Winners and Losers

History

Winners & Losers was created by Bevan Lee. Lee wanted to create a drama focusing on females for a number of years before the programme's creation. He also created Packed to the Rafters. While the former is focused on family relationships, Winners and Losers concentrates on friendships and is aimed at a younger demographic. Lee said it focuses on the "fun and drama of how we all carry the inner loser inside us, no matter how much life makes a winner of us." Lee said the programme's genre is "charmedy" consisting of drama, comedy and charm.

The series revolves around the lives of four women: Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland), Bec Gilbert (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith), Frances James (Virginia Gay) and Sophie Wong (Melanie Vallejo). The girls were "the losers" in high school. Ten years later, they realise they are really winners once they are reunited at their school reunion and afterwards, win the Oz Lotto. At the time of early production, the main actresses were required to spend time together off set to build believable chemistry between themselves. The show's producer Maryanne Carroll was partly responsible for creating the lives of the four main female characters. She oversaw a "team of experts" who chose music for scenes, styled their homes and chose their clothing. The items placed in each home were designed to identify with the characters living there.

A pilot episode for the programme was created and shown to a research group. Network Seven's then-head of drama, John Holmes, said the research produced the expectation of high ratings. The series began airing on the Seven Network from 22 March 2011, four weeks earlier than originally planned. The fourth season of Packed to the Rafters was put on hiatus to allow Winners & Losers to air in its timeslot. The move was part of a programming strategy, with the aim of attracting a high viewing figures. The first episode gained the highest ratings of the evening, averaging at 1.7 million viewers. The Seven Network decided to air the second and third episodes back to back, securing the highest ratings once again. The programme continued to fare well with ratings in the following weeks. However the ratings for episode seven indicated that Winners and Losers had lost over four hundred thousand viewers. Though it was considered a ratings success and is among the twelve most watched programmes in Australia.

On 5 July 2011, Seven announced that it had renewed Winners & Losers for a second season in 2012. Filming for the new season began on 23 August 2011 and Lee said viewers would see big changes. He told the Herald Sun's Colin Vickery, "We turn the girls' lives on their heads in a pretty major way in the final episode (of series one). That will give us a new launching pad for season two." Filming on the second season was completed on 5 April 2012. The second season began airing from 26 June 2012.

Seven renewed Winners & Losers for a third season on 7 August 2012. Production on the third series began in September and the actors began filming the following month. Seven's head of drama, Julie McGauran commented "2013 is going to be a landmark year for Channel Seven's drama department. Our drama slate is at full capacity with the return of Winners & Losers as well as Packed to the Rafters, Home and Away and the new drama A Place to Call Home." The third season began airing from 9 July 2013. The show was renewed for a fourth season, with production beginning in early 2014. The show was renewed for a fifth season on 3 December 2014. The Seven Network confirmed that the fifth season would also be the last.

Critical response

Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the series branding it a "fresh, brightly coloured, high-end soap." He deemed its characters as "some of the most engaging" roles on television. A columnist of The Advertiser attributed the show's success to its time slot and "creative force Bevan Lee." A columnist for The Age empathised with the good response the programme generated. They said the series had "powerful themes of friendship, karma and justice for the underdog", which were portrayed in a subtle tone in comparison to other programmes. They branded it "an engaging hour of television" due to inclusion on comedy and a "large cast of lively characters." However they noted some of the "fresh" storylines were similar those featured in shows such as Sex and the City. While their colleague Paul Kalina said the programme had played it safe by using similar elements that made Packed to the Rafters a success.

Bridget McManus from the publication reflected her opinion that the programme had lost its "edge" and had started to resemble a "poor girl's Sex and the City." She noted the main problem was that "potentially interesting characters" were overlooked by the four females. McManus felt they were tired stereotypes, describing them as "the virgin, the damned whore, God's policewoman and a clown." Debi Enker writing for The Sun-Herald said that the second series will require Winners & Losers to "lift its game" because the first was too reliant on caricatures. Enker stated as the "scheming ex-wife, true-blue Aussie family and flamboyant gay confidant"; which made "soapy" characters with not "enough nuance to give them a full-bodied life".

Of the show's third season, Craig Mathieson of The Age questioned whether the show had become a soap opera. He accused it of having a "multiple personality disorder". He observed it switching from "thriller" to "hold-hands melodrama" and "gently comic ode to emotional strength" with each different character it focused on.

Home media

A CD titled Winners & Losers (Music from the Hit Series) was released on 8 July 2011. It contains songs by various artists which were used in the programme. The CD peaked at 24 in the ARIA Album Charts. The complete first season of Winners & Losers was released on DVD on 21 September 2011 in Australia. It was released to region 2 territories on 11 June 2012.

International broadcast

In March 2011, Winners & Losers was picked up for international distribution by FremantleMedia Enterprises. FremantleMedia represents the show worldwide, outside of Australia and New Zealand. In New Zealand, Winners & Losers began broadcasting on TV One from 2011. The following year, the show began airing in the United Kingdom on ITV2.