4. Sons And Daughters
January 1982 August 1987On air: 5 years 7 monthsEpisodes: 972 It started as a controversial love story: twins, separated at birth, who unwittingly fall in love with each other. That unlikely plot was just a sign of things to come. After the twin-love storyline was resolved, focus remained on the ongoing feud between the rich family of the daughter based in Sydney and the working class family of her twin brother based in Melbourne. By then the show was rating its socks off. Sons and Daughters was a master of season finales at a time when they weren't especially common. Each year's final episode left viewers on tenterhooks over summer until the cliffhanger was resolved in February. End of year cliffhangers included the revelation that the twins' father actually wasn't their father - but who was?; a single gunshot with at least four possible victims; a character about to go under the knife of a dodgy surgeon; a plane crash with at least two potential victims; and a snake bite, a yacht accident and a hungry shark with numerous potential victims. By its third season the show had become brash, garish and a bit over-the-top, but its last few years featured increasingly ludicrous storylines, absurdly over-the-top characters and plots that lovingly embraced the 'greed is good' 80s. The proportion of the show's budget allocated to vast quantities of make-up, giant shoulder pads and sequined dresses defies calculation. Plots continued to thicken exponentially. In its final months, it descended into melodrama and farce. Characters faked their own deaths left, right and centre and made just as many returns from the hereafter. There were weddings, car crashes, more deaths, set-ups, druggings, extortion attempts, sabotage, fraud and attempted explosions, which all culminated in the successful execution of Wayne Hamilton's vendetta against Alison Carr, finally sending her to the wall in the final episode. The last episode also revisited the original twin storyline, when Aunt Fiona - resident stalwart, everyone's favourite faux-Aunt and former bordello madam - helped a heavily pregnant woman who went into labour at her boarding house. When she came back to ask the startled young father if he wanted a girl or a boy, she was delighted when he said he didn't mind either way. "Good, you've got one of each... twins". It was so bad that it was awesome.