Your favourite Reg Watson serials

To tie in with the 25th anniversary of Aussie series Neighbours this week’s poll is asking you to vote for your favourite Reg Watson serial.

The legendary producer has been responsible for many memorable shows over the past fifty years such as Crossroads, The Young Doctors, Prisoner Cell Block H and, of course, Neighbours. But which of them is your favourite? That’s what we’re asking you this week and as ever we’ve put together a little article to help you decide.

Crossroads

The infamous Midlands soap where the sets wobbled, lines were fluffed and the telephone rang after it was actually answered – none of that is really as bad as its made out to be – it’s just the impression the telly critics originally gave of the series and every lazy journalist since has copied it.

Reg Watson didn’t actually create Crossroads, that was Peter Ling and Hazel Adair who have both created Compact together for the BBC, but he was crucial in the development of the Birmingham based ATV series and its format.

Reg produced the ratings winning saga for its first ten years helping to develop the soap into the success it became with a mixture of light stories and more serious based ones – a format that successor Jack Barton would continue. The leading lady of Crossroads, actress Noele Gordon, had worked with Watson before on her ATV chat-show Lunchbox and in many ways Crossroads was created especially for her.

The cancellation of Lunchbox was a blow to the actress but Lew Grade and Reg Watson promised her something even better as its replacement, a new daily serial, that would go on the ITV network. After ten years of working on the motel based series Reg Watson was headhunted, along with Alan Coleman, to create Grundy Television’s drama department in Australia.

Crossroads

The Young Doctors

Shortly after Watson’s return to Australia came new medical-drama The Young Doctors which launched in 1976 and ran until 1983 and briefly held the title of the longest running drama in Australia – however, that title would later be bestowed upon fellow Grundy production, Neighbours.

The medical drama was set in the fictional Albert Memorial Hospital and the press seemed to attach the same reputation to it as with Crossroads; shaky sets and fluffed lines. This is partly because the soap was filmed in a similar fashion to its English counter-part in which filming was done “as live” which meant each half of the episode was filmed in one go and if any mistakes happened they were usually left in.

Amongst the many actors who appeared in the series was Alan Dale who would later go to appear in Neighbours as Jim Robinson.

The soap was dropped in 1983 after over 1000 episodes and ended on-screen with the closure of the hospital. It was rumoured a few years ago that it was to be revived but as yet there’s been no further developments on any reboot of the series.

The Young Doctors

The Restless Years

Looking at the description of the soap it could very well be the “Hollyoaks” of its day.

The Restless Years ran between 1977 and 1981 and followed the lives of a group of Sydney school leavers and young adults. The saga featured a wide range of plots some of which were more believable than others; serial killers, blackmail, kidnappings and prostitution some of the slightly more “pinch of salt” ones while typical “teeny” storylines such as sex, pregnancy and unemployment were also used.

The series went through its cast quite quickly and amongst those to appear were Jacqui Gordon, Joy Chambers and Kim Lewis – all of whom would appear in other Reg Watson drama ideas.

Prisoner Cell Block H

Soap set in a woman’s prison that was just titled Prisoner in Australia but was renamed Prisoner Cell Block H for UK audiences so they didn’t confuse it with the memorable 1960s series The Prisoner which starred Patrick McGoohan and was set in a strange, bizarre and bonkers village.

Prisoner has become some of a cult around the world and is still hugely popular today despite it’s demise many years ago; it’s even produced a stage musical. UK prison drama Bad Girls took its inspiration from the soap and fans noticed many similarities between the plots. The series was originally intended as a short run drama but it proved such a hit with audiences that it became a weekly serial.

Over the years there were many memorable characters such as ‘Vinegar Tits’ and ‘the freak’. It ran between 1979 and 1986 and featured many actors/actress that would later appear in Neighbours such as Anne Charleston, Janet Andrewartha, Colette Mann, Ian Smith and Jackie Woodburne.

Prisoner Cell Block H

Sons and Daughters

The family-based serial ran between 1982 and 1987 and initially revolved around the incest storyline between characters John Palmer, a working class Aussie from Melbourne who was on the run for murder, and rich girl Angela Hamilton.

The two fell in love but it’s soon reveal that are in fact brothers and twins; separated at birth and raised separately! Despite the incest side of the story it was a very popular series helped in part by the popularity of series villain ‘Pat the Rat’ played by Rowena Wallace – an Alexis Carrington style character who was always scheming and plotting.

As the series progressed it became to resemble Dynasty more and more with no end of long-lost relatives and impostors turning up with a series of bonkers storylines involving amnesia, murders, plane crash and bomb plots heralding a move towards more high end stories. The series ended in 1987 after declining ratings but it has been remade six times across the world; in Greece, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Bulgaria and Croatia. The Bulgarian and German remakes are still on-going although they have both moved away from the original plots of the series; Verbotene Liebe [Forbidden Love] has been on-air in Germany since 1995.

Sons and Daughters

Neighbours

Does this daily live in a cul-de-sac really need any introduction or explaining? It’s celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and although its golden days are long behind it the saga is still watched by millions across the world and remains one of the most popular exports of Australia.

The five-nights-a-week show revolves around the families of Ramsay Street and over the years many have come and gone, some more successful than others, but all of which have left their mark. Early memorable names include Helen Daniels, Paul Robinson, Madge Ramsay and of course Jim Robinson. Locations included the Home James car hire, The Coffee Shop, The Waterhole pub and Lassiters hotel and lake.

The serial  has had its fare share of fun storylines such as Bouncer’s dream and Harold Bishop returning from the dead with amnesia all of course that go towards making Neighbours the hit it has been over two and a half decades.

Neighbours