Blue Heelers

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Blue Heelers
For cops in Mt. Thomas, life's about more than the badge
Also known as	Boys in Blue (Working Title)[1]
Format	Police, Drama, Crime
Created by	Tony Morphett Hal McElroy
Starring	See Main cast
Country of origin	Australia
No. of seasons	13
No. of episodes	510 (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	Victoria, Australia
Running time	approx 50 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Seven Network
Picture format	576i (SDTV), 576p (EDTV)
Audio format	Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Original run	18 January 1994 – 4 June 2006
Chronology
Related shows	City Homicide Sea Patrol
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Common rating
Australia	PG/M

This article is about the Australian television programme. For the dog breed, see Australian Cattle Dog.

Blue Heelers is a long-running Australian police drama series which focuses on the lives of police officers stationed in fictional rural location of Mt. Thomas, a typical Victorian small town. Blue Heelers, which is produced by Southern Star Entertainment for the Seven Network, remains to this day one of Australia's best-loved dramas and, over its original 13-season run, earned numerous awards, including 25 Logie Awards, 5 of these have been the Gold Logie, the most coveted television award in Australia.^[2] It first aired on 18 January 1994 and last aired, in its 13th season and 510th episode, on 4 June 2006. It is, to this date, Australia's most popular drama, at its peak drawing 2.5 million viewers,^[2] and Australia's longest running weekly primetime drama series equalling Homicide in 2006, in terms of episodes aired (510);^[3][4] however, Homicide lasted one calendar month longer. Blue Heelers has also gained recognition in Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and Canada where it has a strong following in syndication.

Blue Heelers has launched the careers of many Australian actors such as Lisa McCune, Grant Bowler, Ditch Davey, Rachel Gordon, Tasma Walton, Charlie Clausen and Jane Allsop. Many of these are still best-known for their character on Blue Heelers. Many major actors have also been able to call Mt. Thomas home; these include Hugh Jackman, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Peter O'Brien and John Howard. Then there are the Blue Heelers veterans, John Wood and Julie Nihill have been with Blue Heelers during its entire 12 year run and played Snr. Sgt. Tom Croydon and publican Chris Reilly.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Main cast 3 Recurring/semi-regular cast 4 Production 4.1 Conception and Development 4.2 Filming Locations 5 Reception 5.1 Maggie and PJ: "the kiss" 5.2 Maggie's Death 5.3 2004 Revamp: The Station Bombing 5.4 Axing 6 Episodes 7 DVD releases 8 Awards 9 Broadcasting 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Plot

For more information on each season, see the individual season pages

The series focuses primarily on the police officers of the Mt. Thomas Victoria Police station and the inhabitants of the small town with the high crime rate, Mt. Thomas. There is always something happening in Mt. Thomas and the cops always have a big job sorting out the town's problems, from trivial things such as land and fencing disputes to more serious homicides and assaults. The small town experienced many things, including bank robberies, escaped criminals, police shootings, murders, kidnapping and an endless supply of deluded criminals; the fictional police station even being bombed in the show's 11th season. With all these events happening, the cops, or "The Heelers", are forever kept busy but, they can always call on the assistance of the police in nearby, larger town of St. Davids, home of the resident police inspector, Russel Falcon-Price who, when not trying to find a reason to give the Mt. Thomas sergeant "the push", is looking for a reason to close the entire station. Along with their police work, the Heeler's personal lives regularly make their way into the series and, the most well-known of these, is the relationship between colleagues Maggie and PJ which ended in Maggie's death; one of the most watched moments on Australian television to this day. Deep down, the whole station is just like a family where everybody usually gets on but, like families, there are always disagreements. These are usually settled over a beer at the bar at the Imperial Hotel, the copper's pub, where Chris Riley is always ready to listen to anything.

