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The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. It was initially a 1985 mini-series based in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The success of the mini series led to its return the following year as an on-going series with McFarlane being joined by a new doctor, Chris Randall, played by Liz Burch. McFarlane left during the first season and actor Robert Grubb came in as new doctor Geoff Standish. The series' episodes were mostly self-contained but also featured ongoing storylines, such as Dr. Standish's romance with Sister Kate Wellings. Other major characters included pilot Sam Patterson, mechanic Emma Plimpton, local policeman Sgt. Jack Carruthers and Vic and Nancy Buckley, who ran the local pub/hotel, The Majestic. Andrew McFarlane also later returned to the series, resuming his role as Dr. Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.
Tom and Kate are on a clinicround. It's Tom's birthday. There they see a patient named Ted, who complains of stomach-ache. His family situation isn't the best, he doesn't care about his sons and they don't care about him. He is taken to hospital, where he finally makes up with his family. A new doctor, Chris Randall, arrives and everybody is upset that the RFDS headoffice sent a female doctor, especially Violet. Chris has to go out to see a patient with a smashed leg. She does everything she can to help the patient, Jim Spencer. But he really needs to go to hospital. They move Jim to the plane, but the weather is too rough, and Ray, the pilot, can't take off. They have to take Jim back to the house, and Chris makes a very difficult decision - she has to amputate Jim's leg to save his life, despite mrs. Spencer's vishes.
Now playing Season 1, Episode 1 — Will to Survive
May 15, 1986
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221
6.6
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Season 1 • 26 episodes
Tom and Kate are on a clinicround. It's Tom's birthday. There they see a patient named Ted, who complains of stomach-ache. His family situation isn't the best, he doesn't care about his sons and they don't care about him. He is taken to hospital, where he finally makes up with his family. A new doctor, Chris Randall, arrives and everybody is upset that the RFDS headoffice sent a female doctor, especially Violet. Chris has to go out to see a patient with a smashed leg. She does everything she can to help the patient, Jim Spencer. But he really needs to go to hospital. They move Jim to the plane, but the weather is too rough, and Ray, the pilot, can't take off. They have to take Jim back to the house, and Chris makes a very difficult decision - she has to amputate Jim's leg to save his life, despite mrs. Spencer's vishes.
Chris has horrible nightmares about the amputation. Everybody is accusing her, they are convinced that she could have treated Jim Spencer without taking off his leg. Her patients avoid her, and George Baxter even threatens to sue her. A few days later Chris is out on an overnight clinic where she finds a four-year-old girl with croup. It gets very bad, and Tom decides to come. For some reason George Baxter is on the plane as well. Chris realizes that Tom won't be able to get there in time, so she needs to do a tracheotomy(?) (it's when you make a little whole in the patients windpipe, so he/she will be able to breath).The girl's mother won't let Chris perform the rather simple procedure, she has heard what happened to Jim Spencer. Tom tries to talk to her over the radio but she won't listen. So Tom maked George Baxter understand that the little girl will die if Chris doesn't operate, and Baxter talks to the mother on the radio. he claims he has been wrong about Chris all the time an
An english family, the Robertsons, arrives in Coopers Crossing, looking for work. They get a tip that a farmer outside town needs workers so they decide to go there. However, they get lost, and have to stay in the car over night. The next morning, the man goes for help and tells his wife to stay near the car with their two sons, Alfred and Alexander, and babydaughter. It is incredably hot and mr. Roberson gets dehydrated and finally collapses. Since the family didn't show up at all at the farm where they were expected, a search is organized. They find mr. Robertson, and he will be ok. At the car, mrs. Robertson has been really angry with the two boys and they run off. When they want to go back they discover they are lost. The search party manages to find the car where mrs. Robertson is very worried about her sons. Eventually the two boys are found, but too late - one of them died of dehydration.
Hurtle comes back to town, but he says he won't stay. He's going up to the coast. Tom, Kate and Chris are visiting an old man called Rabbit. When they're about to leave Rabbit is blowing a new minehole (he is looking for opals), but he has an accident. He is not badly injured though. But Chris is upset about the conditions he lives under. She wants him admitted to the hospital but Tom says no. Vic and Ron wonders why Hurtle is going up the coast. Hurtle offers Ron to buy the garage and Ron tries to get a loan, which is refused. Hurtles shows some slides at the base, but Sharon, Gibbo and Kate sneek out. By mistake Hurtle shows some pictures of a woman. Everybody is very curious about her but Hurtle doesn't say who she is. Vic discovers Sharon and Gibbo sneeking out and is very angry. He doesn't want Gibbo staying at the pub, so Gibbo moves in with Tom. Rabbit has a serious mineaccident, and is discovered by a neighbour. Gibbo, Tom and Chris flies out here and saves Rabbit in
Bruce is coming to Coopers Crossing to get married. He's never met the bride to be, they have only written letters. When Joylene arrives it turns out that she is pregnant. Bruce (and everybody else) get really upset, and Bruce says he doesn't want to marry her anymore. Tom feels sorry for Joylene, who really wanted to marry Bruce, so he lets her stay at his place. Finally Bruce's brother proposes to Joylene and the get married. When she's having the baby, they name him Bruce, which makes the ""old"" Bruce pretty happy.
