"Sea Patrol" (2007) TV series

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Creators:

Di McElroy
Hal McElroy

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3

Genre:

Drama

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

John Batchelor	...	Chief Petty Officer Andy 'Charge' Thorpe (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Saskia Burmeister	...	Lieutenant Nikki Caetano / ... (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Matthew Holmes	...	Chief Petty Officer Chris 'Swain' Blake (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
David Lyons	...	Leading Seaman Josh 'ET' Holiday (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Lisa McCune	...	Lieutenant Kate McGregor / ... (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Jay Ryan	...	Able Seaman Billy 'Spider' Webb (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Kristian Schmid	...	Able Seaman Robert J. 'RO' Dixon (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Ian Stenlake	...	Lieutenant Commander Mike Flynn / ... (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Jeremy Lindsay Taylor	...	Petty Officer Pete 'Buffer' Tomashevski (32 episodes, 2007-2009)
Steve Bisley	...	CMDR Steve Marshall / ... (22 episodes, 2007-2009)
Kirsty Lee Allan	...	Chef Rebecca 'Bomber' Brown / ... (19 episodes, 2008-2009)
Josh Lawson	...	Able Seaman Toby 'Chefo' Jones (13 episodes, 2007)

Also Known As:

"Sea Patrol II: The Coup" (Australia) (second season title)
"Sea Patrol III: Red Gold" (Australia) (third season title)
"A partiõrség" (Hungary) [hu]

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Australia:M (some episodes) | Australia:PG (some episodes)

Filming Locations:

Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Company:

Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC)

Trivia:

Two Royal Australian Navy Fremante class patrol boats were used to portray the fictional HMAS Hammersley. HMAS Wollongong was used for filming in Sydney and HMAS Ipswich was used for filming off Queensland.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Australia Unites: The Victorian Bushfire Appeal (2009) (TV)

Thoroughly enjoyable

Nothing but great things to say about this show. After a bit of a slow start in Series One, Series Two is off to a cracking start - improved pace, improved writing and the actors have clearly settled into their roles.

In particular, I'd single out Jeremy Lindsay-Taylor (Buffer) and Sacha Burmiester (Nav) for great performance characterisation. The romantic tension between Flynn (Ian Stenlake) and Kate (Lisa McCune) is much more believable this time around.

There's obviously some suspension of belief required: in the second series at least one crew member gets into an extreme life-threatening situation each episode, and almost everyone on the crew is a heck of a lot prettier than any soldier I've come across, but you take these caveats at the outset and sit down to enjoy the drama.

One thing that the show could work on is a better calibre of guest actors - while there have been some standouts (well-known actors like Ditch Davey and Alan Dale) there have been a few guests this series that have really let the writing and the regular actors down.

If you haven't checked out series 2 of Sea Patrol I would highly recommend it.