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Airdate: The Doctor Blake Mysteries

ABC1 launches the first locally-produced new drama for 2013, starring Craig MacLachlan & Nadine Garner.

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4drblkABC1 launches the first locally-produced new drama for 2013, The Doctor Blake Mysteries.

Buoyed by the success of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, this period mystery series starring Craig MacLachlan and Nadine Garner will air on Friday nights from next week.

This series is set in Ballarat in the 1950s and produced by December Media.

The Doctor Blake Mysteries is an original 10-part murder mystery series starring Logie award-winner Craig McLachlan as the maverick country town doctor Lucien Blake. A risk-taker, he’s impulsive and not afraid to upset the status quo.

Set in the late 1950s, the series begins as Dr Blake returns to a place he once called home to take over his deceased father’s medical practice. Everything seems peaceful on the surface, but seething underneath are the age-old passions of a regional town clashing head-on with the tensions and fears of the decade to come.

Haunted by the horrors of war, his own personal loss and changed by his experiences as a POW, the wry, dry, yet very human Dr Blake undertakes his other role as police surgeon with precision and gusto – yet many find his unpredictable and unconventional manner unnerving.

Beside Blake, helping and at times hindering, are his housekeeper Jean (Nadine Garner), her nephew Danny (Rick Donald), a young constable, District Nurse Mattie O’Brien (Cate Wolfe) and Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson (Joel Tobeck).

When a young woman’s body is found floating in the local lake, Dr Blake can’t help digging deeper into the mystery. There is more to the case than meets the eye. He is certain the dead girl – a runaway from a local reform school – was dead before she was dumped in the water. The autopsy proves his theory but finding the killer is more complicated.

In a classic whodunit, Dr Blake sifts through the obvious suspects, before revealing the culprit.

8:30pm Friday February 1st ABC1.

8 Responses

  1. The Charter of the ABC is to reflect Australian culture and to simply say it is SBS’s role to deal with multiculturalism is passing the buck. The ABC seems to do either Anglo drama or Indigenous drama but the majority of Australia now sits in the middle, from a vast array of backgrounds that are neither anglo irish or indigenous. There seems nothing for this audience other than the odd bit of ethnic casting. The Slap gave a taste of what could be achieved if ABC was more inclusive, braver and frankly more creative in its choices.

  3. @ shazz….yep…yep..and yep….
    SBS have done a lot of good non anglo pieces…Cabramatta about the vietnamese community….and interesting piece about marriage and divorce in the Muslim community…just to mention a few….I watch a lot of SBS…it has many and varied programs…7 billion and counting…

  4. @victor

    You do not know what you are talking about. ABC has plenty of programmes without an Anglo-Celtic(not Anglo-Saxon) bias.

    The Straits, Redfern Now, Gods of Wheat Street, Don’t Be Afraid of the Darkies and 8MMM. Also there will be Serangoon Road set in Singapore.

    If you want a public broadcaster to represent a more diverse offering go and complain to SBS. Their whole purpose of existence is to be multicultural, if the ABC is also expected to be equally multicultural then SBS should be abolished and all of its funding and assets should be handed over to ABC.

    Besides, Australia is majority Anglo-Celtic and we deserve to have lots of programmes depicting our history and culture.

  5. Oh not again. It seems ABC drama these days has become stuck in soppy, Anglo, period dramas. It is the kind of thing you would have made in 1972. Is there anything out there that is going to be a bit more challenging, stories that represent a new multicultural Australia or even period stories that reflect more than just our Anglosaxon roots. I hope the yet to be announced new Head Of Television has noted this and seeks commissioning that reflects our cultural diversity.

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