The Doctor Blake Mysteries (TV Series) (2013)

The Doctor Blake Mysteries is an original 10-part murder mystery series starring one of Australia’s favourite and most versatile actors, Craig McLachlan, as the maverick country town doctor Lucien Blake. A risk-taker, he’s impulsive and not afraid to upset the status quo. It’s 1959. Dr Blake has returned to a place he once called home, to take over his deceased father’s medical practice. Everything seems peaceful on the surface, but seething underneath are the age-old passions of a regional town clashing head-on with the tensions and fears of the decade to come. Haunted by the horrors of war, his own personal loss and changed by his experiences as a POW, the wry, dry, yet very human Dr Blake undertakes his other role as police surgeon with precision and gusto - yet many find his unpredictable and unconventional manner unnerving. Ahead of his time, Blake looks to the science of forensics and his own understanding of the human heart to help solve the mysteries that inevitably come his way. Beside Blake, helping and at times hindering, are his housekeeper Jean (Nadine Garner), her nephew Danny (Rick Donald), a young constable, District Nurse Mattie O’Brien (Cate Wolfe) and Chief Superintendent Matthew Lawson (Joel Tobeck). Change is seeping through the cracks of post-World War II values, and endless fears abound – fear of communism, nuclear testing, rock ‘n’ roll music, immigration and social breakdown. Dr Blake’s community turns to him for guidance in medical matters and so much more. They tell him everything. Everyone trusts the doctor and he has a damn good nose for things left unsaid.