City Life (TV series)

City Life
Genre Drama
Written by Maxine Fleming
James Griffin
Directed by Colin Budds
Chris Martin-Jones
Starring Claudia Black
Katrina Browne
Jack Campbell
Lisa Chappell
Oliver Driver
Country of origin New Zealand
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 26
Production
Running time 60 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel TVNZ
Original run 15 July 1996 – 19 February 1998

City Life was a New Zealand soap opera that screened on TVNZ from 1996-1998. It was portrayed the lives and loves of ten singles who lived in an upmarket apartment building in Auckland, New Zealand. The show was touted as New Zealand's answer to Melrose Place.[1]

The show starred Claudia Black, Lisa Chappell, Laurie Foell and Oliver Driver and featured a guest appearance by well known New Zealand actor, Kevin Smith.

The show had a long development period, and the original treatment for the show had it set in Wellington with the working title 96 Oriental Parade. However, it was decided to produce the show in Auckland instead, and as such, the shows setting was changed along with the name to City Life.

The first episode began with a controversial first scene, featuring a drunken Damon (Kevin Smith) who owned the apartment building, in a homosexual kiss with his former lover Ryan on the night before his wedding. Damon was later killed off in the same episode after being hit by a car on the way to his wedding, and he left his apartment building to all of his friends. However, Damon's fianceè vowed to fight for her share of Damon's estate, leading to a storyline that would span the show's first five episodes.

The show initially rated well but executives were somewhat alarmed by a major drop in the show's audience in the first five minutes of the first episode (believed to be the result of the kiss between Damon and Ryan). Within weeks ratings had dropped to the point where the show was placed in a later timeslot. A few weeks later, the show was taken off air entirely, after ten episodes had been screened. The show was not brought back until late 1997, and the remaining episodes were screened until the beginning of 1998.

In total, 26 hour-long episodes were produced.

In January 2007, the series was rerun on the TVNZ channel TV2 during the early weekday mornings.

The show has been replayed on TVNZ Heartland.

Cast and characters

Websites

http://www.tv.com/city-life/show/2481/summary.html

References