Paradise Beach - 1993 to 1994
Despite it's exotic locations, which would have been prime for soapy shenanigans, Queensland's Gold Coast had never been utilised properly as a setting for a serial. In 1979, a hotel based pilot called
Paradise Village was shot at a cost of $100,000 but never went to series while
Holiday Island only did it's initial location shoots up there, before returning to Melbourne where they unconvincingly tried to pass off the backlot of grey Nunawading as a tropical island. One of the main issues with establishing a series in Queensland was the lack of infrastructure. This changed in 1988 with the opening of Warner Roadshow Movie World Studios. Heavily supported by the Queensland government, it's purpose was to help develop a successful local TV and film industry by giving productions access to studio space that also had beautiful beaches, tropical rainforests and luxury homes that they could use as locations, on their doorstep. The revival of
Mission Impossible was one of the first productions to be made at the studios, with the surrounding areas being substituted for different international locales each week.
By the early 90's, the studios had had limited success with the series produced there.
Mission Impossible lasted only two years, while
EARTH Force and
Dolphin Cove lasted only a few weeks. It was felt that a long running soap could provide the backbone to the studios in terms of ongoing work for local cast and crew. At the same time, New World International, the US-based distributor who'd enjoyed great success in selling
Santa Barbara and
The Bold and the Beautiful worldwide, identified a niche in the US daytime market for a new soap solely aimed at the teen audience.
Neighbours and
Home & Away weren't deemed suitable for US audiences and so, the idea for
Paradise Beach was born. With it's location shoots and high production values, they heralded it not only as the Aussie soap that would finally break through on US TV but that it could potentially reach a worldwide audience of 50 million viewers. Additionally, Nine needed something to fill it's local drama quota now that
Chances had folded. Amazingly, New World managed to sell the show to markets in the US, Europe, Asia, South America, New Zealand and the UK based solely on a promo reel made up of shots of models in bikinis cut in with footage lifted from Queensland tourism videos and the film
The Coolangatta Gold. In the US, it was sold to 150 stations (85% of the syndication market) where it was to air in late afternoon / early evening timeslots. Networks were given round trip tickets to Australia to use in a "Win a Trip to Paradise" promo that would run in conjunction with the show's launch while there was talk of fashion shows featuring the "Paradise Beach Line" in international cities alongside a spate of other merchandise. All of this was before the show had even started shooting.
Established producer Jock Blair was brought in to oversee what he described as a
"very raw, young, inexperienced team both in front of and behind the camera" but stated
"they had an enthusiasm that I had never seen on any other show. All they wanted to do was learn and get it right".
Paradise Beach opened with Sean Hayden (Ingo Rademacher), his younger sister Tori (Megan Connolly) and his best friend Roy McDermott (John Holding) heading north for a holiday to escape the mundanity of suburban life. Once there, Tori connected with her penpal, marine biologist Cassie (Kimberly Joseph) who was the daughter of local business tyrant Tom Barsby (Robert Coleby) and the sister of ironman Kirk (Manu Bennett - then credited as Jon Bennett). Cassie would become the love interest for Sean while Roy fell for her best friend Loretta (Raelee Hill). American photographer Cooper Hart (Matt Lattanzi) was also new on the scene, turning up to Paradise Beach in search of his long lost love Lisa Whitman (Tiffany Lamb), who was now in a relationship with Tom. Nick (Andrew McKaige) was Tom's younger brother who ran a surf shop while next door, Anna (Deborah Coulls) and her teenage son William (Tony Hayes) ran Anna's Beach Café.
With premiere approaching, the cast and producers continued to talk up the show beyond it's capabilities to the salivating press. As it was, Matt Lattanzi pulled in quite a bit of early press attention for the show, not for his acting chops (which would soon be slated) but because he was married to Olivia Newton John at the time. Manu Bennett told TV Week
"we've been told to brace ourselves. We've been told it's going to be huge overseas". Ingo Rademacher said
"we've talked about how this could be a really big thing and we could get pretty famous but we're not going to change", a statement that may have been a bit hard to swallow for the crew who'd already nicknamed him 'Ego Runamucker'. Greg Coote of producers Village Roadshow described it as a
"slick, glossy Beverly Hills 90210 meets Neighbours meets Baywatch". Network exec Nick McMahon back pedalled on this claim (presumably knowing what was about to air) and said it was an unfair comparison due to the very different budgets and production schedules.
