Sea Patrol

Given that you have to cram a lot more story into a TV show than happens in real life, they did an excellent job here. I relived the smell of hot oil in the engine room and salt spray on the bridge wings in a storm. The smell of coffee on the mid-watch, sunrise on the bridge during the morning watch. It brought back a lot of the best memories, especially in the brief glimpses of the frigates such as I served many years aboard, although the Aussies seem to consider FFGs as the LARGE combatants!

Small ships have tight crews, and I saw a very realistic portrayal of life aboard a warship (given plot constraints). Second season was much improved over the first in showing realistic chain of command relationships.

My wife and I both enjoy this series about an Australian patrol boat whose crew are called upon to investigate illegal fishing, Mayday calls from civilian boats and a variety of other tasks. The depiction of the crews' duties seems very realistic, but only a real sailor would know for sure.

The characters are interesting and mostly appealing as individuals. The acting is good although the scripts sometime seem repetitive. My only other quibble is that it gives the impression that the Australian Navy has only one or two ships and no helicopters to assist in critical situations. I hope this is not the case.

Sea Patrol has its faults - from painfully obvious story lines to some dicey acting - but all in all, I enjoy it and never miss an episode. It's far from realistic but that's actually a good thing, because that's what makes this show so entertaining. And all the characters have their own space to develop through both series, despite some cast changes and questionable acting.

The ship itself and the locations are the real stars of Sea Patrol, and it's nice to see an Australian show with a half decent budget for once. Nothing beats some local scenery and themes, considering how many overseas shows flood the television market here.

I love Sea Patrol and I'm certainly going to keep watching.

Most of the drama is based on clownish security practices. I'm sure the Australian Navy is far more professional than depictions in this dramedy. Great scenery though.

Nothing but great things to say about this show. After a bit of a slow start in Series One, Series Two is off to a cracking start - improved pace, improved writing and the actors have clearly settled into their roles.

In particular, I'd single out Jeremy Lindsay-Taylor (Buffer) and Sacha Burmiester (Nav) for great performance characterisation. The romantic tension between Flynn (Ian Stenlake) and Kate (Lisa McCune) is much more believable this time around.

There's obviously some suspension of belief required: in the second series at least one crew member gets into an extreme life-threatening situation each episode, and almost everyone on the crew is a heck of a lot prettier than any soldier I've come across, but you take these caveats at the outset and sit down to enjoy the drama.

One thing that the show could work on is a better calibre of guest actors - while there have been some standouts (well-known actors like Ditch Davey and Alan Dale) there have been a few guests this series that have really let the writing and the regular actors down.

If you haven't checked out series 2 of Sea Patrol I would highly recommend it.