll on his family and his land and cattle ranching empire but his dream to create a dynasty gives him a reason to continue.

Macauley is a swagman on the road in the 1940s looking for work. He's a laid back, laconic sort of bloke but when he gets landed with his daughter after his drunken play-girl wife in Adelaide makes him face up to what she believes are his responsibilities, neither he nor his daughter are ready for each other. But in the beginning he's all she's got, and at the end, she's all he's got.

An IRA informer and his family are given new identities and new lives in Australia but the IRA are still determined to track them down.

The story of opera soprano Dame Nellie Melba.

The final years of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos' rule, from the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. in 1983 to the People Power EDSA Revolution in 1986 that ousted Marcos. The film focuses on American TV journalist (Gary Busey), who finds himself in the middle of key events that lead to the downfall of the Marcos regime.

The Alien Years is a three-part miniseries that first aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on 19 April 1988. It was directed by Donald Crombie and written by Peter Yeldham. It stars Victoria Longley, John Hargreaves and Academy Award-winner, Christoph Waltz. Yeldham later adapted his screenplay into a novel of the same name.

Drama series dealing with adultery between middle-class Australians in Canberra.

The Comedy Company was an Australian comedy television series first aired from 16 February 1988 until about 11 November 1990 on Network Ten, Sunday night and was created and directed by Ian McFadyen, and co directed and produced by Jo Lane. The show largely consisted of sketch comedy in short segments, much in the tradition of earlier Sketch comedy shows, The Mavis Bramston Show, The Naked Vicar Show, Australia You're Standing In It, and The D-Generation. The majority of the filming took place in Melbourne, Victoria. The show had a significant effect on Australian culture, particularly on Australian youth. The Australian adoption of the word "Bogan" was first used in its existing context by the The Comedy Company character, Kylie Mole.

Major Les Hiddins of the Australian Army was born in Queensland and was always interested in Aboriginal customs and practices and how those practices helped a people survive in a hostile environment for thousands of years. When he joined the Army he developed this interest into a skill and put it to good use. Learning how to survive in the Australian bush and then to teach others the same skills. He wrote various survival manuals for the Australian Armed forces and added survival notes to the back of maps used by pilots flying over the Australian bush. In this series of programmes Les shares that knowledge with us, teaching us some of his survival skills and his great respect for the Aboriginal people that taught him.

War correspondent Frank Buchanan returns to Sydney expecting an easy life; instead he is caught up with Yannis Moustakas, a young Greek taxi driver, would-be rock 'n' roll star, would-be in anything if there's a buck in it.

An innovative late night news programme from Australia's Nine Network, combining serious news with comedy and biting satire.

Continuing the dramatic Australian saga set in the North Queensland cane fields, Fields of Fire Series 2 picks up in 1947, a time of growth, prosperity and adjustment to post-war living.

Touch the Sun was a television series commissioned by the Australian Children's Television Foundation in 1988 as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations. It may have been intended that seven feature-length episodes were produced, one for each State, plus the Northern Territory, but only six were completed. Executive producer was Patricia Edgar in association with the ABC and production company Revcom.