[edit] Main cast

Actor/Actress	Character	Tenure	Position
John Wood	Tom Croydon	1994-2006 Ep. 1 - 510	Sergeant, Senior Sergeant
Julie Nihill	Christine 'Chris' Riley	1994-2006 Ep. 1 - 510	Civilian (Publican)
Martin Sacks	Patrick Joseph 'P.J.' Hasham	1994-2005 Ep. 1 - 484	Detective Senior Constable, Senior Detective
Lisa McCune	Maggie Doyle	1994-2000 Ep. 1 - 255	Constable, Senior Constable, Acting Sergeant
William McInnes	Nick Schultz	1994-1998, Ep. 1 - 207 2004 (guest), 2005 (guest)	Senior Constable, Sergeant, Detective Sergeant
Grant Bowler	Wayne Patterson	1994-1996 Ep. 1 - 96	Constable
Ann Burbrook	Roz Patterson	1994, Ep. 1 - 30 1996 (guest)	Civilian (Mt. Thomas police station admin. officer)
Damian Walshe-Howling	Adam Cooper	1994-1998, Ep. 34 - 211 2006 (guest)	Probationary Constable, Constable
Tasma Walton	Deirdre 'Dash' McKinley	1996-1999 Ep. 107 - 236	Probationary Constable, Constable
Paul Bishop	Benjamin 'Ben' Stewart	1998-2004 Ep. 198 - 451	Detective Sergeant, Senior Constable, Sergeant
Jane Allsop	Joanna 'Jo' Parrish	1999-2004 Ep. 239 - 440	Constable, Senior Constable
Rupert Reid	Jack Lawson	1999-2001 Ep. 212 - 313	Probationary Constable, Constable
Caroline Craig	Teresa 'Tess' Gallagher	2000-2003 Ep. 270 - 407	Sergeant
Ditch Davey	Evan 'Jonesy' Jones	2001-2006 Ep. 316 - 510	Constable, Senior Constable, Detective
Simone McAullay	Susie Raynor	2003-2006 Ep. 409 - 510	Constable, Senior Constable
Geoff Morrell	Mark Jacobs	2004-2005 Ep. 441 - 489	Sergeant
Rachel Gordon	Amy Fox	2004-2006 Ep. 441 - 510	Detective
Samantha Tolj	Kelly O'Rourke	2004-2006 Ep. 442 - 510	Probationary Constable, Constable
Danny Raco	Joss Peroni	2004-2006 Ep. 442 - 510	Probationary Constable, Constable
Charlie Clausen	Alex Kirby	2005-2006 Ep. 461 - 510	Leading Senior Constable, Acting Sergeant
Matthew Holmes	Matt Graham	2005-2006 Ep. 490 - 510	Constable

[edit] Recurring/semi-regular cast

Main article: List of recurring Blue Heelers characters

Many well-known Australian and international actors have had recurring and semi-regular parts on Blue Heelers over its 13-season run. These include Terry Gill,^[5] Neil Pigot,^[6] Frankie J. Holden,^[7] Catherine Wilkin,^[8] Debra Lawrance,^[5] Emily Browning^[9] and Josh Lawson.^[10] Many other notable actors have also had guest parts in Blue Heelers including Shane Bourne,^[11] Hugh Jackman,^[12] Gerard Kennedy,^[13] David Wenham,^[14] Marcus Graham,^[15] Peter O'Brien,^[16] Gary Sweet^[17] and Vince Colosimo.^[18]

[edit] Production

[edit] Conception and Development

Blue Heelers creator/producer, Hal McElroy, conceived the idea of Blue Heelers when he heard that a young friend of his was to become a police officer, at the age of 18. This intrigued McElroy who continued inquiring into why this young boy, fresh from school, would want to become a police officer. McElroy soon discovered that, at the time, 60% of police officer were under the age of 26.^[19] This, coupled with McElroy's desire for a country cop show, formed the basis of the programme. McElroy was fuelled on even more when this same officer quit the force only a year later; due to the shooting death of his colleague, fellow graduate and good friend in Sydney.^[20]

McElroy continued his enquiries asking ex-police officer Michael Winter to write down what it was like to be a city cop transferred to a country town. These are the ideas that created the programme.^[21]

The name of the programme was also conceived by the same ex-police officer Michael Winter who recounted the common names for country police officer: tyre-biters, owed to the fact that country cops are often involved in car chases, and blue heelers, owing to their blue uniforms and overall similar appearance and persona to a Blue Heeler dog.^[19]

From the time that the idea was conceived, three years passed until the show was ready to air.

