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. In October 2017, the Seven Network announced they acquired production rights for 2018. Producers later announced production would be suspended pending outcome of the police investigation of the sexual assault allegations directed at Craig McLachlan. The charges are being heard in Melbourne, in a hearing that began in November 2019. In April 2018, Seven Network announced a series of sequel telemovies including much of the Blake series cast except Craig McLachlan. The sequel series was still to be called The Blake Mysteries despite the absence of the title character, who in the series chronology was said to be missing and presumed dead. After a single telemovie, titled The Blake Mysteries: A New Beginning and aired on 30 November 2018, producers ruled out making any further telemovies in 2019.
Original broadcasts
The series is produced by Tony Wright and George Adams. A fifth series was commissioned as the final season of the programme, followed by a telemovie to end the series in 2017. It was anticipated that the fifth series would air from April 2017, but instead commenced in September, so that the movie-length finale could be shown at the close of the series with no gap.
Synopsis
Dr. Lucien Blake left Australia in his 20s to study medicine in Scotland. Following a posting at a London hospital, he joined the British Army as a medical officer. During World War II, Blake's service included the Far East, where he fell in love with and married a Chinese woman, with whom he had a child. However, at the fall of Singapore, he lost sight of both of them. He searched for them all the time he was away, and continues the search after he arrives in Ballarat. Dr Blake also spent time in Thailand's Ban PongPOW camp. After a 33-year absence, Blake returned home in 1959 to take over his late father's practice as a medical general practitioner and also becomes the Ballarat area police surgeon. Jean Beazley is Blake's receptionist and housekeeper. Having previously served in the same capacity for his father, Jean has difficulty adjusting to Lucien's eccentric and sometimes oblivious behaviour; although considered old-fashioned in her ideas about womanhood, she occasionally challenges Blake's expectation that she wait on him hand and foot. Her husband died in the war and she is aware that her living with the unattached Blake is a source of gossip. Shrewd and observant, she guards her territory zealously, missing nothing and expertly sifting gossip for kernels of fact, which she dispenses when necessary. Her maternal tendencies are often a source of annoyance to her nephew Danny Parks, whom she treats like a son, and lodger Mattie O'Brien, whose outgoing attitude she does not understand at all. When Danny Parks moves out, police sergeant Charlie Davis becomes a lodger in the house.
The series is set and mostly filmed in the gold rushcity of Ballarat, in Victoria. It features Lydiard Street and many of the heritage buildings, including the Colonists Club, of which Lucien Blake is a member. External shots of the house and studio formerly owned by the muralist Napier Waller, in Melbourne, are used as a backdrop to represent Dr Blake's house. The Doctor Blake Mysteries is produced by Melbourne-based December Media in association with Film Victoria and ABC Television, which also broadcasts it in Australia on ABC. The international sales are handled by British ITV Studios Global Entertainment. The fourth series began airing on 5 February 2016. In March 2017, it was announced that the programme would be ending, with a television-movie airing after season five. Filming of the fifth season began in August 2016, then recommenced in August 2017 for filming of the movie-length finale. The fifth series began airing on 17 September 2017.
In October 2017, the Seven Network announced that they had acquired production rights for 2018. However, after the allegations against McLachlan, a sequel series, later titled The Blake Mysteries, was proposed by the Seven Network and supported by Screen Australia. The series would open with a telemovie, similar in length to the finale that closed the five seasons of The Doctor Blake Mysteries. With lead actor Craig McLachlan defending sexual harassment charges during 2019, he and his character would be written out of the sequel, which would begin three years after the end of the previous series finale. Most of the rest of the cast would return for the new series, with Doctor Lucien Blake disappearing in mysterious circumstances, and his new bride Jean Beazley to take on a more central role. The series of four telemovies was subsequently reduced to a single telemovie, titled The Blake Mysteries: A New Beginning, which aired on 30 November 2018. It featured Garner, Tobeck, McClory, Whiteley and Rooney returning to their roles alongside new cast Tom Wren as Martin Carver, Emma Annand as Amy Parks and Joshua Orpin as Constable Peter Crowe. Seven ruled out further telemovies in 2019.
