australian television information archive

It’s bush weak

CLEAVAGE to the left, cleavage to the right—McLeod’s Daughters are back on the range!

One shouldn’t complain, I suppose, and if the girls feel inclined to go ridin’, ropin’ and brandin’ in delightfully low-cut tops, then so be it.

I just have this nagging suspicion that out there in the real world of rural Australia, people might dress just a little more conservatively.

Still, not having been blessed with an upbringing on the sunburnt plains, I am in no position to judge and should accept that life in the bush as portrayed in McLeod’s Daughters is as fair dinkum as billy tea and damper.

Certainly, there’s nothing as traditional as a bachelors’ and spinsters’ ball and so it is that the guys and gals climb into their finest in this opening episode of the new series and head off to dance the night away.

This being the bush—or rather this being McLeod’s Daughters—such an outing is likely to be fraught with dramas, each one as predictable as that which preceded it, and not too many kilometres have been covered by the girls when they come upon a fellow bushie in need of assistance.

Imagine that!

It’s one of the guys who, resplendent in dinner suit, stopped off on his way to the ball to help a cow with a difficult birth.

One would have thought he might have removed his bow tie before getting up to his armpits in cow, but no.

Obviously, when playing midwife to a cow, one likes to look one’s best.

The girls, setting new cleavage records and engaging in dialogue that your average five-year-old would find puerile, stop to lend a hand.

Then, the calf calved, it’s off to the ball.

Also ball-bound, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, are Nick and Alex.

Anyone who knows Alex knows that when it comes to boofy blokes, he is the boofiest of them all and so it comes to pass that pre-ball, Alex stops for a few quiet drinks and a game of pool.

Alex is in a dinner suit playing pool in a country pub.

What would be the chances of a couple of large, hairy bikies turning up and suggesting that in matters of social intercourse Alex plays for the other team?

Every chance, as it transpires.

Out come the pool cues! Bang! Biff! Wallop!

I won’t spoil the rest for you. Suffice to say that the program continues to dwell in a realm of its own, the characters living the way that people in the city imagine people in the bush live, which is to say it is totally suspended from reality, being an expensive rural soap opera beautifully shot in the high-definition format.

Hi-def might deliver wonderful pictures but it doesn’t improve the script.

Something has to give

The way the winds are blowing, it may be that Steve Liebman and Tracey Grimshaw also will be starring in a soap opera, a real-life drama which involves their replacement with a team that is able to take the challenge to Seven’s Sunrise with David Koch and Melissa Doyle.

Steve and Tracey look increasingly like yesterday’s comperes when seen against the upbeat Seven team.

Liebman’s an ordinary interviewer on a good day and Grimshaw’s attempts at projecting warmth are stillborn.

The Seven product is unquestionably superior at the moment.

Something has to give soon.

 McLeod’s Daughters, Nine, Wednesday 7.30pm

 Today, Nine, weekdays 6am

By Mike O’Connor
July 08, 2004
The Courier Mail