Blue Heelers
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"We might not have an accurate description down to the strawberry colored birthmark on your slimy diarrhea, but we can get a warrant to search your house."
—PJ Hasham, getting graphic when Perp Sweating a pedophile.
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They’re country cops, fighting country crime. —Shaun Micallef, Unpublished lyrics to the Blue Heelers theme
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You might think that the most dangerous place in Victoria, Australia between 1994 and 2006 is Melbourne.'[1] Right?
Try about 300km Northwest, in Mt Thomas.
A long-running and much beloved Australian drama, Blue Heelers centers on the police and residents of a small country town. Set in the fictional Victorian town of Mount Thomas, located near Swan Hill and Benalla, it portrays the jobs and lives of the officers stationed there as they come to terms with everything from murders and drug runners to community events to how their careers affects their lives. Much like Heartbeat, stories would center around the mundane, such as a vandal who turns out to be a chook (though this would end in the show's final seasons) and were willing to ignore the premise of the show, crime, in favor of Character Development.
Tropes used in Blue Heelers include:
- Action Girl: A given since they are police, they each get a chance to play this.
- Actor Allusion: Quite a few of the regular and recurring cast got their start as a one off character. Marcus Eyre, who was Luke Darcy's father, would come back as homicide detective Paul Donald. Jane Alsop, known for her portrayal as Jo Parish, first started as a woman who was used in a dating agency scam. Samantha Toji was a guest star at least twice before securing the role of Kelly O'Rourke.
- Attempted Rape: Par for the course in a police drama, with most of the female officers falling victim to this.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: If your name happens to be Superintendant Adamson, as a dangerous gunman found out.
- Backstory: Wayne and Maggie were lovers, Nick works in traffic because he lost his wife and daughter in a car crash, Dash was nearly raped in school and decided to join the police force...there's a lot of it.
- Berserk Button: A mild one for Tom when someone speaks ill of the mentally handicapped Clancy Freeman. A much stronger, Truth in Television one for everyone...pedophiles. Nick gets one with references to being a Nazi, being German and his father being one (the fact that his surname is Schultz and that he gets promoted to Sergeant in the third season doesn't help, and drivers who have or could cause a crash, seeing as he lost his wife and daughter that way.
- Biblical Bad Guy: One episode has a Baptist minister who goes off the deep end.
- Big Bad: Inspector Russell Falcon-Price would fulfill this role, to the point where he closes the station.
- Big Damn Heroes: Several instances come to mind, but worthy of mention is in the episode when Joss is about to be executed. When Kelly aims her service revolver at the gunman's head the scene shifts back to show every Blue Heeler there backing her up.
- Big Eater: William McInnes is often found eating in the scenes where he plays Nick. This and his weight is very much a Running Gag for Tom.
- Boot Camp Episode: Three members of the Mount Thomas and St. Davids police take part in a team building adventure course, where the constables and Inspector are equal, much to Falcon-Price's dismay.
- Butt Monkey: Joss Peroni would fulfill this role.
- Casanova: PJ has this reputation..
- Catch Phrase: Ton had one on country policing. 'Country policing is all about the people.'
- Character Development: A rather large premise of the series, from city cops learning the country way to how the station bombing affects the town.
- Chekhov's Gun: A lot, from a machete being sharpened that will later be used to try and kill PJ to firearms training being shown in two later scenes and become the crux of PJ's inquest into the shooting of Raylene Darcy.
- Cop Boyfriend: And cop girlfriend as well, with the officers usually getting with one of their colleagues, something that is commonly made an issue (Maggie and PJ try to hide their relationship, Tess doesn't think it's appropriate to fraternize with Jack or Evan).
- Costumer: The end credits to one episode revolving around old films had the actors dress as 1930s style cops and robbers.
- Cowboy Cop: Joss in shown in his first episode being caught out fantasising he's Dirty Harry.
- Darker and Edgier: The direction the show went in the eleventh season, with a number of shake ups to shock audiances into watching.
- For those wondering, the gambit (which was, unsurprisingly, a reaction to declining ratings) briefly payed off, giving the series enough of a boost to keep it going for a twelfth and a thirteenth season (though the thirteenth season was only 11 episodes long, whereas the first twelve seasons were all 40 or so episodes long) before it was finally cancaled.
- Deadpan Snarker: Senior Sergeant Nick Schultz fulfilled this role during his time in Mount Thomas, challenged by Dash McKinnily, and later her replacement Jo Parish would take over. PJ Hasham and others would have their moments.
- Did Not Do the Research: Strongly averted, the research and detail in the show was incredible.
- Did Not Get the Girl: PJ, Adam, Jack and Jonesey all had failed love lives.
- Disability Superpower: Clancy was instrumental to solving several cases despite his handicaps, as well as quite likely saving Tom's grandson from brain damage.
- Downer Ending: Pigs Will Fly. A suspect in the station bombing commits suicide with his daughter after losing everything, PJ and Nick are called out on hounding him into his grave, Susie tries to comfort Ben but they fall for each other, despite her being with Evan, and the police are no closer to the bombers.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Neither a drill sergeant nor that nasty, but Tess was initially rather officious and very much rubbed people the wrong way. When Nick tried out as sergeant and running the station he was considerably worse than his normal prickly behaviour.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Ben went on a number of benders, and Jonesey risked doing the same thing.
