The Newsreader

Anna Torv is giving me very Kaye Wilkinson from Southern Cross News Tasmania in the late 90s vibes

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Incredible production values. And William McInnes is outstanding.

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Walters, Jennings, Norville… The Challenger disaster wasn’t the only thing the scriptwriters plucked from the '80s.

My tip is Walters will get boned and be replaced by Dale Jennings.

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Wow. What a great first episode. Anna Torv, Sam Reid and William McInnes - the three were brilliant in their roles. Interesting to see how “the week” and “breaking news” of the events happened. The Shuttle Disaster - instead of a brief update, was “an extended update”, unheard of at the time.

On another note - did the episode start with the old ABC logo theme?

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As was pointed out to me:

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Yes it did. I’m not sure if the audio was original or if they dubbed something else over the top.

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I remember being up early for the first school day of 1986, hearing about it on the radio and watching it being covered on TV by Good Morning Australia and Today, I kept wondering why Norville and Jennings didn’t turn on the TV instead of the radio in that phone call scene.

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Outstanding.

It was very accurate. Most local stations at this time had a local news update around 11.00am - followed by afternoon updates. Breaking into children television throughout the morning was very rare event.

Did anyone notice the nod to Mal Walden and pronouncing of the word ‘phenomenon’ worked into the dialogue tonight.

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Yes, there are a few hidden easter eggs for us media nerds.

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It’s great to see high quality Aussie drama on our screens. Totally loved The Newsreader. I’m now hooked.

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Still watching on iview, but surprised no-one here has picked up the ptc for the Paul Hogan story at the start is outside the NEP studios in South Melbourne. Fast Forward and Full Frontal often used that entrance in skits back in the HSV days.

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Brilliant. Had me hooked and the hour went quickly. The 80s were a lot more beige than I remember though. :laughing:

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@JBar, were you surprised that the cover for TV Week wasn’t Steve Peacocke for his role on The Newsreader, with the title “Why I had to come home?”. :wink:

I was kind of expecting him to be featured last week too for Five Bedrooms. :rofl:

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Maybe it’s because he’s everywhere atm but Steven Peacock just didn’t seem to be believable as someone in the 80s lol and I watched Les Norton

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His mullet didn’t convince you enough that he’s the greatest actor that Australian television has ever produced. Source: TV Week. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I thought it was a great start for the series…and a bit close to home for me in a lot of ways

Contains spoilers for the rest of the series.

I recognised the entrance. The old HSV7 production studios (now NEP) are the fictional home to The News @ Six Studios. I also believe the internal newsroom and studio scenes are all filmed within NEP.

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