Winners & Losers | |
---|---|
Created by | Bevan Lee |
Starring | Melissa Bergland Virginia Gay Melanie Vallejo Zoe Tuckwell-Smith Blair McDonough Damien Bodie Stephen Phillips Denise Scott Francis Greenslade Sarah Grace Jack Pearson Tom Wren Mike Smith Tom Hobbs Katherine Hicks Sibylla Budd Nick Russell Nathin Butler James Saunders Laura Gordon Demi Harman Paul Moore |
Country of origin | Australia |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 5 |
No. of episodes | 109 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers | John Holmes Julie McGauran |
Producers | MaryAnne Carroll (S1) Paul Moloney (S2–5) |
Production locations | Melbourne, Australia |
Running time | 44 minutes |
Production company | Seven Productions |
Original release | |
Network | Seven Network |
Release | 22 March 2011 – 12 September 2016 |
Winners & Losers is an Australian television drama series first broadcast on the Seven Network on 22 March 2011. It was created by the producers of Packed to the Rafters and is aired in the show's former time slot. Winners & Losers focuses on the lives of four women living in Melbourne, after they win a large amount of money in the Oz Lotto. Seven renewed Winners & Losers for a second season in July 2011 and it began airing from 26 June 2012. Two months later, it was announced the series had been renewed for a third season. A fourth season was confirmed on 19 December 2013. [1] A fifth season was confirmed on 3 December 2014. [2]
Angus Ross, the Director of Programming at the Seven Network, confirmed in an interview with Australian television blog TV Tonight that the fifth season of Winners & Losers would be the final season. [3] The season premiered on 5 July 2016 and concluded on 12 September 2016.
The series revolves around the lives of four women: Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland), Bec Gilbert (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith), Frances James (Virginia Gay) and Sophie Wong (Melanie Vallejo). The girls were "the losers" in high school. Ten years later, they realise they are really winners once they are reunited at their school reunion and afterwards, win the Oz Lotto. [4]
Winners & Losers was created by Bevan Lee. Lee wanted to create a drama focusing on females for a number of years before the programme's creation. [26] He also created Packed to the Rafters . [4] While the former is focused on family relationships, Winners and Losers concentrates on friendships and is aimed at a younger demographic. Lee said it focuses on the "fun and drama of how we all carry the inner loser inside us, no matter how much life makes a winner of us." [4] Lee said the programme's genre is "charmedy" consisting of drama, comedy and charm. [26]
At the time of early production, the main actresses were required to spend time together off set to build believable chemistry between themselves. [27] The show's producer Maryanne Carroll was partly responsible for creating the lives of the four main female characters. [28] She oversaw a "team of experts" who chose music for scenes, styled their homes and chose their clothing. The items placed in each home were designed to identify with the characters living there. [28]
A pilot episode for the programme was created and shown to a research group. Network Seven's then-head of drama, John Holmes, said the research produced the expectation of high ratings. [26] The series began airing on the Seven Network from 22 March 2011, [29] four weeks earlier than originally planned. [26] The fourth season of Packed to the Rafters was put on hiatus to allow Winners & Losers to air in its timeslot. The move was part of a programming strategy, with the aim of attracting a high viewing figures. [26] The first episode gained the highest ratings of the evening, [29] averaging at 1.7 million viewers. [30] The Seven Network decided to air the second and third episodes back to back, securing the highest ratings once again. [31] The programme continued to fare well with ratings in the following weeks. [27] However the ratings for episode seven indicated that Winners and Losers had lost over four hundred thousand viewers. [30] Though it was considered a ratings success and is among the twelve most watched programmes in Australia. [30] [32]
On 5 July 2011, Seven announced that it had renewed Winners & Losers for a second season in 2012. [33] Filming for the new season began on 23 August 2011 and Lee said viewers would see big changes. [33] [34] He told the Herald Sun's Colin Vickery, "We turn the girls' lives on their heads in a pretty major way in the final episode (of series one). That will give us a new launching pad for season two." [33] Filming on the second season was completed on 5 April 2012. [35] The second season began airing from 26 June 2012. [21]
Seven renewed Winners & Losers for a third season on 7 August 2012. [36] Production on the third series began in September and the actors began filming the following month. [37] [38] Seven's head of drama, Julie McGauran commented "2013 is going to be a landmark year for Channel Seven's drama department. Our drama slate is at full capacity with the return of Winners & Losers as well as Packed to the Rafters, Home and Away and the new drama A Place to Call Home." [36] The third season began airing from 9 July 2013. [39] The show was renewed for a fourth season, with production beginning in early 2014. [40] The show was renewed for a fifth season on 3 December 2014. [2] The Seven Network confirmed that the fifth season would also be the last. [3]
