Return To Eden
1 9 8 3 (Australia)
6 x 60 minute episodes
1 9 8 6 (Australia)
22 x 60 minute episodes
Return To Eden first appeared in 1983. The 6 hour
mini-series, with themes of murder, love and revenge was filmed
over 12 weeks around Sydney, the Darling Downs in Southern
Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef and Arnhem Land in the Northern
Territory. The series also featured rock singer James Reyne from
the band Australian Crawl in his first TV appearance. Production
costs were around $2.5 million.
The 22 part series which followed the successful mini-series
boasted a budget of more than $8 million. A lavish $1 million
studio was constructed in Five Dock (in Sydney) and the series was
also shot on location around Sydney and in Fiji.
The show featured a glossy, American-style production and it
was compared to American soaps Dallas and Dynasty -
no doubt why it was so successful with TV audiences. Producers
converted a luxurious Barrier Reef resort to a plastic surgeons
clinic, run by Dr Dan Marshall (played by James Smillie).
The central figure in Return To Eden is Stephanie
Harper. Her rich father died when she was 23 and she spent the
following 17 years in a kind of dream. She had divorced twice and
as the series starts she is marrying a younger man, the incredibly
handsome Wimbledon champion, Greg Marsden.
Everyone except Stephanie can see that he is no good. He
immediately has an affair with Stephanie's best friend, Jilly
Stewart and while on their honeymoon at her family homestead Eden
in the Northern Territory, Greg pushes Stephanie into a crocodile
infested river. Luckily she escapes and is given a new body, face
and name (this IS a soap opera remember!) by plastic surgeon Dr
Dan Marshall.
She returns to Sydney as a different woman, Tara Welles, where
she becomes a model and entices Greg into falling in love with
her. They return to Eden with Jilly following them. Stephanie
hatches an elaborate plan and confronts the two. Greg shoots the
aboriginal help while Tara/Stephanie and Jilly save Eden from
burning down by putting out a fire with the curtains!
Greg then tries to kill Tara/Stephanie in the swimming pool.
Instead he is badly wounded by Jilly and he attempts to flee in a
light plane. It crashes and he is killed. The next day the police
arrive and arrest Jilly. Shortly after, Stephanie Harper is
reunited with the doctor who gave her a new face and with her two
children.
The Return To Eden TV series of 1986 picks up from the
mini-series seven years later. Stephanie Harper, now Australia's
richest woman, is happily married to her plastic surgeon husband
and her two children are now young adults working in the Harper
empire. The release of Jilly Stewart from prison, however, starts
a dramatic chain of events.
Like all tales of melodrama, Return to Eden sounds trite
in this kind of summary. Nevertheless the show appealed to
audiences (despite a canning from the critics) and did enormously
well on air.
I recently saw Eden again and I was amazed at how dated
it looks now. Apart from the incidental music sounding like the
soundtrack from a bad porno movie, the fashions are hilarious. The
outdoor photo shoot where Stephanie is trying to get on the cover
of Vogue is an absolute scream!
I had forgotten what a fashion accessory the headband was in
the 80s. . . and having seen the mini-series again recently I can
confirm that James Reyne may just be the worst actor in the entire
world!
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