1 9 7 6 – 1 9 8 1 (Australia)
1396 x 30 minute episodes
Back in the late 70s in Australia, you could watch The Young Doctors and either ogle Delvene Delaney or actually try to follow the plots.
The show debuted at 7.30 pm on Monday 8 November 1976 on the Nine Network with an hour-long opening episode (followed by 30-minute episodes each weeknight) and featured a great smorgasbord of gorgeous babes. No doubt this fact greatly contributed to the success of the show, as the acting, scripts and sets were all of the extremely dreadful variety. Nevertheless, the show ran five nights a week until 1981, primarily to young male viewers.
This truly woeful soap opera featured the lives and loves of the young staff in the Albert Memorial Hospital – now there’s an original concept . . . white-coated slap and tickle among good-looking young people in a big city hospital.
Sex scenes were not permitted by the producers, however. The kiss was it.
Accordingly, the emphasis was on romance and relationships, while divorce, sex, and medical or social problems were all off-limits for this deliberately lightweight early evening serial.
On the other hand, bombings, shootings and invasions by dangerous psychopaths were all permissible ways of removing regular characters or rearranging relationships.
The medical staff seemed to suffer chronically from weddings, frequently from separations, but never from divorce.
Main characters included the hospital superintendent Dr Brian Denham (Michael Beecher), whose wife Laura (Joanna Moore-Smith) was having an affair with another doctor, head surgeon Dr Raymond Shaw (Alfred Sandor).
There was a clutch of young resident doctors, swinging their stethoscopes and waggling their syringes, and a bevvy of nurses headed by Sister Scott (Cornelia Frances, pictured below left) who was a steely disciplinarian.
Among the doctors, there were the ambitious one, the over-confident one, one destined to make a tragic mistake, the playboy, and the naive female doctor (Dr Henderson) who found herself in emotional situations she couldn’t control.
Female viewers experienced hot flushes watching the men and warm sympathy watching the nurses.
They even liked bosomy nurse Jojo Adams, played by Delvene Delaney, known for her comedy sketches on The Paul Hogan Show.
When pop star Mark Holden joined the cast to play young medic Greg Mason and Spanish-born Tony Alvarez joined as Dr Tony Garcia, the producers seemed to have performed heart surgery on all the fans – even though no one in their right mind would trust either of them with an Elastoplast.
The most popular ‘oldie’ on the show was Gwen Plumb as gossipy kiosk lady Ada Simmonds. And perhaps the favourite young woman was sweet, sincere Sister Tania Livingston, played by Judy McBurney. She married Dr Garcia.
The Young Doctors has the dubious distinction in Australian television drama of never winning any award whatsoever.
Doors and walls wobbled, boom mic’s came into shot and virtually everything that ever happened took place in one operating theatre, one patient ward, one L-shaped hallway, a couple of offices, at Ada Simmons’ kiosk or in the wine bar across the road.
None the less it ran for 1,396 episodes and – until this record was eclipsed by A Country Practice in 1991 – The Young Doctors had been the longest-running drama serial in the history of Australian television.
The show also featured Karen Pini, Kim Wran, Judi Connelli, Lyn James, Judy Lynne, Rebecca Gilling, Joanna Moore-Smith, Margaret Nelson, Karen Peterson, Susanne Stuart, Ros Wood and Bartholomew John.
Comedian ‘Ugly’ Dave Gray’s character Bunny, the debt-ridden alcoholic who ran the bar across the road from the hospital, was memorably killed off behind the bar by a heart attack after 65 episodes – so Gray could join the nightly quiz show Blankety Blanks.
Dr Brian Denham
Michael Beecher
Dr Raymond Shaw
Alfred Sandor
Sister Tania Livingston
Judy McBurney
Dr Graham Steele
Tim Page
Sister Gibbs
Susanne Stuart
Orderly Dennis Jamison
Chris King
Ada Simmonds
Gwen Plumb
Helen Gordon
Lyn James
Sister Grace Scott
Cornelia Frances
Hilary Templeton
Abigail
Laura Denham
Joanna Moore-Smith
Nurse Jo Jo Adams
Delvene Delaney
Dr Greg Mason
Mark Holden
Dr Rothwell
John Walton
Dr Tony Garcia
Tony Alvarez
Dr Gail Henderson
Peita Toppano
Nurse Sherrie Andrews
Karen Pini
Nurse Virginia Mason
Rosie Bailey
Julie Holland
Lisa Aldenhoven
Dr Russell Edwards
Peter Cousens
Dr Jim Howard
John Dommett
Lisa Brooks
Paula Duncan
Chris Piper
Bartholomew John
Ken Hansen
Joe Hasham
Jill Gordon
Joanne Samuel
Caroline Morgan
Kim Wran
Nurse Liz Kennedy
Rebecca Gilling
Kim Barrington
Lynda Stoner
Bunny Howard
Ugly Dave Gray
Nurse Maggie Gordon
Jacki Woodburne
Toni Sheffield
Tottie Goldsmith
Vivien Jeffries
Diana McLean
Sister Eve Turner/Steele
Anne Lucas
Susan Richards
Judy Lynne
Grahame Steele
Tim Page
Ted Wilcox
Frank Lloyd
Dr Mike Newman
Peter Bensley
Dr Peter Holland
Peter Lochran
Dr John Forrest
Alan Dale
Frances Taylor
Briony Behets
Kate Rhodes
Ros Wood
Dr Ben Fielding
Eric Oldfield
Malcolm Fielding
Robin Stewart