Jim Schembri of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the series branding it a "fresh, brightly coloured, high-end soap." He deemed its characters as "some of the most engaging" roles on television. [41] A columnist of The Advertiser attributed the show's success to its time slot and "creative force Bevan Lee." [27] A columnist for The Age empathised with the good response the programme generated. They said the series had "powerful themes of friendship, karma and justice for the underdog", which were portrayed in a subtle tone in comparison to other programmes. [42] They branded it "an engaging hour of television" due to inclusion on comedy and a "large cast of lively characters." However they noted some of the "fresh" storylines were similar those featured in shows such as Sex and the City . [42] While their colleague Paul Kalina said the programme had played it safe by using similar elements that made Packed to the Rafters a success. [43]
Bridget McManus from the publication reflected her opinion that the programme had lost its "edge" and had started to resemble a "poor girl's Sex and the City." [44] She noted the main problem was that "potentially interesting characters" were overlooked by the four females. McManus felt they were tired stereotypes, describing them as "the virgin, the damned whore, God's policewoman and a clown." [44] Debi Enker writing for The Sun-Herald said that the second series will require Winners & Losers to "lift its game" because the first was too reliant on caricatures. Enker stated as the "scheming ex-wife, true-blue Aussie family and flamboyant gay confidant"; which made "soapy" characters with not "enough nuance to give them a full-bodied life". [45]
Of the show's third season, Craig Mathieson of The Age questioned whether the show had become a soap opera. He accused it of having a "multiple personality disorder". He observed it switching from "thriller" to "hold-hands melodrama" and "gently comic ode to emotional strength" with each different character it focused on. [46]
Year | Award | Category | Recipients and nominees | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2012 | AACTA Television Awards [47] | Best Television Program | Winners & Losers | Nominated |
Best Male Performance | Tom Wren | Nominated | ||
Logie Awards [48] [49] | Most Outstanding New Talent | Melissa Bergland | Nominated | |
Most Popular Drama Series | Winners & Losers | Nominated | ||
Most Popular New Female Talent | Melissa Bergland | Won | ||
Most Popular New Male Talent | Tom Wren | Nominated | ||
2014 | Equity Awards [50] | Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series | Cast | Nominated |
Logie Awards [51] | Most Popular Drama Program | Winners & Losers | Nominated | |
Season | Timeslot (Australian) | # Ep. | First aired | Last aired | Peak viewers (millions) | Rank | Avg. viewers (millions) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tuesday 8:30 pm | 22 | 22 March 2011 | 23 August 2011 | 1,726,000 [52] | 5 [53] | 1,480,000 [53] |
2 | 22 | 26 June 2012 | 27 November 2012 | 1,439,000 [52] | 5 [53] | 1,247,000 [53] | |
3 | 26 | 9 July 2013 | 24 June 2014 | 1,245,000 [52] | 5 [53] | 1,117,000 [53] | |
4 | 26 | 1 July 2014 | 8 September 2015 | 993,000 [54] | N/A | ||
5 | Tuesday 8:30 pm / 9:45 pm | 13 | 5 July 2016 | 12 September 2016 | N/A | N/A |
DVD title | # Discs | Release date | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Region 2 (UK) | Region 4 (AU) | Region 4 (NZ) | ||
Season 1 | 6 | 11 June 2012 [55] | 21 September 2011 [56] | 5 April 2012 [57] |
Season 2 | 6 | — | 28 November 2012 [58] | 15 November 2013 [59] |
Season 3 | 6 | — | 3 July 2014 [60] | — |
Season 4 – Part One | 3 | — | 4 December 2014 [61] | — |
Season 4 – Part Two | 3 | — | 1 October 2015 [62] | — |
Season 5 | 3 | — | 5 October 2016 [63] | — |
The Complete Series | 27 | — | 5 October 2016 [64] | — |
A CD titled Winners & Losers (Music from the Hit Series) was released on 8 July 2011. [65] It contains songs by various artists which were used in the programme. [66] The CD peaked at 24 in the ARIA Album Charts. [67]
In March 2011, Winners & Losers was picked up for international distribution by FremantleMedia Enterprises. FremantleMedia represents the show worldwide, outside of Australia and New Zealand. [68] In New Zealand, Winners & Losers began broadcasting on TV One from 2011. [69] The following year, the show began airing in the United Kingdom on ITV2. [70] Since 2011, it has been screened in several other European countries, including, Poland on Fox Life, [71] Slovenia on POP Brio, [72] Finland on YLE TV2, [73] and from 2012, beginning broadcast in Croatia on Fox Life, [74] Serbia on Fox Life, [75] Portugal on SIC Radical, [76] France on Téva, [77] Ireland on RTÉ One, [78] Belgium on Vitaya, [79] Bulgaria on Fox Life, [75] while in 2013, it screened in Turkey on e2, [80] and in Hungary on Film Café, in 2014. [80] It was broadcast in other countries, including Israel on Hot Family in 2011, [81] South Africa on DStv in 2011, [82] the Philippines on 2nd Avenue in 2014, [83] and the Middle East and North Africa region on MBC 4 in 2016.