A lady called Debbie Wilson shows up in town to fight for the aboriginies. She wants to find sacred places and make sure that the aboriginals have acess to these places. Many of the people in Coopers Crossing get upset, and when Tom invites Debbie to dinner they think things have gone too far. A man called Don Shepard knows about sacred places, but he won't tell Debbie. He doesn't do that because one of the sacred places is situated on George Baxter's land, and Baxter is paying Don not to tell anyone. But after a while Don takes Debbie to the spot, and it turns out everything is a fake. Don painted the false picture and the ""sacred"" place himself to get payed from Baxter. Debbie leaves Coopers Crossing and everything goes back to normal again.
Andrew Cameron is a farmer and very successful in everything he does. He demands his son, Matt, to be just as successful as he is, which of course is impossible. Finally Matt breaks into the Nomad and steels some drugs and tries to kill himself. He is rescued by the RFDS though. Tom finds an old woman, Ruth Pitt, in a tent outside town, where she lives with her retarded son Hugh. Ruth has a bad heart, and she dies, so they have to send Hugh to a home. It feels a bit sad, since everybody liked him so much.
Prue is pregnant and staying at a couple she says is her aunt and onkel. She delivers the baby on the baby but it requires help from the RFDS since the baby is in a wrong position. Prue doesn't want to look at her child at all, and it turns out the couple isn't her relatives. They just want to buy her baby! But Prue changes her mind and wants to keep her child. Hurtle and Ron are babysitting, when some gunpowder blows up in Ron's face. He will be ok but has to go to Syndey for treatment.
An international rally comes to Coopers Crossing which makes everyone excited. A driver called Sandra spends lots of time with Gibbo and Chris has dinner with a french driver. This makes Tom jealous, but when he finds out nothing happened he and Chris kiss! Emma Plimpton arrives in Coopers Crossing, she Hurtle's niece and a trained mechanic.
Emma is upset with Hurtle, the garage's economy is a mess, Hurtle never demands people to pay their bills which makes it impossible for him to pay his! So Emma has to his dirty work for him. Violet finds out she's got diabetes, but doesn't take care of it and collapses. Finally Tom makes her realize she can live a great life, even though she's a diabetic.
One of Sharon's friends is going out with a boy named Max, and she goes to Chris to get the pill. Linda gets them on the farmacy, but Violet sees her, and soon everybody knows about it. Linda's mother is more or less seing George Baxter, and he gets really upset! he talks to Frank, Tom and Chris, and threatens to sue Chris for doing this. Linda suspects that she's already pregnant and she and Max run off. They're involved in a car-accident, and Linda looses her baby.
Tom and Gibbo has to land in the middle of nowhere after a clinicround. They come to an old cabin where they find a man and his dying mother. They also find the man's daugther Amanda who has lived there isolated in her whole life. When the old lady dies Tom promises to bring Amanda to town, but this upsets the man. He later comes into town to persuade Amanda to come back. She refuses and he kills himself.
RFDS gets an emergecny call from Adrian Bailey, son of the wealthy Rex Bailey, who is out cycling in the bush. Everybody says he shouldn't go on, he doen't know anything about the bush. But he ignores them. After a while they get another call from him, but at the same time there's an emergencycall - a 7-year old boy with 50% burns. Tom chooses to go to the boy first, but when they come to Adrian he's dead! A very rude reporter is there, and he makes it sound it was all Tom's fault Adrian died. Rex arrives in town and after reading the papers he also blames Tom. But Sharon talks to him, and he understands it wasn't Tom's fault.
Sharon tells everybody that she is moving to Sydney to study. She's going to be a socialworker. Everybody at the base is happy for her but Gibbo is a bit upset about Sharon not telling him she applied. Nancy is sad about Sharon leaving, but Vic's really angry. He and Sharon fights about it, but Sharon does go, eventually. There's a man, Jim Dawson, who is going crazy at a pub after drinking very much, where he also get serious cuts to his face. He just rides off, and when Tom and Jack comes they go after him. Jim is in a really bad shappe so they bring him home to his wife. This has happened a lot of times before, but now he really want to change things. His wife, Peg doesn't believe him, and she leaves him.
Gibbo, Ron and Emma meets a woman named Clare Dobson on the road where her car broke down. Gibbo gives her a ride back to town and Ron promises to fix her car. It's obvious that they are competing over her. Nancy is helping out on the base after Sharon left. Joe offered her the job, which makes Tom and Chris a bit upset. The war-memorial is coming up, and everybody is excited. Everybody except Chris. She thinks it's horrible to celebrate war, and she's arguing about it at the base. This really upsets Joe, and Chris finds out that he experienced some terrible things when he was in Vietnam. Later it turns out that Clare Dobson was Violet's granddaughter, which of course makes Violet very happy! Details
Tom sees some horrible pictures of starving kids in Africa and starts thinking of going there to help. Chris thinks they're about to get married and tells Violet - which means the whole town knows. But Tom tells Chris he's made up his mind, he'll go to Africa. The talk in the town just says Tom will leave the outback and everybody thinks he'll go into town to start his own clinic. This hurts Tom a lot, but when he tells the truth, everybody apologizes. But the whole town, especially Chris, is sad when he leaves.
