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Scottish Television started broadcasting the series in 1983 and always aired A Country Practice as hour-long episodes. Throughout the 1980s the program moved about in time and day but was generally broadcast once a week in an afternoon slot. In January 1994, after (episode #486), it was dropped from the schedules for about 4 months until June. From episode 491 screened every weekday morning at 10:55 for the duration of the summer school holidays (around 6 weeks) until 2 September. It reverted to its old weekly Tuesday slot the following week. It was the dropped completely after episode #588, during 1996. Although the company took over Grampian Television, the series continued until the end, doing so by airing daily episodes during the summer of 1998. The series also had a successful run on the ITV network in the United Kingdom. A Country Practice began on Wednesday, 27 October 1982 - less than a year after its debut on Seven Network in Australia.
Note: Actors highlighted in yellow were retained in the series when switching from Seven Network to Network Ten.
When 7 decided to dump the show, channel 10 took it up and moved location from NSW to Victoria. Of course this resulted in many actors from the 7 production not returning for the 10 version and much of what made the original great was missing too. They must have thought that it worked when they bought Neighbors, why not this? They were also struggling with finding another hit soapie at the time. Sister Lucy Gardiner (Georgie Parker) is seriously injured after plunging over the edge of a cliff, and tragedy strikes when young Steve Brennan (Sophie Heathcote) is thrown from her horse. Meanwhile matron Rosemary Prior (Maureen Edwards) is terrified to find a lump in her breast, and her troubles are compounded when her schizophrenic son stops taking his medication. Dr. Bowen refuses to prescribe the contraceptive pill to a fifteen-year-old girl without her father's permission. The girl is torn between her father and her insistent boyfriend. Shirley consents to go on a date with Frank but vows that it will be their last. Simon struggles to determine the cause of a young boy's Monday morning migraine headaches. Jacinta Burke; Helen Wilson; Susanna Agardy (1983), "A Country Practice" and the child audience: a case study, Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, Melbourne. ISBN 0-642-87073-X
Episode one debuted on RTÉ Two on Monday, 23 September 1985 at 18:15 airing weekdays. Start time later moved to 18:30. RTE split each episode in two to fill a 30-minute slot. On 3 October 1988, to make way for Home and Away, RTE moved ACP to the main channel RTÉ One, continuing weekdays at 17:30 in a 30-minute slot. The final episode (1088) aired on 13 February 1997. [10] Between 1998 and 2002, RTÉ rebroadcast seasons 8-10 (1988-1990). Episodes aired around midday and later moved to 09:30. A Country Practice – Full Episode DVD Box Sets". www.acountrypractice.com . Retrieved 3 August 2018.I can barely remember any of the story lines, hell, I only watched a couple of episodes, but it was clear this was not going to last. The old favorites like Esme Watson, Dr. Harry Morrison and Matron Sloan returned while new unmemorable characters filled the void. Dr. Elliott and Sergeant Gilroy were missing though and that would have been fatal for this show's success even before it began. Whatever lenses they used with the cameras just made it worse. The whole show seemed so grainy compared to the original. I used to like the old Country Practice on Channel 7, even recently they showed old repeats during the mornings. episodes, Seven Network. (Retained to Network Ten 1994 series after appearing in the Seven Network series finale (30 episodes)). Guest starred in the last episode of season 13.
HTV started the series on Wednesday, 26 October 1983, broadcasting 1 hour episodes [most] Wednesdays, 14:00-14:55, until 1990, when the series moved to 15:25 Wed-Fri as replacement for Sons and Daughters in half-hour format for the first time on HTV. This briefly increased to Monday-Friday, but from September 1993, it's moved to earlier time, 13:50-14:20, and only twice weekly. In March 1994, it began airing in the early evening, 17:10–17:40. By the end of 1998, the series had been reduced again to being shown on Thursdays and Fridays only. From January to March 1999, the series was shown on Tuesday through to Friday until Friday 5 March 1999 when the final Channel Seven episode was reached. HTV were the last ITV region to complete the series (and did not show the short lived Channel 10 series). At the time of its cancellation, A Country Practice was the longest-running Australian TV drama; however, by the late 1990s, that record was surpassed by Network Ten series Neighbours. At the height of its popularity, the show attracted 8–10 million Australian viewers weekly [ citation needed] (at a time when the population of Australia was 15 million). The series was eventually sold to, and broadcast in 48 countries. From 1991 to 1994, the show also aired on ASN, a cable network that served Canada's Maritimes. Four hour-long episodes aired each week, from Monday to Thursday with Monday's and Tuesday's episodes repeated on Saturday and Wednesday's and Thursday's episodes on Sunday. The station aired the show from episode 1 to somewhere in the early 700s.The entire series was broadcast by CBC Television outlet CBET in Windsor, Ontario. Two episodes were broadcast daily, Monday through Friday, starting in the late 1980s, until they were caught up to contemporary episodes in the early 1990s. Its inclusion on CBET's schedule was out of necessity to fill a television schedule: because Windsor stations cannot carry programming licensed for broadcast in the United States. Many Australian soap operas, A Country Practice among them, thus found loyal audiences in the Metro Detroit area, while they otherwise remain unknown in North America. The show was produced at the ATN-7's production facility at Epping, New South Wales, Pitt Town and Oakville, suburbs on the outskirts of northwest Sydney, Australia, were used for most of the exterior filming, with the historic heritage-listed Clare House, built in 1838, serving as the location of the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital.
The series followed the workings of a small hospital in the fictional New South Wales rural country town of Wandin Valley, as well as its connected medical clinic, the town's veterinary surgery, RSL club/pub and local police station. The show's storylines focused on the staff and regular patients of the hospital and general practice, their families, and other residents of the town. Through its weekly guest actors, it explored various social and medical problems. The series examined such topical issues as youth unemployment, suicide, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS and terminal illness. Apart from its regular rotating cast, A Country Practice also had a cast of semi-regulars who made appearances as the storylines permitted. The program also showcased a number of animal stars and Australian native wildlife, most famously Fatso the wombat. Fatso was played throughout the series by three separate wombats, the original actually named Fatso (1981–1986) was replaced due to temperament issues with the cast, a wombat George (1986–1990), he himself replaced due to early signs of wombat mange (a marsupial viral disease), and Garth (1990 through series end). Fans of A Country Practice will be thrilled to learn that Via Vision Entertainment have released the complete eleventh season of the classic Australian drama series on DVD. A Country Practice is the third most successful television program after Home and Away (1st) and Neighbours (2nd), at the Logie Awards, having won 29 awards during its twelve years of production. [8] A Country Practice (called "Hverdagsliv") was broadcast on TV2 from the channel's inception in 1992 to 2000.
This DVD box set containsNEARLY all Episodes and is for the NEARcomplete series ... of the serial concerning life at an Australian medical practice in a small community. Lots of animals and loveable characters feature in good humoured and dramatic storylines. Excellent picture and sound. a b Bowles, Kate. Soap opera: 'No end of story, ever' in The Australian TV Book, (Eds. Graeme Turner and Stuart Cunningham), Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, NSW, 2000. ISBN 1-86508-014-4 p 127 RTÉ TV Listings 1981 – 1996". Archived from the original on 30 July 2012 . Retrieved 23 April 2010. returned as a guest in 1993) 246 episodes later guest during 1989 (had previously appeared in a guest role as Sharon Lyons in 1982)
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