After All The Practice, The Real Thing
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday November 22, 1993
SYMBOLICALLY, it was essential that the final (for now)movie-length-and-then-some episode of A Country Practice should end in a nuptial mess.
So there is a wedding. And because some well-glossed magazine will have gained the exclusive drop on the bridal gown and who, indeed, is inside it, we shall belatedly announce that the doctor at Wandin Valley Hospital gets hitched to matron.
Tears all round and nostalgia-tinged applause and, ooh, doesn't she look lovely (truly she does). And doesn't he look lovely too, with those good looks and the ample supply of white hair. (He didn't look at all like that 12 years ago.)
It has been a good innings for A Country Practice, but the once huge ratings had dwindled to less than half their peak, and the Valley, as many a rural area before it, had fallen on hard times.
There were fresh crops of stars (because this was a celebrity-maker), but somehow they were not as memorable as the old-timers, though Michelle Pettigrove developed a nice line in comic delivery, and that Bride of Christ, Kym Wilson, who was only eight when it started, added some strings to her bow
Tonight, a fairly standard episode of ACP sets out as contrapuntal as ever: wayward sheep are heading for the park, bushfires are threatening (seasonal community announcement, but this time finality looms), a crazed gunman is taking aim, the hospital is busy saving and losing lives (apart from the shoot-'em-up cop shows, has any popular TV series ever featured so much death?) and Shane Porteous gets swept off his feet in an open-topped Roller. But Vicki Dean and Matron Sloane and other friends make a return.
The Valley will never be the same again. Well, they're searching the Dandenongs, or somewhere, for Ten's rescue and resuscitation mission. But it will never be as pretty as the country out beyond Ebenezer.
Tonight's finale is sandwiched between two programs of tributes presented, rather incongruously, by Stan Grant. One of the alumni might have made a better fist of the job.
Among the incidents rescreened are Molly's wonderfully handled death(originally it was planned to take 11 weeks to pop her off, but two more were added when it was discovered the well-watched occasion would fall out of ratings).
Good clips are mixed in with memories, some contrived out of nothing. Easily the most poignant comes from Gordon Piper, who played Bob Hatfield -and played him so well.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald