Best Australian drama series

A freak accident during an experimental space mission catapults Astronaut John Crichton across a thousand galaxies to an alien battlefield.

Ray Shoesmith is a father, ex-husband, boyfriend and best friend: tough roles to juggle in the modern age. Even harder when you’re a criminal for hire.

Bea Smith is locked up while awaiting trial for the attempted murder of her husband and must learn how life works in prison. A modern adaptation and sequel of the iconic Prisoner series.

A police officer and a doctor face an emotionally charged mystery when seven local residents inexplicably return from the dead in peak physical form.

After breaking up with his girlfriend, Josh comes to the realization that he is homosexual. With the support of his now ex girlfriend Claire, and his best friend and house mate Tom, Josh must help his mother with her battle with depression and the rest of his family embrace his new found lifestyle.

H2O: Just Add Water revolves around three teenage girls facing everyday teen problems with an added twist: they cope with the burden of growing a giant fin and transforming into mermaids whenever they come in contact with water.

A fresh look at Hartley High over 20 years on. With her new friends - outsiders Quinni and Darren - Amerie must repair her reputation, while navigating love, sex, and heartbreak.

It's a tale of reinvention, betrayal, redemption, and love with a twist. Jack Dawkins is The Artful Dodger, whose pickpocketing fingers have become the skilled hands of a surgeon. He is torn between an impossible love and the criminal underworld he secretly craves. This will require Artfulness.

Identical twins Leni and Gina have secretly switched places for years. But when one sister disappears, both of their lives start to fall apart.

Two young women advocate for wellness remedies to cure deadly illnesses, unraveling their lives as they unknowingly — and knowingly — mislead the world.

Our lady sleuth sashays through the back lanes and jazz clubs of late 1920’s Melbourne, fighting injustice with her pearl handled pistol and her dagger sharp wit. Leaving a trail of admirers in her wake, our thoroughly modern heroine makes sure she enjoys every moment of her lucky life. Based on author Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher Murder Mystery novels.

When a dark secret from this past threatens to be exposed, unorthodox and brilliant medical examiner, Doctor Daniel Harrow, must use all his forensic skills to keep it buried forever.

A young boy growing up in the suburbs of 1980s Brisbane faces the harsh realities of life — and the looming dangers that threaten his family.

Beneath the placid facade of Canberra, amidst rising tension between China and America, senior political journalist Harriet Dunkley uncovers a secret city of interlocked conspiracies, putting innocent lives in danger including her own.

Ex-con Cal McTeer's return to her hometown of Orphelin Bay blows the lid off a generations-long conspiracy of silence around murder, drugs and Sirens.

After losing her parents in a mysterious fire, nine-year-old Alice Hart is raised by her grandmother June on a flower farm where she learns there are secrets within secrets. But years on, an unearthed betrayal sees Alice forced to face her past.

A team of talented Australian and American intelligence analysts work together to ensure global stability in one of the world's most important and secretive joint intelligence facilities... Pine Gap. But the relationship between the Australian and American intelligence analysts working at Pine Gap isn’t always rosy.

Fifteen years ago, the loss of three young people tore this sleepy seaside town apart. Now, the mysterious death of a young woman dredges up the past.

Four strangers — a flight attendant escaping a suburban cult, an Afghan refugee fleeing persecution, a young Australian father escaping a dead-end job, and a bureaucrat caught up in a national scandal — are stuck in an immigration detention center in the Australian desert. Inspired by true events.

Real-life mermaids, Sirena, Nixie and Lyla are part of a mermaid pod, which lives in the waters of Mako Island. As young members of the pod, it is their job to protect the Moon Pool and guard it from trespassers. But on the night of a full moon, the mischievous mermaid girls neglect their duties. Sixteen-year-old land-dweller Zac enters the Moon Pool and forms a special connection with Mako. Zac is given a fish-like tail and amazing powers. The mermaid pod is forced to leave Mako, leaving behind the three mermaid girls, cast out of the pod. They know there's only one way they will be allowed to rejoin the pod: They must get legs, venture onto land and take back Zac's powers – or risk being outcasts forever.

When the world's largest cattle station is left without a clear heir, rival factions descend as a fierce generational struggle upends the land's future.

When family outcast Lucky Flynn learns that his mother is dying, he decides to drive to the other side of Australia to see her, packing nothing but an upright piano for the journey. But his plans are soon turned upside down when he meets the runaway teenager Meg, who’s dealing with some family demons of her own.

Two complete strangers, Lola and Chelsea, intervene in a fatal carjacking while waiting at a suburban bus stop, and are subsequently thrust into a chase from authorities across Australia with a vehicle filled with cash. The strangers must rely solely on each other while on the run.

