Holiday island
 Holiday Island was supposed to be a soap opera about a
holiday resort on a tropical island north of Sydney, Australia. It
turned out to be a bad trip for viewers and not much fun for the
cast.
It ran for fifty episodes in 1981 before it was dropped
completely (to everyone's relief). It was created by veteran Terry
Stapleton, with the brief that it was to be something like the US
series, Love Boat. He now looks back on it as an expensive
failure.
The idea sounded fine with the opportunity for good-looking young
people to fall in and out of love by swimming pools. A whole suite
of natural disasters could have occurred and all kinds of weird
and wonderful visitors could have stayed at the resort.
But the plush holiday complex built by Channel 10 at their
Melbourne studios proved a complete disaster. Melbourne weather
does not lend itself to Tropicana. On most days the carefully
planted but soon wilting palm tress were being blown back at 45°
angles across grey and cloudy skies.
The swimming pool developed waves from the constant wind, and
the actresses, trying to look relaxed and alluring in bikinis,
were blue and rigid with cold.
The observant soap-watcher will note that part of the exotic
Holiday Island resort eventually turned up at the Lassiters Hotel
complex in Neighbours.
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