Pop Culture

SEASON ENDINGS TO KEEP YOU HANGING ON

As the non-ratings period looms, Australian dramas and soap operas are again hoping that their end-of-season "cliffhangers" will lure us back next year. Their dilemma: how do they entice an audience which - after all these years of television storylines - has seen it all before?

They are certainly trying hard. In the space of two nights this week, both "All Saints" and "Blue Heelers" presented us with season finales in which a gunman goes berserk, hopefully generating much water-cooler discussion and reviving the flagging ratings of both series.

When they work, cliffhangers can be very effective. The 1976 bombing of Aldo's delicatessen in "Number 96", which killed four regular characters, boosted the ratings. The bomb (or fire, or plane crash) tactic went on to become a mainstay of soap-operas, even desperate foreign series. (Witness "The Bill".)

Back in 1976, viewers only needed to wait three nights to find out who had perished in Aldo's deli. Nowadays, end-of-season cliffhangers are customary, forcing devoted viewers to wait a few more weeks. But do they still have the same effect?

"I think the viewers are more savvy these days," says Ben Michael, script producer for "Neighbours". "It's not like 20 years ago, when the cliffhanger was something that everyone would talk about over summer holidays."

"Neighbours" has had its share of dramatic cliffhangers, such as the Toady and Dee's recent, high-rating car accident. However, it never tries to overplay the shock endings. "Once you've had an earthquake, what do you do then? Once you've killed 20 people, do you have to kill 21? It actually becomes boring."

Bevan Lee, Seven's network script executive, is also wary of cliffhangers. Ill-advised cliffhangers, he notes, have caused many TV series to "jump the shark" (lose their credibility with viewers).

Lee believes that the best and worst cliffhangers were both from "Dallas". "'Who shot JR?' is the greatest cliffhanger of all time," he says, referring to the 1981 whodunit that broke ratings records, and made the covers of both Time and Newsweek. He contrasts this with the 1986 plot device that brought a character back from the dead: "'Oh my God, Bobby, it was all a dream' was the worst." (To explain Bobby's return, the entire previous season was revealed as a long dream sequence.)

"The results of the cliffhanger must resonate for months. Otherwise the audience feels manipulated. In 'All Saints' ... literally, the show will never be the same again. The shooting affects the next year of the show in a very major way. That is the key. It's not just a quick-fix moment."

End-of-season cliffhangers are risky by definition. "Return to Eden" and the sci-fi series "Farscape" were suddenly cancelled before their dramatic finales could be resolved. (A four-minute closer for "Eden" was hurriedly filmed for European audiences. The "Farscape" finale, which left the lead characters literally shattered, is rumoured to be resolved in a mini-series next year.)

But perhaps "shark-jumping" is the greatest peril. "Number 96" producer Bill Harmon later regretted the deli explosion, admitting that it was a hasty reaction to the show's drop in ratings. The ratings boost was temporary, and the series was gone within two years.

As always, this year's dramatic finales face similar risks -- but as the creators point out, there are worse ways to go. "I think the worse risk is the boredom factor," says Lee. "It's constant juggling that has to be done."

AUSTRALIA'S BEST CLIFFHANGERS

Number 96 (1973)
Though everyone remembers the bomb in Aldo's deli, 96 also gave us one of television's first end-of-season cliffhangers -- a double-whammy in which Bev (Victoria Raymond) was accidentally shot, and a parcel bomb exploded next to Arnold (Jeff Kevin). The following year, viewers would learn that Bev had died, but Arnold had merely lost a leg.

Sons and Daughters (1982)
Take four of your most popular characters, trap them in a room with a mad gunman... and hear four shots ring out. Don't reveal what happened until the next season. Result: endless workplace discussion. Bevan Lee, the show's head writer, now plans to use a similar story in one of Seven's current series. "Good things are worth recycling."

Prisoner (1982)
Both Bea (Val Lehman) and sadistic prison warder ‘The Freak’ (Maggie Kirkpatrick) are trapped in a fire. Bea, with nothing to live for, announces that she wants both of them to die. The fire rages until the next season...

Blue Heelers (2000)
It was well-publicised that viewer favourite Maggie (Lisa McCune) was leaving. Seeing her murdered just added to the grief. But when her colleague and lover PJ (Martin Sacks) was framed for the murder... now THAT was a twist. Even those who only watched for McCune were glued to the next episode.