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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carrie Fairchild" data-source="post: 338074" data-attributes="member: 673">Above The Law - 2000 <img src="https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/5c41a5138c19159937f034cb1c1307ee" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />In 1999, Network Ten went looking for the "Aussie Melrose Place" hit that had eluded the networks for much of the 90's. Enter veteran soap writer Tony Morphett (creator of Certain Women and whose writing credits included The Sullivans and The Young Doctors) and the newly formed production partnership of McElroy Television and Columbia Tristar. Together with Inga Hunter, Morphett came up with a concept for a show after reading about a community police station being built into an apartment block in Bondi. Above The Law would be set in The Metro apartment block that housed a police station on the ground floor and a shady gangster in the penthouse (hence the puntastic title). The latest in digital camera technology would give the show a look like no other show seen on Australian TV and Columbia Tristar would handle the anticipated major international sales.Producer Hal McElroy (Return to Eden) auditioned 250 actors for the show before E Street's Alyssa Jane Cook was cast as the show's supposed Amanda Woodward-esque lead Olivia Murray. Talking up the show to TV Week before it aired, Cook said "It's a new direction for Australian drama and tackles something that has never been done before. It's got the apartment, the police station, the paramedics coming and going, a restaurant.....There's so much to tap into, storywise". Cook seemingly had never watched or had forgotten about the original apartment block sex and sin saga that was Number 96. The publicity department didn't do themselves any favours either by comparing the show to The Sopranos, which was the height of prestige TV at that time.[MEDIA=youtube]4zJNQtIptj4[/MEDIA]The show began with the imprisonment (offscreen) of gangster 'Vegas' Pete Murray, leaving his penthouse apartment to the care of his estranged daughter, corporate headhunter Olivia, who up until now, was seemingly oblivious to the fact that Daddy was a criminal. Keeping an eye on her while Pete was inside, was his gun toting bodyguard Bill (Scott Burgess). Downstairs in the cop shop, officers Debbie Curtis (Bridie Carter) and naive Con Stavros (Jolyon James) ran the show, regularly crossing paths with paramedics Vicki (Ingrid Ruz) and her married colleague and secret lover Sean (Tim McCunn). Vicki also lived in the Metro with her law school dropout turned DJ brother Skeez (Teo Gerbert). Kristy Wright, newly sprung from Home & Away, played model Chloe Richards, who worked in Us2u, the Metro's Italian cafe that was run by Matt Bridges (Nicholas Bishop) who'd soon become Olivia's love interest.The show premiered on February 1st 2000, in Melrose Place's old 8.30pm Tuesday timeslot but faced stiff competition as it was scheduled up against the season returns of established dramas Water Rats and All Saints. The following week, it was pushed back to the 9.30pm timeslot under the guise of taking advantage of the more adult timeslot. Viewers weren't buying Olivia as the show's vixenish lead as the supposedly ballbusting businesswoman mostly came across as clueless, particularly when it came to her father's criminal endeavours. Hal McElroy said "We were ordered in July, shooting in October and on air in February. With the benefit of hindsight, we should've said we needed six more months to get it right". Shooting clashed with Kristy Wright's panto commitments in the UK, so Chloe was written as having to flee to London from a stalker and would send video postcards to keep her presence onscreen, albeit not in the midst of the action in Sydney (shooting in Bondi proved difficult, so they set the show somewhere close to Parramatta). Ratings didn't pick up, particularly among the 18-39 audience that Ten wanted, and moves were made to revamp the show. The gangster element was to be phased out, Chloe, Vicki and Debbie were due to move in together and in the time honoured move to bridge the Sydney - Melbourne rivalry ratings gap, Olivia was to be shipped off to Melbourne, where the action would follow her new romance with Chloe's cousin Chris (Ditch Davey). Before any of this could play out onscreen, Above The Law was moved to 10.30pm, and was then dropped from schedules completely in May, with only 19 of the 30 produced episodes making it to air. Hal McElroy stated "We had a mix of storylines that wasn't quite right. The storytelling wasn't as good as it should have been". He also pointed to Ten's insistence at keeping the budget as low as possible "We delivered the cheapest show on television at the time. With a low budget, if you don't get it right there's no more money to throw at it to get it right. And if you've got high expectations and a low budget, you have problems".</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?