Cleaver Greene is not about politics or morality or even justice. Cleaver Greene is about the law. And it is his passion for the law that drives him to use his formidable intelligence to defend people whom society and the justice system might otherwise convict without a fair trial. He uses his encyclopaedic knowledge of human nature and the Byzantine intricacies of our legal codes to guarantee that his clients get what is theirs by the law; the right to a diligent defence.

Rebellious Brooklyn teen Summer Torres is sent to live with family friends in the tiny town of Shorehaven on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria, AUS. Despite her best efforts, Summer falls in love with the town, the people and the surf.

When Helen Tudor-Fisk's life falls apart, she takes a job in a small suburban firm specialising in wills and probate assuming that, because the clients are dead she won't have to deal with people.

When an apocalyptic tidal wave hits during the ten-year reunion of an all-girls high school, a group of women must find a way to survive on the island peak of their high school campus.

At Sydney's National Dance Academy, a few talented youngsters are recruited for the excruciatingly tough course. It follows Tara Webster, a sheepfarmgirl who's ambition is to be the next best ballerina. Jewish long line of doctors' heir Samuel 'Sammy' and minor juvenile offender Christian are the outsiders but gradually fit in, making new kinds of friends. Star ballerina's daughter Kat also introduces them in the circle of last-year brother Ethan, who already aspires a career as choreographer. Also Abigail, a smart young girl who'll walk over dead bodies to reach the stars tries to sabotage everything and everyone.

The brilliant and eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) are grafted into a multi-national taskforce to keep naval crimes in check in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.

An anthology series which centers on different characters being targeted by crazed serial killer Mick Taylor in the Australian outback.

When a health crisis forces Liv to rethink her “live fast, die young” attitude, she jumps into a wellness journey to get better — even if it kills her.

The disappearance of a baby from a small coastal town in Australia is the catalyst for a journey into the disintegrating psychology of a young couple as they deal with an unthinkable tragedy under both the white light of public scrutiny and behind closed doors.

Angry Boys is an Australian television mockumentary series written by and starring Chris Lilley. Continuing the mockumentary style of his previous series, the show explores the issues faced by young males in the 21st century – their influences, their pressures, their dreams and ambitions. In Angry Boys, Lilley plays multiple characters: S.mouse, an American rapper; Jen, a manipulative Japanese mother; Blake Oakfield, a champion surfer; Ruth "Gran" Sims, a guard at a juvenile detention facility; and her grandchildren, South Australian twins Daniel and Nathan Sims. The series is a co-production between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and US cable channel HBO, with a pre-sale to BBC Three in the United Kingdom. Filmed in Melbourne, Los Angeles and Tokyo, Angry Boys premièred on 11 May 2011 at 9:00 pm on ABC1.

The Code is a drama series which tells tells the story of two brothers who discover some information that those at the highest levels of political power are determined to keep secret.

Underbelly is an Australian television true crime-drama series, each series is a stand alone story based on real-life events.

Four teenage boys get lost in the forest and discover, when they return home, that they are in an alternate world identical to theirs except for one startling difference - they were never born.

Investigator Alexa Crowe, cannot help fighting the good fight – whether it is solving murders or combatting the small frustrations of everyday life. Fearless and unapologetic, Alexa's unique skills and insights into the darker quirks of human nature, allows her to provoke, comfort and push the right buttons as she unravels the truth behind the most baffling of crimes.

When a local girl goes missing, a woman is forced to face the demons from her traumatic childhood.

Anna Macy left Kettering when she was just 14, shortly after her best friend, Gillian Baxter mysteriously disappeared. The two girls had been playing in the forbidden forests outside Kettering when they saw strange lights in the sky. Eight hours later, Anna was found alone, terrified and covered in blood. 15 years on, Anna returns to find the town struggling to survive. The forests have been marked for logging and the community is being torn apart by passionate but violent clashes between environmentalists and the local loggers.

A mysterious woman is perched between the harsh legacy of World War II and the hope of a new life in Australia. A sweeping romantic drama set in 1950s rural Australia following the lives of the Blighs, a wealthy and complicated pastoralist family, who lives in Inverness, NSW.

An unconventional relationship in a world on the cusp of change; a star newsreader and an ambitious bisexual reporter join forces in a ruthless 1986 newsroom, as events unfold that will change their lives.

An eccentric private investigator with a criminal past recruits a disgraced ex-cop to help solve the disappearance of a Korean tech pioneer in the wilds of Far North Queensland.

When there is a mysterious disappearance on an outback cattle station, Detective Jay Swan is assigned to investigate. Working with local cop Emma James, Jay’s investigation uncovers a past injustice that threatens the fabric of the whole community.

