lands on our screens like a comforting and welcome visitor from the past. It’s not exactly ground-breaking, but this eight-part scripted series about the Royal Flying Doctor Service is rock-solid, character-driven, drama-dripping television that oozes Aussieness from its every pore. It sits somewhere between soap and limited series, and it feels utterly, wholesomely satisfying. In short, it’s really – if a little surprisingly – rather good.
Shock of the new: Emma Hamilton plays Eliza Harrod, a doctor who relocates from London to Broken Hill in RFDS.has benefited from reality TV. Audiences are now so schooled in the language and behaviour of real-life medicos thanks to the likes ofthat ob-doc-style veracity is pretty much obligatory if a drama is to pass the pub test.Of course, viewers also want characters and plot lines and romances and all the rest, not just emergency intubations at 20,000 feet.
There’s a big and impressive ensemble cast but at the heart of everything are Emma Hamilton and Stephen Peacocke.That’s not to say it’s light-on. There are lives saved and lives lost, and each of them feels like it means something. There’s drought, dust storms and drag queens – the setting being Broken Hill, there’s even atourism experience – and it all rings pretty true. If I’m being completely honest, I’d have to admit I’ve been close to tears more than once.
There’s room for improvement, or at the least for growth: I’d like to see more storylines for Rob Collins’ doctor; Justine Clarke’s base manager has too little to do; and if Jack Scott’s Matty is meant to be gay, can we just stop being coy about it?