Home and Away (H&A) is an Australian television soap opera. It was created by Alan Bateman and commenced broadcast on the Seven Network on 17 January 1988. Bateman came up with the concept of the show during a trip to Kangaroo Point, New South Wales, where he noticed locals were complaining about the construction of a foster home and against the idea of foster children from the city living in the area. The soap opera was initially going to be called Refuge, but the name was changed to the "friendlier" title of Home and Away once production began.
The Secret Life of Us is an Australian television drama series set in the beachside neighbourhood of St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is primarily a drama with some comedic moments. The series was produced by Southern Star Group and screened in Australia from 2001 to 2005 on Network Ten and on Channel 4 in the UK. Initially co-funded by the two networks, Channel 4 pulled out after the third series and the fourth series was not aired in the UK. The series won three silver Logie Awards.
Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series that was produced by Southern Star Group and ran for twelve years on the Seven Network, from 1994 to 2006. Although based around the policing of the town, the series generally depicted the everyday lives and relationships of the residents of Mount Thomas, a fictional small town in Victoria.
The X Factor is an Australian television reality music competition, based on the original UK series, to find new singing talent. The first season of the show premiered on Network Ten on 6 February 2005. Ten dropped The X Factor after the first season due to its poor ratings. In 2010, the Seven Network won the rights to the show, and a second season went into production. The X Factor was renewed after the highly successful Australian Idol was no longer broadcast on Network Ten. The X Factor was produced by FremantleMedia Australia, and was broadcast on the Seven Network in Australia and on TV3 in New Zealand. The program was cancelled after its eighth season in 2016.
Shane Jerome Bourne is an Australian stand-up comedian, actor, musician, and television host.
Love My Way is an Australian television drama series created by John Edwards and Claudia Karvan, which premiered on Fox8 on 22 November 2004, before moving to W. for its second season, and Showtime for its third and final season, concluding on 19 March 2007. The series stars Claudia Karvan, Asher Keddie, Brendan Cowell, Daniel Wyllie, Lynette Curran, Alex Cook, Max Cullen and Gillian Jones. It was produced by Southern Star Group for Foxtel, with Kim Vecera and Mike Sneesby serving as executive producers for the series.
Australia's Got Talent is an Australian reality television talent show. The show is based on the Got Talent series format that originated in the United Kingdom with Simon Cowell.
Virginia Gay is an Australian actress, writer, and director, mostly known for her work on the Australian TV dramas Winners & Losers and All Saints.
East West 101 is an Australian drama series airing on the SBS network. The series was produced and created by Steven Knapman and Kris Wyld, the team behind other drama series such as Wildside and White Collar Blue. It ran from 2007–2011, having three series.
Pete McTighe is a British screenwriter and executive producer. He is originating writer of Wentworth, a female ensemble prison drama series that won Most Outstanding and Most Popular Drama at the Logie Awards. He is the creator and writer of the BBC1 mystery thriller series The Pact and has written various television productions in the UK and internationally including Doctor Who, The Rising, Glitch, Nowhere Boys and A Discovery of Witches. McTighe has received five Australian Writers Guild Award and one Welsh BAFTA nomination for his work.
