7.6 /10 2 Votes
No. of episodes 60 | 8.2/10 IMDb Final episode date 2 July 1999 Network ABC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Created by Michael Jenkins Ben Gannon Starring Tony Martin , Rachael Blake , Alex Dimitriades Executive producer(s) Ben GannonMichael JenkinsAndy Lloyd James Cast | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wildside the miniseries part 1 of 2 ma15
Wildside is an Australian police procedural television series broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 1997 to 1999.
Contents
- Wildside the miniseries part 1 of 2 ma15
- Cast and characters
- Production and broadcast
- DVD release
- References
The show consisted of a one-hour format that followed police interactions in inner Sydney. It starred Rachael Blake, Tony Martin, Richard Carter and Alex Dimitriades.
The series was filmed in Sydney. It was characterised by its use of ad lib dialogue and hand held camera work. It won several Logie Awards, including Silver Logies for outstanding work by Rachael Blake and Tony Martin for acting, as well as the Most Outstanding miniseries Logie in 1998. It was also nominated for several Australian Film Institute Awards.
Cast and characters
Wildside featured several regular characters from the police force and an inner-city crisis centre.
Jacqueline Brennan in Wildside (1997)
The regular cast included Tony Martin, Rachael Blake, Aaron Pedersen, Jessica Napier and Alex Dimitriades. Martin starred as Detective Bill McCoy with Dimitriadis joining him a third of the way through the first series as his partner, Detective Charlie Coustos. Pedersen, Napier and Blake portrayed the staff at the crisis centre. Detectives McCoy and Coustos were often called upon to investigate clients of the centre, creating tensions with its staff. Richard Carter appeared in several episodes as a fellow officer Detective Brian Deakin critical of Coustos. Abi Tucker joined the show at the beginning of the second season, playing Kate Holbeck, a colleague of Coustos (and his girlfriend) and McCoy. Mary Coustas joined the series in a regular role late in its run, appearing in the last ten episodes; her character replacing Aaron Pedersen's as the crisis centre's resident lawyer.
Aaron Pedersen in Wildside (1997)
The recurring cast includes:
Martin, Blake, Pedersen and Napier were the only actors to appear in every episode. Martin and Blake began an off screen relationship during show's run and married in 2003.
Production and broadcast
Wildside was originally produced a 2-part miniseries created by Michael Jenkins and Ben Gannon. It was broadcast on 23 and 24 November 1997.
A further 36 episodes were broadcast between February and September 1998. A second series of 20 episodes was broadcast between February and July 1999.
In repeats and syndication, the miniseries was edited into the first four episodes of the 40 episode first series.
The style of production was very similar to Jenkins' earlier series Scales of Justice and Blue Murder, particularly the "observational" use of multiple hand-held cameras and the density of semi-improvised dialogue. Many of the cast had previously worked with Jenkins in Blue Murder.
DVD release
The series has been released by the ABC on DVD in three volumes, each containing 20 episodes across 5 discs.