The new doctor, Geoff Standish arrives, a really bragging citydoctor. He gets drunk one night, when he was on call, which upsets Chris terribly. Geoff tells her he came to the outback because his wife died of cancer. He was to busy working and didn't notice until it was to late, and he takes the blame for her death. They meet a man called Les Foster, who is gay, and has found out he has got aids. He gets worse all the time, and finally dies.
Kate is at George Baxter's place giving vaccin-shots. They run into bad weather during a ride and comes to a shed. George is hit by lightning, and has a seizure. It turns out he might have epilepcy. Violet is organizing the Miss Coopers Crossing contest, and manages to talk Emma into entering. She wins over a stroppy girl called Melissa Cumberland-Brown.
A family, the Morgans, has to sell their property, and George Baxter buys it for his company. This makes the Morgans pretty upset. Nancy has done some tests with Geoff and the results show some cellular changes in her utures, it's cancer. They have to make a small operation. After the operation it shows that the cancer has spread and they have to perform a hystorectomy (to remove the whole utures), but Nancy refuses. She and Vic argues a lot about it, and this makes Sharon come back from Sydney for a while. But she can't make Vic understand why Nancy refuses to have the operation. Sharon talks to Geoff and Chris to get some advice. Finally she makes Vic understand and he talks to Nancy. She decides to have the operation, and it's a success, they managed to get rid of the whole cancer!
The base gets a call, a boy has got shot and Chris flies out. She does her best, but the boy dies. The weather is really bad, so they can't fly the body back to town. Jack and dr. Turner agrees that Chris should do the autopsy at the spot. She feels bad about it, but does it anyway. Geoff gets a telegram, a job-offer from Sydney, and Violet finds out. Which means the whole town knows pretty soon. Kate is really upset about Geoff leaving, and the rest of the town as well. Finally Geoff decides to stay, and everybody appologizes.
Gibbo demands vacation, and the only release-pilot is an old man called Frank Watson, known as Fearless Frank. He is a very good pilot but sometimes he takes riskes. He really likes this woman called Val. She called the RFDS, but she's a hypocondric, so Chris didn't want to go. Frank went on his own but after picking Val up he got a stomach-ache and had to make an emergency landing on the road. This meant Gibbo didn't get his vacation after all... Frank ends up in hospital but discharges himself and goes flying. Since he is sick he doesn't have the permission to fly. When he lands he claims this was his last flight, he'll start working for Val!
A girl named Sarah is alone at her and her husband's property when he is off working. She claims she hears someone spying on her and involves as well Jack as Geoff. Finally she sees someone in a window and fires a shotgun. Jack and Dougie traces, it turns out to be one of Sarah's work-friends, who wanted to make sure she was safe all alone out there. Kate is seeing George Baxter but when she finds him with another woman in Broken Hill she quickly ends their relaionship.
The Cochrane-brothers come to town. They end up in hospital after they've been in an accident with explosives - looking for gold! Josie Rattan has a caraccident, but says she's ok. When Geoff finds her unconscious he does some tests, she's got a braintumour. She knows she'll die but don't want to spend her last days in hospital. She finally convinces Geoff to let her go!
A theatre group comes to town, but their director and head-actor, Rick, breaks his leg. In hospital Chris discovers he's got a disease that needs treatment in Sydney but he won't go. Their manager then runs with all their money, but the town help them out. Joe gets a part instead of the one Rick should have had and is a success. He is offered to go with the group but refuses. Rick decides to go to Sydney after all.
Two thieves are troubling everyone, they want pills and medicins to sell to schoolkids. They hassles both Kate and Jack. But one of them is injured and is nearly killed! Chris saves him though. Violet organizes the Queen of the Outback contest in Windoona, but everything goes wrong. Violet and Emma are arguing about clothes and Emma says she's quiting. Chris manages to make a compromise. Than the decorations is wrong, and the band doesn't play the right music. And Violet blames Chris for all of it!
The ""Queen of the Outback"" competition is held in Windoona and Emma wins! On the way back Gibbo has to fly, even though he is on vacation because the other pilot was drunk. The engines catches fire, and he has to do an emergencylanding. Everything seems to be all right, but Gibbo is seriously ill. He has to fly to Broken Hill but on the way he dies. George Baxter is elected new M.P of the district.
Crawfords Australia
AU
Robert Grubb
Dr. Geoff Standish
Lenore Smith
Kate Standish
Nikki Coghill
Sr. Jackie Crane
David Reyne
Dr. Guy Reid
Christopher Stollery
Johnno Johnson
Sarah Chadwick
Dr. Rowie Lang
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