“	We were doing some further development on Boys in Blue with a bunch of young writers because we hadn't got it right. And we had a young copper in the room and he was telling us about his life. He had been posted to Yass (in New South Wales) and he really loved it up there because the routine was so simple and straightforward-most often you knew the victim and sometimes you knew the culprit, and someone in charge would give them a clip behind the ear and say 'wash the police car' or 'sweep the yard' and 'don't ever do it again', rather then sending a juvenile to jail. I loved it, and I said 'Hey this is great'. But all the writers said, 'No it's boring, we want that gritty, inner-city police stuff'. (We had Boys in Blue set up in Leichhardt is Sydney.) And I still remember the moment I was driving home up River Road and I thought , 'Then we can have two shows'. I said to this copper 'What are you called in the country? What is your nickname?' And he said they call highway patrol 'tyre biters' and coppers 'blue heelers'. And I thought 'That's the title!' So I rang [scriptwriter] Tony Morphett and said 'Let's do a show about young cops in the country. It's called Blue Heelers.' It took us ten days, to be honest, to actually put it all together. And the other show, Boys in Blue, which we had been working on arrived and I said to the Network, 'Here it is but I don't like it, I want to do this new one, Blue Heelers'. And they agreed and said 'Let's do it'. So then we shot two pilots, A and B. And they were quite different. Tony wrote both of them. And in the end the Network committed to 13 episodes based on Pilot A which became the first episode, with Maggie's arrival in town. We threw Pilot B away and learnt an important lesson from it, because in that episode we had been 'with' the criminals as they plotted the crime. And that was a mistake, because this was a police show and police have no knowledge of any conversation the criminals have amongst themselves (unless they've wired them). And so that was the lesson-we must never do a story where we are with the criminals. We can see them only briefly. In fact we finished up making a rule where we couldn't have a camera in a room unless there was a copper there as well. And that was a good rule and good discipline for us. The other thing is, right from the first presentation to the Network, I wrote an introductory letter with the concept saying that our coppers would be our heroes, and we would see them make mistakes and we would see them learn and grow from it. The coppers were going to be the people we cared about! And that was my promise. And it became the ethos of the show. And the rest, as they say, is history.	”
—Hal McElroy[20]

By creating the programme, McElroy and Morphett hoped to close the gap between to police and the public. They hoped to show the human side of the police and show that they do have feeling, regrets, aspirations and fears.^[22] They also hoped that the show would act as a tribute to the officer who risk their lives everyday, never knowing if they'd return home at the end of the day; a tribute to their courage.^[19]

[edit] Filming Locations

Episodes are shot eight to ten weeks ahead.^[23] Most of the filming, including the scenes in the police station and pub, were filmed inside Seven Studios, in Melbourne;^[24][23] about half of the footage is shot on location.^[23] Much of the filming on location was carried out in towns such as Williamstown^[24] and the more established parts of Werribee.^[25] The scenes of the outside of the Mt. Thomas police station were actually filmed at the old, disused Williamstown police station, which was then a private residence. Scenes at Mt. Thomas High School were filmed at Williamstown High School. The town of Castlemaine was used as the backdrop for Mt. Thomas, seen in almost every episode.^[26][27] Although Blue Heelers' pilot was shot in Castlemaine, the cast and crew very rarely returned to shoot more episodes;^[23] the scenes in Castlemaine were usually just generic scenes, where no "action" actually takes place. Chris Riley's fictional Imperial Hotel was actually the real Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine.^[26][27] Mount Thomas' Commercial Hotel was filmed at the Willy Tavern in Williamstown^[24] The second Mt. Thomas police station, as well as the site of Maggie Doyle's iconic death, is located at Newport Railway workshops^[28]

[edit] Reception

Described by critics before its launch as A Country Practice meets Cop Shop,^[21] Blue Heelers was not anticipated by critics to become a popular programme; it was definitely not expected to the hit TV show it evolved into.

