Pacific Drive (TV series)

Pacific Drive is an Australian television series made by Village Roadshow Pictures Television in association with New World International for the Nine Network which screened for 390 episodes from 29 January 1996 to December 1997, when it concluded it was show in reruns being in a late night timeslot for years. It was also repeated (and edited to tone down its racier overtones) for a daytime slot on Nine while they lobbied (unsuccessfully) to the Australian Broadcasting Authority for a daytime drama to count towards their local drama quota points.

Despite getting 1.7 million viewers for its first episode at 9.30pm, within a few weeks the show was getting just 135,000 viewers in its regular 11pm timeslot. Most critics described it as rubbish but some changed their minds during the show's second season. 'The Sydney Morning Herald said it was "immeasurably improved in looks, acting and writing" while The Sunday Telegraph named it one of the 10 Best Shows on TV for 1997. The "final" episode was screened on 6 April 2000 before Nine realised a mistake had been made (when the first three episodes had been edited down into a punchier one hour premiere) so they eventually screened the last episode a year later as a one-off send-off. Had it aired without interruption, it would have taken just 18 months to complete its run instead of five years.