When Jack McLeod passes away, his two daughters inherit Drovers Run, a vast cattle ranch in the Australian outback. Ultimately, Tess and Claire decide to run the ranch together, with their housekeeper, Meg, her teenage daughter, Jodi, and a local girl, Becky. Their lives are hard and the obstacles many, but the rewards are every bit as grand as the wild open land they've inherited.

The story of an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley, who inherits a large cattle ranch in Australia after her husband dies. When Australian cattle barons plot to take her land, she joins forces with a cattle drover to protect her ranch.

Valentine's Day, 1900. Three schoolgirls and their governess mysteriously disappear in Hanging Rock, Australia, without a trace.

Early 20th-century adventurers find themselves fighting for survival after their hot-air balloon crashes into a remote part of the Amazon, stranding them on a prehistoric plateau.

Dr Lucien Blake left Ballarat as a young man. But now he finds himself returning to take over not only his dead father's medical practice, but also his on-call role as the town's police surgeon, only to find change is afoot, nothing is sacred, and no one is safe.

A dark, gothic tale about three nuns, each a generation apart, living in an isolated convent by the coast, and an unwelcome visitor who enters their lives and changes their world forever.

When a man slaps a 4-year-old boy, the incident results in an intense court case.

Off the grid and miles from civilization, Little Otter Family Camp has summer fun for everyone. Parents decompress over gin and tonics while their kids run wild, and teenage counselors fall in and out of love. Mackenzie Granger is the camp owner and director. Still reeling from her recent divorce, Mackenzie is ready for a fresh start. She is running things on her own for the first time and scrambling to keep the cash-strapped Little Otter from going under.

In swinging 60’s Melbourne, gorgeously reckless Peregrine Fisher inherits a windfall when the famous aunt she never knew goes missing over the highlands of New Guinea. Peregrine must prove herself brilliant enough to become a world class private detective in her own right.

Detectives Tori Lustigman and Nick Manning are assigned a brutal murder case in Bondi, where they begin to uncover mounting evidence to suggest the killing is connected to a spate of unexplained deaths, "suicides" and disappearances of gay men throughout the 80s and 90s. Haunted by the disappearance of her teenage brother, Tori's fascination with the case soon turns to fixation. When more ritualistic murders occur with the same bizarre signature, Tori and Nick will need to put their relationships, their careers and their lives on the line to finally reveal the truth.

An exuberant drama set in Melbourne's Fitzroy, centering on Nina Proudman and her struggle to deal with her fabulously messy family, her hunt for a decent love life and her tendency to overthink and fly off into fantasy.

Jack Irish is a man getting his life back together again. A former criminal lawyer whose world imploded, he now spends his days as a part-time investigator, debt collector, apprentice cabinet maker, punter and sometime lover – the complete man really. An expert in finding those who don’t want to be found – dead or alive, Jack helps out his mates while avoiding the past. That is until the past finds him.

When an unidentified woman is found brutally murdered, Detective Molly McGee teams up with fellow cop, Alex O’Connell—with whom she shares a tragic past—to solve the crime.

Fabulously wealthy London housewife Sammy, is forced to return to the town in Australia she grew up in. But in coming home, Sammy must revisit her past and the events that led her to flee as a teenager years ago.

When self-destructive Vivian discovers the cliffside property she’s inherited is a known suicide site, she is tasked with becoming its reluctant guardian, rescuing lost souls on the verge.

The story of Dorrigo Evans, an army surgeon whose short but forbidden affair with his uncle's wife sustains and haunts him through his darkest days in a Thai-Burmese prisoner of war camp in WWII.

Sea Patrol is an Australian television drama set on board HMAS Hammersley, a fictional patrol boat of the Royal Australian Navy. The series focuses on the ship and the lives of its crew members.

When the 19-year-old daughter of a UK politician is found dead in Sydney Harbour, cultures clash as a British and an Australian detective team up to solve a complex murder mystery. But this international investigation will expose more than murder, as the two detectives begin to uncover a conspiracy with political consequences.

One year after a devastating flood kills five locals in an idyllic country town, a mysterious new plant appears with the power to restore their youth.

A criminal from Chicago who bungles a heist is forced to hideout in a small Australian reef town in Far North Queensland posing as the new church Reverend.

An unexpected pregnancy complicates the lives of two families. The series centers around Oly, an ambitious and high-achieving teenage girl who has a surprise baby.

On the shores of Cape Mercy, a skillful group of teen divers investigate a series of secrets and signs after one of their own mysteriously goes missing.

Inspired by John Ibrahim's best-selling autobiography, this series is an operatic story of two brothers, Sam and John Ibrahim who organize the street but lose each other in their ascent to power. The story tracks John Ibrahim's rise from a poverty-stricken immigrant with no education, no money, and no prospects, to Australia's most infamous nightclub mogul in Sydney's Kings Cross — a mini-Atlantic City, barely half a mile long with every form of criminality on offer.