The series covered much new ground when it was introduced dealt with many controversial and difficult subjects. The series was also the first to examine the stressful world of young police who are invariably "thrown into the deep end where they are left to sink or swim".^[22] It depicts the real-lives of the inhabitants of a typical country town. It shows the lives of everyday country coppers, farmers and families and all they have to endure; their battles and problems.

Blue Heelers was very popular in Australia and, at its peak, was drawing around 2.5 million viewers.^[2] Throughout its broadcast, until its axing in 2006, it was drawing a strong audience and was regularly the top-rating regular programme in Australia.

Viewership of Blue Heelers never dropped below 1 million viewers.^[29]

“	Much of the success of Blue Heelers has been attributed to one of the best ensemble casts of any drama on television, with most every cast member becoming a household name... The basic vocation for the show has always been about shedding a little light on the human condition, something Australian audiences have readily identified with. The show epitomises and represents the Australian ethos in a way that truly reflects Australian life.	”
—Blue Heelers' Executive Producer, Gus Howard, January 13, 2006.[29]

[edit] Maggie and PJ: "the kiss"

The episodes 'Gold' and 'Fool's Gold' (episodes 140 and 141) during season 4 were two of the most popular Blue Heelers episodes and drew a massive 2.5 million viewers; this was considered a huge achievement in 1997 and is still a massive achievement today.

[edit] Maggie's Death

The first 10 episodes of Blue Heelers' 7th season (Loose Ends - Out of the Shadows) are the most watched in the programme's history. These episodes, some of the most watched in Australia's history, focus of the death of Maggie Doyle (played by Lisa McCune). These episodes, particularly episode 255: One More Day, are considered one of the biggest moments in Australian television history when Maggie is shot and left for dead.

[edit] 2004 Revamp: The Station Bombing

After low ratings in 2003 and 2004, Blue Heelers underwent a huge revamp, starting with the broadcast of a live episode which, although a success, did not cause a continued increase in ratings. This episode was followed by the introduction of new characters and the story changed its focus from the old Mt. Thomas police station to the new one that was used until the show's axing in 2006. The Seven Network feared that in the modern post-9/11 world, a show about country police was no longer what the audience wanted.^[30] The producers of the show hoped that this revamp would appeal to a wider audience.

The show's main revamp started in July 2004 in the episode End of Innocence when the old police station is bombed, killing main character Snr. Const. Jo Parrish who was portrayed by Jane Allsop and mentally handicapped man Clancy Freeman. In the proceeding five episodes, 4 main characters were introduced and storylines focused on the bombing of the station.

Seven's last-ditch attempt at "Jumping the shark" proved a gamble that would pay off and resulted in a fair ratings increase for the series.

[edit] Axing

It was announced on 13 January 2006 that Blue Heelers was to be axed after 12 years, 510 episodes and 24 Logies. At this time, the show was still drawing 1.2 million viewers per week on average, down from the 2.5 million it was drawing at its peak. This announcement was front-page news on nearly all of Australia's major newspapers including The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney's Daily Telegraph, The Melbourne Herald Sun, The Melbourne Age and Brisbane's Courier Mail.^[31]

All during 2005, speculation was rife that Blue Heelers may be cancelled but, in the hope that viewing would increase, an 11-episode season in 2006 was commissioned by the Seven Network. It soon became apparent that ratings were not increasing and the show was cancelled. Two different endings were shot for the final episode which finished filming on 20 December 2005, one wrapping up all the show's storylines and another which would leave the show open for another season; the first was used.

Blue Heelers is believed to be a casualty of Seven's AFL broadcast which saw Seven invest $780m for the 5 year broadcasting rights of the game.^[4]

Even though the show had been axed, people still remained dedicated, shown by the Bring Back Blue Heelers Petition Site, launched by then 17-year-old Ashley Bentley which was signed by some 27,500 people. Bentley launched his campaign petition for Blue Heelers to be returned to the air and for Paramount to release the remaining season of Blue Heelers on DVD.