- Enforced Method Acting: All the actors playing police had to undergo academy training.
- Eyepatch of Power: And a medical one at that, when Tom becomes a Inspector Javert type and aggressively pursues his wife's murderers.
- Fair Cop: Half the cast might qualify, though this was hardly played up.
- Fake Defector: Maggie and Tess pretend to be corrupt, the former doing so as a extended story arc.
- Femme Fatale: Susie goes from Evan to Ben; who had shot her husband, to Evan again to Alex to a victim of a stolen car, in less than a year.
- Internal Affairs: And boy, are the toecutters loathed. Mick Doyle even threw out his son when he joined the Ethical Standards Department.
- Glory Hound: Inspector Falcon-Price pulls this, and the high brass do get concerned about the police image.
- Good Is Not Nice: Nick in spades. In order to help Dash get over her fear of driving he makes her relive the car crash she was in. To help Tom's daughter in the sway of a cult he roars, yells and screams at her about how his wife was brainwashed into turning on her family.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: In End of Innocence, Tom is threatened by an explosives expert from Vietnam. When Clancy brings a bag in he offhandedly tells him to give it to Jo, realizing too late that it was a bomb.
- Inspector Javert: Falcon-Price was hell-bent with ending the careers of Ben, Tom, anyone who did not fit his mold and closing the station, to the point where he puts Tom up to active duty, knowing he just had cancer surgery and was not up to it. Monica Draper initially came across this way with PJ.
- Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja: Yes, believe it or not one case had the Mount Thomas police wonder if a suspect might have been a ninja, given the Japanese links and eyewitness reports.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Nick tries this on a pedophile bragging about how evil he is, and again when he roars at a station bombing suspect.
- Lampshade Hanging: Tom wanted a review team to think Mount Thomas was the crime capital of Australia. Which it pretty much is.
- Later he would tell a French film maker that a missing police member is not a subject for television. This was about the fourth time this plot was used that year.
- Leeroy Jenkins: A common treatment of new, young officers.
- My God, What Have I Done?: PJ goes through a period of self doubt after shooting Raylene Darcy.
- Nakama: Played straight most of the time, unless some element threatens to split the team apart.
- New Era Speech: "Welcome to the rest of your lives under my command."
- Professional Wrestling: Several of the Heelers are into this, with Jonesey even taking part in an event.
- Psycho Lesbian: A series of episodes in 2005 had them, with special mention going to Child's Play where two teen girls get off on raping and butchering the girl one of their boyfriends was with.
- Pun-Based Title: A Blue Heeler is a breed of dog, typically used for rounding up livestock, with distinctive blue-grey fur.
- Lampshaded by actor Ditch Davey, while hosting a real life police show he described the police chasing a suspect as 'nipping at his heels, like a couple of blue heelers.'
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Evan pulls this at times.
- --> "You shot your own daughter!!!"
- --> "What have you done? What have you done?"
- Reality Ensues: On the occasion there is a break from police procedure.
- Screwed by the Network: Because it was no longer the highest rating show in Australia the show was axed to afford Olympic and football coverage.
- Sergeant Rock: Tom and Mark Jacobs during his run. Tess Gallagher wanted to be this. When he is not running the station Nick loses much of his nastiness and becomes this.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: There Last Night had a Vietnam vet who was there last night, he kept reliving his tour of duty. Other episodes would touch on Vietnam.
- Slap Slap Kiss: Nick and Dr Zoe Hamilton, eventually leading to their marriage and moving to Richmond. Tess and Jonesey do this a bit as well.
- Shoot the Dog: One sergeant is basically crucified by Tom to show that he is no longer a good guy.
- The Stoic: Matthew Graham, having joined the police force after the tragedies he witnessed as a soldier in East Timor.
- The Voice: One of the writers is the Victorian police radio operator.
- Title Drop: Blue Heelers in early episodes, as well as episode titles throughout the series.
- War On Terror: Several episodes after 9/11 centered on Muslims and Middle Eastern terrorism.
- Wham! Episode: Especially in the last three seasons as part of the Darker and Edgier direction of the show, the biggest wham being the graphic, sadistic Child's Play.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Tom's a big culprit of this where he makes some of the criminals look in the 11th\12th season, and in one episode revolving around the rape and butchering of a young girl his officers risk joining him.
- What Could Have Been: The original premise of the series called for it to be set in a police station in suburban Melbourne, with a style more or less identical to that of British show The Bill. The genius moment came when one of the producers suggested turning this premise on its head: instead of being set in the city, why not have a city cop move to a country town, and finding that things are done differently than they are "in the big smoke"? This decision to set the series in a country town is arguably what made it stand out.
- But... but Melbourne is a country town! *snicker*
- Mount Thomas made Melbourne look bigger than Tokyo, Paris and New York, and had more crime than all three cities put together.
- But... but Melbourne is a country town! *snicker*