Upon it's launch in Australia, the show was battered by the critics. Having been produced at the lowest price possible in order to maximise profits, the production values were often poor while the lack of audio post production meant that dialogue often trailed off or sometimes overlapped into the next scene. The dialogue that could be heard, was purposely delivered in a stilted fashion in a misguided attempt to make it easier for international viewers to understand the Australian accent, earning the show the nickname
Paralysed Speech (in addition to
Stupidity Beach and
Paradise Lost). Corporate tie-ins for Village Roadshow's theme parks Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild only added to the mess with the show often feeling like an extended commercial rather than a drama. Bevan Lee said
"It was like Channel Nine and New World gave birth to this bastard kid that nobody wanted. It set out to be something it didn't have the money to be and in trying to be everywhere, it ended up being nowhere. Paradise Beach was the low point of my career". In the US, it failed to make a ripple at all among both viewers and critics. Despite talk of it being aired in a prime time slot of 7.30pm, the show ended up in the 3-4pm slot where it was annihilated by Oprah and was pulled off the air before it's summer test run was over. In the UK, the popular (but recently axed in Australia)
E Street was moved to the weekend to give
Paradise Beach the weekday 12.30pm and 6.30pm timeslots but it flopped there too, prompting Sky to reinstate
E Street. It didn't last long in it's original Aussie timeslot either. Airing at 5.30pm, it was a poor lead in for the precious 6pm News, so Nine pushed it back to 5pm.
Behind the scenes, there was a scramble to get the show on track. With the show off the air in the US, all Americanisms which had been put in to appeal to the US audience, including Lisa's dodgy fake American accent, were dropped. John Dommett of
The Young Doctors was brought in as a dialogue coach while a raft of more established names were brought in to try and boost the show's cachet.
E Street's Melissa Tkautz showed up as 'Paradise Bitch' Vanessa, ex-girlfriend of Sean. Paula Duncan and Michael Caton were cast as Sean and Tori's parents Joan and Ken, who took over the running of the Beach Café. Matt Lattanzi was out, but not before real life wife Olivia Newton John made a very brief cameo as a fellow passenger on the plane that Cooper was departing on (see above). Fledgling actress Isla Fisher showed up as Robyn, the secret daughter of Tom. With production values and the writing improving and ratings on the climb, things were looking better for Paradise Beach but Nine obviously had other ideas and decided not to renew the show for another year. Jock Blair said
"one of the great ironies was that it was possibly the only serial to get cancelled after it had improved it's ratings. Nine's news department were concerned that the more the show aired, the more we brought in the younger audience and of course they were switching off when the news started". The show was replaced with a revival of
The Price is Right, with Blair explaining
"Quiz shows bring in the over 40's which the news team prefers".
The remaining episodes of
Paradise Beach, which played out at 11pm during the non-ratings period, saw the arrival of
Neighbours star Melissa Bell as surfer Emily and included one of the more bizarre storylines in 90's soap, which controversially saw Kirk's girlfriend Pam (Theresa Wong) being forced back to China and executed by firing squad for the crime of raising money for Amnesty in order to support peaceful protest in her home country. The final episode of
Paradise Beach featured a cyclone on the eve of Roy and Loretta's wedding and the death of local bastard Tom Barsby, seemingly at the hands of recently returned daughter Robyn. Had the show continued, Tom's supposedly dead wife Natalie was due to return to town to claim his fortune (Chantal Contouri was slated to play her). As it happened, New World wanted to continue the show as it was making so much money from international sales but without the financial backing of Nine, the show couldn't continue. Ironically, Nine would join forces with New World and Village Roadshow again, less than two years later to produce another Gold Coast soapie, the very similarly themed
Pacific Drive.