For Blue Heelers' final season, it was moved from its Wednesday night timeslot to the lower-rating Saturday night spot with the finale aired on the high rating Sunday night time slot.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Blue Heelers episodes

Blue Heelers aired a total of 510 episodes in 12 full seasons and 1 shortened final season. This includes 509 hour-long standard episodes and one live episode. This live episode, titled "Reasonable Doubts", was filmed to celebrate Blue Heelers 10th year on the air;^[32] this, something not attempted by a drama in Australian television history for forty years. This was a particularly brave feat considering the actors would be required to act for an entire hour straight; to prepare for this, the cast were given six days to memorise their lines.^[33]

Season	Ep. #	Season Premiere	Season Finale
Season 1	45	January 18, 1994	November 22, 1994
Season 2	41	February 21, 1995	November 21, 1995
Season 3	41	February 12, 1996	November 26, 1996
Season 4	42	February 10, 1997	November 25, 1997
Season 5	41	February 24, 1998	November 25, 1998
Season 6	42	February 10, 1999	November 24, 1999
Season 7	41	February 9, 2000	November 22, 2000
Season 8	41	February 21, 2001	November 28, 2001
Season 9	41	February 13, 2002	November 20, 2002
Season 10	42	February 12, 2003	November 26, 2003
Season 11	39	February 4, 2004	November 5, 2004
Season 12	42	February 2, 2005	November 26, 2005
Season 13	11	April 1, 2006	June 4, 2006

[edit] DVD releases

Further information: see the individual season pages

Currently, only seasons 1-6 of Blue Heelers have been released, although seasons 7 and 8 will be released in mid-late 2008. Blue Heelers DVDs are distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment.

In November 2005, Paramount Home Entertainment released their first Blue Heelers boxed set in Australia in Region 4 DVD format. They called this 'Blue Heelers – The Complete First Season' and this was shortly followed by 'Blue Heelers – The Complete Second Season: Part 1' and 'Blue Heelers – The Complete Second Season: Part 2 which were released together in December of 2005. These were released in 5 or 6 disc box sets where each season was divided into two parts, with the exception of the first season which was released as one part; this was, presumably, to keep size and cost per unit to a minimum.

However, the "seasons", as defined by the DVD releases, are markedly different to the original seasons as they aired on television. It appears that the episodes are being released according to what year the episodes were "produced" in, as opposed to the year they aired. For example: "The Complete First Season" DVDs contain some episodes from season 1 (1994). "The Complete Second Season" contains the remainder of season 1 (1994) episodes and some from season 2 (1995).

In January 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment announced that they would henceforth release each season of Blue Heelers as one complete boxset, rather than in two parts as they had done prior to this announcement. Each DVD boxset now consists of 10 or 11 discs, rather than 5 or 6 each. They released these on 15 February 2007.^[34]

In October 2007, Paramount Home Entertainment stated that they were planning to release Season 7 of Blue Heelers and that they intended it to be released in March/April 2008. They stated that the reason for the delay in its release was due to "contractual negotiations" with the actors of the series and the Seven Network. They claim that all negotiations have been resolved for the release of seasons 7-13. It has now been finalised that season 7 shall be available in August 2008, and season 8 and October 2008.

At this time, Blue Heelers DVDs are only available from retailers in Australia and New Zealand and are in Region 4 DVD Format. It is unknown if Paramount Home Entertainment plan to release the DVD sets in any other country or format.

