The Barrier Reef
Live-action adventures with the five man crew of the 200-ton
windjammer Endeavour on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, with
marine biologist Joe Francis, Captain Chet King, Dr. Hanna and
Chet's son Kip.
This series - made by Fauna Productions after the company
finished shooting Skippy - was made for the Australian 0-10
network. It was much like The Rovers from two years
earlier.
However, while the company was intent on using its old formula
of working with familiar stories and genres, Barrier Reef
was overly complicated, with the Endeavour having been
fitted out as a floating scientific laboratory.
The series also suffered from having too many regular
characters without any of the actors staying in place for the
whole series - although spunkrat Rowena Wallace was already well
on the way to becoming one of the most ubiquitous faces on
Australian television.
Despite drawbacks in the area of narrative, Barrier Reef
had excellent locations and some really superb underwater
photography filmed by the husband and wife team of Ron and Valerie
Taylor, the renowned underwater experts who also worked on Jaws.
The series was pleasant to look at and never too taxing on the
mind. With its inbuilt Australian ingredients, it sold well enough
overseas so that, although it never was the profit bonanza that Skippy
had been, it did return a modest profit on its investment.
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