Water Rats (TV series)


Water Rats is an Australian TV police procedural broadcast on the Nine Network from 1996 to 2001. The series was based on work of the men and women of the Sydney Water Police who fight crime around Sydney Harbour and surrounding locales. The show was set on and around Goat Island in Sydney Harbour.
Water Rats premiered on 12 February 1996, and ran for six seasons and 177 episodes. Colin Friels and Catherine McClements were the original stars of the series and were instrumental in the show's early success. They both departed the show in 1999. In later seasons, Steve Bisley, Aaron Pedersen and Dee Smart became the show's main stars.
For the sixth and final season in 2001, the show concentrated more on the cops' personal lives rather than just focusing on the crimes committed. The Nine Network cancelled the show after six seasons. Executive Producer Kris Noble blamed escalating costs for the cancellation. However, Bisley and Smart had also just quit the show, and the series had already been suffering a ratings battle following the departure of Friels and McClements in 1999.
The final episode was broadcast in Australia on 7 August 2001.

Cast

Pilot

The first episode of Water Rats screened in Australia at 8.30 pm on Monday, 12 February 1996. It was entitled Dead in the Water and was a two-part episode. Dead in the Water introduced viewers to Detective Senior Constables Frank Holloway and Rachel Goldstein.
Along with:
and
The pilot plot concerned a divorced man, deranged over the death of his daughter, who captures a Sydney harbour ferry and holds the city to ransom.

Season one

Season one ran for 26 episodes and major storylines included:
The second season of Water Rats ran, again, for 26 episodes and began airing on Monday, 10 February 1997. Season two also took the detectives to Melbourne, a change from Sydney harbour. It also introduced a new character, Constable Tayler Johnson, as well as a few minor ones, including:
Major storylines included:
Season three ran for 31 episodes and premiered on Monday, 9 February 1998. A couple of episodes into the season, it was moved to Tuesday nights. Steve Bisley is also added to the opening credits for a number of episodes near the end of the season. New characters included:
Major storylines included:
The fourth series began on Tuesday, 16 February 1999 and ran for 32 episodes. It was a series of change for Water Rats, which included both Colin Friels' and Catherine McClements' departures within 18 episodes of each other. It introduced some new and old characters such as:
Major storylines included:
The fifth season began airing on Tuesday, 22 February 2000, and ran for 36 episodes, the longest out of the six seasons of the show. Ratings began to fall slightly, as a result of McClements' departure the previous year. A number of regular characters also left, including Jay Laga'aia and Scott Burgess, whose character was not seen at all in series five, and his whereabouts was finally mentioned in series six. New characters included:
Major storylines included:
The sixth and final season of Water Rats began airing on Tuesday, 6 February 2001 and ran for 26 episodes. Sometime early in the season, the timeslot was changed from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm. The Nine Network decided to cancel the show, due to escalating costs and declining ratings, and two main stars, Bisley and Smart had decided to leave the show. Notable new characters in the final season included:
Major storylines included:

Awards and nominations

Filming locations

Water Rats was filmed on and around Goat Island in Sydney Harbour. Other locations used throughout the series were:
The real Sydney Water Police headquarters was located at Pyrmont. The TV version of the Sydney Water Police headquarters was located on Goat Island, though the fictional address was 48/50 Harbour Drive, Sydney 2000. Other fictional locations throughout the series included:
Water Rats was first released on DVD in 2004 through Shock Entertainment. It was released as two parts called Series 1 and Series 2, though it was actually only season 1 in two parts. Warner Vision Australia then released the rest of the show, where DVDs labelled series 3 were actually season 2 and so on. It was announced on 7 August 2017 that Via Vision Entertainment would re-release all six seasons on DVD on 22 November 2017. Several episodes are out of broadcast order in the Via Vision collection and on Amazon Prime.

DVDs

Online streaming availability

All episodes are available on Amazon Prime in Australia.

Soundtrack

A Water Rats soundtrack was produced by Les Gock in 1999. It contained songs featured on the series, such as "Goldie's Theme" by Cathi Ogden and "I'll Dream of You" by Hugh Wilson. It also features a couple of songs sung by cast members: "Breathe" with Raelee Hill and "Let's Party" with Jay Laga'aia. The song "Breathe", was written by James Freud who also sung in the chorus.

International broadcasting

The series is currently being re-run in: