Sea Patrol: articles


It's smooth sailing for Nine's new blockbuster

It was another Sea Patrol last night for the Nine Network and almost 1.8 million people tuned in to watch the third voyage return to port.

It pushed Nine to a very solid win on the night and it is now apparently that, with 10 eps to go, how the storylines are panning out.

There's one and a half strong female characters aboard which gives it a touch of McLeod's Daughters on water (hard to get the horses aboard the patrol boat).

So male/female interaction is an important part of modern dramas, McLeod's style. there has to be a smoldering lurve interest (be still my heaving bodice?) to give the program some human interaction.

There is; the most important is the "Thing" between Lisa McCune and the Captain Chappie of the Hammersley. (And don’t ask what The Thing is, if you can’t work it out you shouldn’t be staying up so late, watching TV).

Remember how they had a 'thing' (in Ms McCune's words, yes....that, 'thing') at a training course. Training for what I ask, to star in Sea Patrol?

Well, in the last minute or so of the third ep last night there was a lingering look from the Capitain Chappie to Lisa, who was looking very fetching in dress whites with her hair nicely braided.

She looked shipshape and well stowed away and the sight of that obviously melted a corner of the cold Capitan Chappie's heart (groin maybe?) and he went to .."can 'we use christian names when we are ashore'/ route.

Lisa spotted that one for what it was: a pick up line, in episode three, mind you. far too early.

Especially when it was used after a question from the CC (Captain Chappie) to Lurve Interest Lisa about what she was doing, dining alone? How obvious was that?

She wanted to know what the CC was doing and he of the steely heart replied, well he was reading/ catching up with paperwork etc etc.

The look on his face and her cold steely gaze in return told us viewers what that storyline would be for the next 10 weeks. 'No way buster'. But hey, we know she's a melting kind of girl. She's steeled herself to succeed in a man’s world.

She ignored saluted and turned away, her stern looking well turned out and very compact.

So they flung themselves at each other at the training course, but not afterwards and she's wary. We know how script writers write, don't we?

We know that just as global warming is melting the glaciers, Steeling Lisa lurve interest's heart is going to melt in close quarters with the CC on the bridge of the Hammerlsey.

But will they dock by ep 13, or will it be left open for season two of Sea Patrol?

And speaking of storylines and writing what about the red herring on the island where the marine biologist died in the first ep? How obvious was that?

Cops all over the police, Federal Police, Where was Immigration Minister Andrews and the top fed Mick Keelty?

We all know there's a secret on that island. How many times will Sea patrol take us back there. crook engine (when both screws were shown turning in the now very recognisable cutaway shot? That's always after the cue words, get us underway, or 20 knots SSE 340 degrees red two hundred or something, Ex!)

Flying Doctors was always one of my favorite Australian dramas. There's a touch of that in Sea Patrol as well with the Australian landscape a major actor.

Flying Doctors was credible. Sea Patrol is escapist in the same way that McLeod's is.

In Sea Patrol its the sea and Australia's borders that are the big supporting act, and the underlying current issue of border security..

And that brings me to another observation from last night.

It's interesting how our two most popular programs on TV at the moment, Border Security (half hour, Seven, Mondays at 7.30 pm) and Border Security (Thursdays, an hour on Nine at 8.30 pm) are both sponsored by insurance companies.

GIO in the case of Border and NRMA in the case of Sea Patrol. NRMA is owned by IAG and GIO by Suncorp.

Border Security has more viewers at the moment but its not a significant difference. Both insurers obviously like the association with programs telling a story about protecting Australia and its borders.

Melodramatic perhaps but in John Howard's Australia playing to the insecurities of the Australian populace has been the easy way to go.

And the insurance companies like the ideas in both programs to sell car and household insurance.

Why not boat insurance, or travel insurance?

eNews staff and agencies
Jul 20, 2007