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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carrie Fairchild" data-source="post: 289937" data-attributes="member: 673">Richmond Hill - 1988 [MEDIA=youtube]BRPib9nr65Y[/MEDIA]Born from Ten's desire for another primetime soap to build on the strong ratings that Neighbours was pulling in at 7pm each night and Grundy's desire for another overseas sales success story, Richmond Hill was pitched by Reg Watson as a soft police drama in the vein of A Country Practice meets Waterloo Station. Based in an outer city suburb, the drama revolved around a police station, a pub, a real estate office and a farm for delinquent kids. The denizens of Richmond Hill were played by a cast of familiar faces including Amanda Muggleton as brassy barmaid Connie Ryan, Paula Duncan as bored housewife Janet Bryant, Maggie Kirkpatrick as snobbish real estate agent Ivy Hackett and Gwen Plumb as farm matriarch Mum Foote.Premiering in the same month as H&A, Richmond Hill also faced teething problems. The producer refused to label it as a cop show, with Ten's publicity exec Brian Walsh commenting "Richmond Hill tried to be too many things to too many people and I think the show suffered because of it". Walsh also stated that some of the cast's reluctance to engage in publicity, like shopping centre appearances, damaged the show's chances. He had been responsible for the publicity blitz that relaunched Neighbours as a Ten show and said of Richmond Hill "A lot of the 'serious actors' feared that I was going to do a Neighbours on them". Another element that hindered the show in it's early months was the grim tone as storylines were heavy on misery, domestic violence and rape. Paula Duncan said "I hated my character. She was always crying and it used to exhaust me". Storylines in the opening months included the rape of newly arrived Janet, Ivy's husband having an affair with Connie who was having her own troubles when her abusive ex returned and started beating her again, while Mum was being terrorised by a former farm kid from her past.Things eventually began to lighten up with Maggie Kirkpatrick delighting in her storylines "I loved doing the comedy. It was real Golden Girls stuff with Betty Lucas. Grundy's specifically created a character as far removed from Joan Ferguson as possible. I was so grateful for that as I was never typecast". Ratings grew and while they were never huge, they were consistent enough for it to be considered a success, even beating the popular The Flying Doctors in some markets. So, when after 92 episodes, the series was axed abruptly, many were left baffled. Not least, the cast and crew when they were told on a Friday that they wouldn't be needed on Monday. "It was rating very well. It was a mystery to me why they took it off" said Paula Duncan. TV Week claimed that it may be one of the highest rating shows ever to be axed. Ten's official line was that ratings had failed to improve after a final publicity push. In reality, Ten were looking to cut costs after spending $10m on the Seoul Olympics and Valerie Hardy, the head of drama, had just commissioned the "more cutting edge" E Street and wanted Richmond Hill off the schedules to make way for it. Like all Aussie soaps at the time, Richmond Hill had a run on UK TV. While the show itself was short-lived and pretty unremarkable, it's addition to the ITV schedules caused furore among British TV producers, as it's two episodes meant Australian soaps were now taking up 24 hours per week on UK schedules, timeslots they argued should be used for homegrown commissions. UK viewers didn't care and ate the show up while it remained on the air.</blockquote>

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