MasterChef Australia is an Australian competitive cooking reality show based on the original British MasterChef. It is produced by Endemol Shine Australia and screens on Network 10. Restaurateur and chef Gary Mehigan, chef George Calombaris and food critic Matt Preston served as the show's main judges until 2019, when they were replaced by Series 4 winner and chef Andy Allen, food critic Melissa Leong, and restaurateur and chef Jock Zonfrillo.
The first season of the drama television series Winners & Losers originally aired between 22 March and 23 August 2011 on the Seven Network in Australia. The season consisted of 22 episodes and aired on Tuesdays at 8:30 pm, replacing Packed to the Rafters.
The Doctor Blake Mysteries is an Australian television series that premiered on ABC TV on 1 February 2013 at 8:30 pm. The series stars Craig McLachlan in the lead role of Dr. Lucien Blake, who returns home to Ballarat, northwest of Melbourne, in the late 1950s to take over his late father's general medical practice and role as police surgeon after an absence of 30 years. Five series aired as of 2017, with a telemovie to close the program at the completion of the fifth season.
Wentworth is an Australian television drama series. It was first broadcast on SoHo on 1 May 2013, and it concluded on Fox Showcase with its 100th episode on 26 October 2021. The series serves as a contemporary reimagining of Prisoner, which ran on Network Ten from 1979 to 1986. Lara Radulovich and David Hannam developed Wentworth from Reg Watson's original concept. The series is set in the modern day and initially focuses on Bea Smith's early days in prison and her subsequent rise to the top of the prison's hierarchy. From the fifth season onward, the series shifted to emphasize more of an ensemble format.
House Husbands is an Australian television comedy drama. The show debuted on the Nine Network on 2 September 2012. Set in Melbourne, House Husbands stars Firass Dirani, Gyton Grantley, Rhys Muldoon and Gary Sweet as four fathers who stay at home to raise their children. The program also focuses on their interconnected families and friends. In 2013, House Husbands won Most Popular Drama Series at the 2013 Logie Awards. In February 2018, Nine confirmed the series would not be returning for a sixth season and was officially cancelled.
The second season of the television drama series Winners & Losers aired from 26 June to 27 November 2012 on the Seven Network in Australia. It replaced Packed to the Rafters while the series was on hiatus. Season two follows the lives of Jenny, Bec, Sophie and Frances three months on from the events of the first season. Filming for the season began in August 2011 and creator of the show, Bevan Lee stated that viewers would see big changes for the girls. The main cast members all returned, while Anne Phelan joined them as Gross family matriarch Nanna Dot.
Frances James is a fictional character in the Australian Channel Seven drama series Winners & Losers, played by Virginia Gay. Frances made her debut screen appearance in the pilot episode "Covert Aggression in Netball", which was broadcast on 22 March 2011. She is one of the show's four female protagonists alongside Sophie Wong, Jenny Gross and Bec Gilbert. The series follows their lives after they win eight million dollars on the Oz Lotto. Frances is portrayed as a smart and savvy businesswoman, yet a "complete social loser" disengaged with emotional relationships. Frances' persona is said to have been modeled on the behaviour of her father following the absence of female influence in her upbringing.
The third season of the television drama series Winners & Losers was aired in three parts on the Seven Network in Australia. Season 3A – comprising 13 episodes – aired from 9 July to 25 September 2013 while Season 3B – comprising 13 episodes – aired from 28 January to 24 June 2014, before the immediate start of season 4. It replaced Packed to the Rafters due to the series ending. Season three follows the lives of Jenny, Bec, Sophie and Frances four months on from the death of Bec's husband Matt. Filming for the season began in September 2012 and wrapped in July 2013.
Doug Graham is a fictional character in the Australian Channel Seven drama series Winners & Losers, played by Tom Wren. Doug made his debut screen appearance in the pilot episode "Covert Aggression in Netball", which was broadcast on 22 March 2011. Doug is one of the show's regular male characters. Wren was cast in the show after only working as a guest artist on other shows. Actor Stephen Phillips also auditioned for the role but he was cast as Doug's friend Zach Armstrong. Doug works a registrar at a local hospital. He is characterised as a caring and patient individual with a high sense of morality. He shares a close on-screen friendship with Sophie Wong. But Doug is also in love with her. Their "will they, won't they?" story arc has spanned throughout the character's tenure. Though Doug also has relationships with Bec Gilbert and Carla Hughes.