OFF THE WIRE
Colin Vickery
heraldsun.com.au
Bikies at a friend's funeral after the Milperra Massacre in 1984. Picture: Ian Mainsbridge Source: HWT Image Library
NO, no, no! That was my first reaction to the news that Channel 10 has commissioned a six-part Aussie drama based on the Milperra Massacre.
Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms, by the makers of Underbelly, will tell the story behind the battle between members of the Comancheros and Bandidos bikie gangs in suburban Sydney in 1984.
Six bikies and an innocent 14-year-old girl died during the massacre.
Ten program chief David Mott describes Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms as one of the most sought-after properties in television.
I disagree. I reckon Aussie TV viewers have had a gutful of ultra-violent Aussie crime dramas.
Already this year we have had three Underbelly telemovies - Tell Them Lucifer Was Here, Infiltration and The Man Who Got Away.
Channel 9's upcoming Underbelly: Razor, which will screen in the second half of the year, could be the bloodiest of the lot. It is set in 1920s Sydney, a time when pistols were outlawed and razors became the weapon of choice.
TV networks have rushed to cash in on crime ever since the monster ratings success of the first Underbelly in 2008.
A swag of crime-based factual shows, including Gangs of Oz, Beyond the Darklands, and Australian Families of Crime, quickly appeared.
There were two more Underbelly series - A Tale of Two Cities and The Golden Mile - as well as dramas including Wicked Love, based on the Maria Korp case. The result has been a bloody-crime overkill.
Surely by now Aussie TV networks have served up every sickening, perverted psychopath and criminal act in an effort to get high ratings.
Mott says Bikie Wars will "shine a light on this fascinating tribal culture and its code of honour". He makes it sound like Ten is actually doing us a community service.
Psychologists and anti-violence advocates have slammed many of these violent Aussie crime shows, saying they send the wrong message to impressionable viewers.
Psychologist Dr Jan Hall criticised The Golden Mile for its violence aimed against female characters.
Hall said the violence in The Golden Mile "desensitised men to the vulnerability of women and that younger folk may not have the maturity to understand how abhorrent the actions of some of the male characters" were.
The ratings show viewers are switching off. This year's three Underbelly telemovies got half the ratings of previous instalments.
I reckon that is because Australian TV viewers are seeking out more hopeful shows. Packed to the Rafters continues to be the nation's highest-rating show with almost two million viewers each week.
My Kitchen Rules is one of this year's biggest hits, grabbing around 1.5 million viewers each night. The premiere of female drama Winners & Losers snagged 1.6 million viewers.
LAST year's Hawke, starring Richard Roxburgh as former Aussie prime minister Bob Hawke, showed that viewers will embrace quality Aussie drama in big numbers.
American television has its share of crime TV but that is in a much broader mix of drama subjects.
When US TV producers dig back into history, they come up with a whole range of subjects.
For every Boardwalk Empire (mobsters in the Prohibition era) there is a Mad Men (set in the world of 1960s advertising) or a John Adams (about the second US president).
Right now in Australia, TV networks seem so obsessed by crime that they fail to grasp that viewers are interested in much more.
There is some hope.
Aussie TV producer John Edwards is to be congratulated for bucking the trend with acclaimed series including Offspring, Tangled and Spirited.
Channel 7 has just commissioned bushranger series Wild Boys, starring Daniel MacPherson (City Homicide) and Zoe Ventoura (Rafters).
The ABC is producing The Slap, based on the award-winning novel by Christos Tsiolkas.
Showtime is making a TV version of Tim Winton's Cloudstreet.
For all of our sakes, let us hope this fresh batch of dramas turns out to be a ratings success.
That will encourage TV bosses to dump the blood and guts and create more uplifting programs for Aussie viewers.
Colin Vickery is Herald Sun TV writer
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