Blue Heelers Initial Season Release Dates for Australia (DVD)
DVD Name	Release Date	Episodes
Complete First Season	November 2, 2005[35]	Season 1 episodes 1 -> 17.
Complete Second Season	December 1, 2005[36]	Season 1 episodes 18 -> 45, Season 2 episodes 46 -> 54.
Complete Third Season	February 16, 2006[37]	Season 2 episodes 55 -> 86, Season 3 episodes 87 -> 96.
Complete Fourth Season	April 6, 2006[38]	Season 3 episodes 97 -> 128, Season 4 episodes 129 -> 139.
Complete Fifth Season	June 6, 2006[39]	Season 4 episodes 140 -> 170, Season 5 episodes 171 -> 181.
Complete Sixth Season	August 10, 2006[40]	Season 5 episodes 182 -> 211, Season 6 episodes 212 -> 223.
Complete Seventh Season	July 31, 2008[41]	TBA
Complete Eighth Season	October 2, 2008	TBA

[edit] Awards

Main article: List of awards and nominations for Blue Heelers

Blue Heelers has been the recipient of many awards over its years of broadcast including 25 Logie Awards, five of which are the prestigious Gold Logie, 3 AFI Awards, 3 People's Choice Awards, and 1 AWGIE Awards.^[42][43]

In terms of awards, Blue Heelers is regarded as one of the most successful programmes on Australian television^[44] and is currently in third place in the Logie wins tally, with a total of 25 Logie wins. This includes the four Gold Logies Lisa McCune won for her portrayal of Maggie Doyle - the role which rocketed her into view of the public and made her one of Australia's most successful actresses^[45] - and the Gold Logie John Wood won.

Blue Heelers award summary[46]
Award	Won	Nominated
Gold Logie Awards[47]	5	3
Silver Logie Awards[48]	20	35
AFI Awards[49]	3	4
AWGIE Awards[50][51]	1	1
People's Choice Awards[52][53]	3	6
Australian Screen Editors' Awards[46]	0	1
TOTAL	32	50

[edit] Broadcasting

Blue Heelers has a strong following not only in Australia, but also worldwide; it has been sold to 108 territories.^[29]

 Australia

From 1994, Blue Heelers originally aired on Tuesday nights at 7:30pm on the Seven Network and thus was limited to a PG content level restriction. When the series was hailed as a success, it began the transition from this timeslot to the 8:30pm timeslot on the same day, thus allowing the writers to explore a more diverse amount of storylines and restricted the show to an M rating. In its third season, it was temporarily moved to the Monday night 8:30pm timeslot, but was moved back to its original slot before season's end. In its fifth season, Blue Heelers moved to the Wednesday night 8:30pm timeslot which it occupied for most of its run, from then until the end of its twelfth season. This move was made to make way for hospital drama All Saints, which still occupies this slot to this day.

Starting in 2004, the Seven Network aired Blue Heelers in their weekday "early days drama" slot at 2pm in the afternoon. They aired all episodes of Blue Heelers, starting from its first season. In this slot, Blue Heelers was a replacement for the broadcast of the early episodes of Home and Away. Blue Heelers concluded airing in this slot in 2007, with the broadcast of its final episode, and made way for the broadcast of early episodes of All Saints.

Blue Heelers also re-ran on The Hallmark Channel in Australia at 12.00am.

 New Zealand

In New Zealand, Blue Heelers screened on TV One in a popular timeslot. However, as of January 2008, it was moved to an off-peak late-night timeslot. It aired its final episode on TV One on 20 March 2008.

 Ireland

Irish broadcaster RTÉ originally aired Blue Heelers on Friday afternoons from 1994 - 2000. These episodes were one season (42 episodes approx.) behind the Australian broadcast. The series then took a break before re-commencing in a five-day-week timeslot at 10.30am in early 2002. As a result of the 5 episode a week output, the show was quickly catching up with the Australian broadcast once again. The show was then dropped back to the original one episode a week in 2004 and moved to a late night Thursday/early Friday morning timeslot, typically about 1:00am. Season 12 is currently being screened on RTÉ 1, as at October 2007. RTÉ has aired the series since 1994, in the original unedited version directly from Australia. It proves very popular in Ireland and rates very well.

 United States

Blue Heelers aired briefly in the U.S. in the early 2000s on the short-lived cable channel, Trio (carried primarily by DirecTV). No episode after 76 was ever shown in the United States and when Trio changed their programming in 2004, Blue Heelers was dropped from the schedule.

 Italy

In Italy was broadcasted on Italia 7, from the 1st to th 6th season.

