McLeod's Daughters

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McLeod's Daughters
Genre Drama
Creator(s) Posie Graeme-Evans
Caroline Stanton
Starring Aaron Jeffery
Simmone Jade Mackinnon
Michala Banas
Luke Jacobz
Zoe Naylor
Dustin Clare
Gillian Alexy
Doris Younane
Matt Passmore
Country of origin Australia
No. of episodes 176(As of March 14, 2007)
Production
Running time 45 minutes
(per episode)
Broadcast
Original channel Channel Nine
Original run 2001 – present
Links
IMDb profile

McLeod's Daughters is an Australian television drama set in the rural outback. Between 2004 & 2005 it was the most popular drama on Australian television, averaging 1.5 million viewers each week on the Nine Network. As of 2003, it was shown in 100 countries throughout the world on the Hallmark Channel. In the Logie Awards of 2004, the show won four Logie awards.

Contents

[edit] Series history

Posie Graeme-Evans developed the idea for McLeod's Daughters in the early 1990s for her company Millennium Television in conjunction with the South Australian Film Corporation - she also developed the idea for children's television programs such as The Miraculous Mellops and Hi-5. The idea was for a television drama set on an Australian rural property with two half-sisters running the property inherited from their father with an all-female workforce. She developed the idea from stories from friends who grew up in the country and from the love of South Australian landscapes as shown in the paintings of Hans Heysen.

Graeme-Evans pitched the idea to the board of the Nine Network who agreed to film a telemovie in 1996 with Jack Thompson starring as Jack McLeod who is the father and whose death leads to the two half-sisters inheriting the property. Despite the success of the miniseries shown on Mother's Day 1996, the show was put in development. The Nine Network bought "Kingsford" near Gawler in South Australia, the site where the original miniseries as a set and ran it as a rural property while the program was developed.

The Nine Network board agreed to commission a 13-show series in late 2000 after the Opening Ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Olympics featured a The Man from Snowy River theme highlighting the cultural significance of the bush to Australians. The first episode of McLeod's Daughters debuted in August 2001 and proved to be a smash hit, attracting 1.89 million viewers. The first series proved to be a success attracting an average of 1.5 million viewers an episode in Australia. The show also proved to be a success when shown in New Zealand on TV2 one of TVNZ's free-to-air channels.

The second series of McLeod's Daughters was equally successful being the third most popular drama on Australian television. By 2003, the show was the most popular drama series on Australian television. Lisa Chappell who played Claire McLeod, the older McLeod daughter, left the show in October 2003 to play other roles with her character being killed off. The popularity of the program in Australia was highlighted where the show won four Logies including Lisa Chappell winning most popular female actor, Aaron Jeffrey most popular actor and most popular Australian drama series.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Current cast members

[edit] Regular guest stars

[edit] Future cast members/guest stars

  • Abi Tucker
    as Grace Kingston McLeod (2007)
  • Ashley King
    as Tiffany Jenson (2007)
  • Liam Hemsworth
    as Damo (2007)

[edit] Former significant cast members


[edit] Brief guest appearances

[edit] DVD releases

Series of McLeod's Daughters have been released on Region 4 DVD. All of them are in different colour box sets with a different cover including Claire & Tess, Stevie & Tess, Nick & Tess. Koch Entertainment released Season One in Region 1 DVDs under its Koch Vision label in the United States, October 3, 2006. Season's Two through Six will be released in the United States beginning on May 8, 2007 with Season 2. Subsequent seasons will be released every few months.

Series Releases

DVD Name Release Date Additional Information
Series 1 September 10, 2003 Includes series 1 episodes 1 - 22.
Series 2 July 12, 2004 Includes series 2 episodes 23 - 44.
Series 3 April 13, 2005 Includes series 3 episodes 45 - 74.
Series 4 October 12, 2005 Includes series 4 episodes 75 - 106.
Series 5 May 3, 2006 Includes series 5 episodes 107 - 138.
Series 6 April 11, 2007 Includes series 6 episodes 139 - 170.

[edit] Soundtracks

There have been two soundtracks from the series released in Australia both making the Australian ARIA Top 50. The songs are written by Posie Graeme-Evans and Chris Harriott and performed by Rebecca Lavelle. Graeme-Evans also writes many of the songs for Hi-5. On the website for the show, Posie Graeme-Evans tells of the songwriting process for the soundtracks.

For me, writing the songs for McLeod's has become an emotional journey into the heart of the series and the characters we've all come to love so much. I'd always thought Chris Harriott and I could use songs as a way to get under the skin of Claire, Tess, Meg, Jodi, Becky, Nick and Alex; almost like tools within an episode, the songs would give voice to what the characters were feeling but could not say. But as Chris and I have developed the songs, they've become much more to me than that: they've become a way of exploring how we all feel, the things we'd all like to say.

So far, there have been two soundtrack albums released from the series:

[edit] International

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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