A Country Practice was more than TV. It taught us to be better human beings

A Country Practice has always been more than a television show to me. Sometimes I think of it as my third parent.

In the world of television discourse, the Golden Age of Television always begins with The Sopranos and “prestige TV”. Australia’s Golden Age of Television was 1981-1993, while A Country Practice screened on Channel 7 (the less said about the “final” season on Channel 10, after the Channel 7 axing of the show, the better!).

A Country Practice , which was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards Hall of Fame on Sunday night , nearly didn’t happen. Creator James Davern had entered his script In General Practice into a Channel 10 drama competition, where it won third prize and was promptly put on a shelf. Davern, by then an experienced writer and producer on shows such as Bellbird and Rush , knew he had something special and managed to convince Channel 7 to give it a 14-episode order.

The first season of A Country Practice went to air in a non-ratings period, and it didn’t take long for Australia to fall in love with its mix of fresh-faced young stars and industry stalwarts populating Wandin Valley, the fictional town in which it was set.

Channel 7 knew they were on a winner – indeed, the show’s young stars Anne Tenney, Penny Cook, Grand Dodwell and Shane Withington were known as the “fab four” – and quickly increased the show’s order to two hours a week, for most weeks of the year.

JNP Productions would make more than 90 episodes a year of A Country Practice until 1993. Two hours a week for Australia’s producers, writers, directors, designers, set-dressers, props makers, animal-trainers, camerapeople, lighting designers and actors to get really good at making television.

Shot mostly in the outer then-rural suburbs of Sydney, the show settled into a format revolving around the doctor’s practice, the hospital, the vet surgery and the club. What gave the show such longevity and lodged it in the hearts of generations of Australians is that the show – for that bucolic locale – was never comfortable.

The late Davern wanted to make a show the whole family could watch together, and somehow he succeeded. The excellent writers (including Judith Colquhoun, Sheila Sibley, Leon Ford and many, many others) managed to make something that included children and adults, but didn’t go easy on either.