 United Kingdom

The series has also had international success including various regions of the United Kingdom where the series was broadcast on most stations on the ITV Network. Many companies tended to screen the show as hour-long episodes in the afternoon (occasionally with necessary edits to suit the time slot) whereas Central Television started with a late night 11.40pm slot before following other regions with a typically 2.20pm slot.

In Britain, several periods, including the last batch of episodes that they ran, Carlton Television showed the episodes in two halves as was common with other Australian soap operas in London such as A Country Practice. Several regions including Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television chose not to import the show. When the ITV contractors reformated as one company in 2002, regionally-run programmes such as Blue Heelers (which were at different points of the series in each region) disappeared from screens. No ITV region screened the series in full.

The show also aired on UK cable channel Carlton Select in the late '90s, stripping the early episodes daily, and then in a weekly slot Fridays at 8pm as episodes became more recent. They showed episodes through the later part of the 1997 season, before dropping the series. It is entirely possible the channel intended to bring the series back after a break, however it ceased broadcasting in 2000.

ITV Regional Schedule
ITV Region	Programme Schedule Pattern
	Start Date	Days Screened	End Date
Central Television	February 1995	Tuesdays, 23.40-00.35, from February 1995 effectively replacing the repeat run of Prisoner which was cancelled after episode 95 in January. Blue Heelers was not particularly successful in this timeslot and it moved to Monday afternoons from July 1995 at 1350-1450. Then half-hour episodes on Thursdays and Fridays at 1450-1520 from 1998. Last episodes screened on Central were from Season 6 (1999), still in the edited half-hour format.	2002 (around episode 220)
Yorkshire Television (YTV)	Never bought	Never screened	Never screened
Granada Television	???	???	???
Meridian Television	???	Typically Mondays at 14.20; some episodes also aired in a morning slot during school holidays	???
Westcountry Television	Tuesday 3 January 1995 14.50	Mondays to Wednesdays at 14.50 from January 1995 for half episodes. Then ???	???
Channel Television	As Meridian	As Meridian	As Meridian
Carlton Television	Tuesday 3 January 1995 14.50	Mondays to Wednesdays at 14.50 from January 1995 for two-part half hour episodes. Then switched to 14.20 on Mondays for hour-long episodes for much of the regions run, then ??(several day changes, later reverting back to two-part half hour episodes)??	2002 (mid-Season 7)
Anglia Television	???	???	???
Tyne Tees Television	Never bought	Never screened	Never screened
Scottish Television (STV)	???	Hour-long episodes, airing on Fridays after Home and Away, and then replacing A Country Practice on Tuesdays. Dropped after episode 106 for more repeats of Murder, She Wrote.	???
Grampian Television	???	???	???
HTV Wales	???	???	???
HTV West	???	???	???
Border Television	???	???	???
Ulster Television (UTV)	Early 1995	Initially 3 times a week. Monday, Wednesday & Friday afternoons at 1.50pm after Home and Away. Then moved to 2.20pm slot later in the series, a few episodes also ran at 11.40pm on Thursday nights as they were considered unsuitable for daytime viewing.	1998

[edit] See also

• List of Australian television series
• Mt. Thomas
• Victoria Police
• List of Blue Heelers episodes
• List of recurring Blue Heelers characters

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Blue Heelers at the Australian Television Information Archive
• Blue Heelers at the National Film and Sound Archive
• Blue Heelers at the TV IV wiki

v • d • e Blue Heelers Main Characters · Recurring Characters · Episodes · Awards and Nominations · Mt. Thomas Characters Civilian Roz Patterson · Chris Riley Constable Wayne Patterson · Adam Cooper · Dash McKinley · Jack Lawson · Kelly O'Rourke · Joss Peroni · Matt Graham Senior Constable Jo Parrish · Susie Raynor Sergeant Nick Schultz · Maggie Doyle · Tess Gallagher · Ben Stewart · Mark Jacobs · Alex Kirby Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon Detective P.J Hasham · Amy Fox · Evan Jones Seasons: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13