I'm a lurker on this list from Australia and enjoy the analysis of TS its themes that everyone here engages. Rightly or wrongly, I think Australians are sparsely represented on this list and I thought I might tell you something of the story of TS as seen on Australian TV and my experiences of it.
It premiered on free-to-air network television in February of 1989 on Tuesday nights at 9:30. It followed LA LAW on the TEN network here. Our TV seasons commmneces in late summer which for us is February. It was promoted as a companion series to LA LAW, which at the time was a hot series.
Unfortunately the TEN network, which had ben scoring some big ratings in the late 1980s then went into a rapid decline. Even LA LAW lost a lot of viewers for reasons I never quite fathomed. TS ran for a short time at 9:30 but failed to attract a large enough audience and was demoted to late night, ie after 10:30. I had watched the first couple of episodes and had been disappointed. The first episode was particularly irritating and, much as I love the show now, I still fint that first episode unfortunate. TEN Screened only the first two seasons, and some time in that period I watched the show again and became hooked. I have been ever since.
The SEVEN network picked the series up and screened series three and four. They treated it scarcely better. It was shunted from pillar to post in the schedules, airing always after 10:30 PM and often at midnight or later. Eventually, the final 10 or so episodes were screened midday. This was in 1992.
There the show rested until satellite pay TV channel, TV1, picked up the series and screened it weekly right through in 2000-2001 at peak time repeated in day time, except that TV1 did not show the last night episodes. TV! did screen LEGACY. The final nine episodes were screened in proper sequence following the rest of the series in 2002 when TV1 repeated the show daily at about 2:00 AM. I think I have taped of all but a handful of episodes but I need to index and insert the titles.
During the final two series, which I had to work hard to catch each time the show screened om 1990-92, I became convinced that it was one of the best 10 series ever made for TV. It was the multi faceted treatment the writers accorded each character that made me love and hate them, sometimes simultaneouly, but I always wanted them to come through that really impressed me. I loved the story arcs - Nancy's illness, Michael and Elliot at Miles Drentell's, Nancy's and Elliot's relationship, the aftermath of Gary's death. Gary's death was absolutely shocking when I saw it. I found Gary's ghostly re-appearances extremely poignant and they helped me progressively accept the character's death. The Lee and Billy stories were wamer, but true to the TS spirit, were also frustrating and unsettling at the same time. Those later episodes are suffused with such sadness and betrayal of earlier dreams or assumptions. I sometimes wonder if the creative forces understoodhow deeply they penetrated the thirties-forties psyche in those episodes.
I greatly enjoyed seeing TS again on a regular basis in recent times. I was unsurprised that its power didn't diminished with time. A quite wonderful and still unique - show.
Michael S
Canberra, Australia
