I used to like the old Country Practice on Channel 7, even recently they showed old repeats during the mornings.
When 7 decided to dump the show, channel 10 took it up and moved location from NSW to Victoria. Of course this resulted in many actors from the 7 production not returning for the 10 version and much of what made the original great was missing too. They must have thought that it worked when they bought Neighbors, why not this? They were also struggling with finding another hit soapie at the time.
I can barely remember any of the story lines, hell, I only watched a couple of episodes, but it was clear this was not going to last. The old favorites like Esme Watson, Dr. Harry Morrison and Matron Sloan returned while new unmemorable characters filled the void. Dr. Elliott and Sergeant Gilroy were missing though and that would have been fatal for this show's success even before it began. Whatever lenses they used with the cameras just made it worse. The whole show seemed so grainy compared to the original.
They even tried to sex it up a bit, if I remember correctly, with Claudia Black's character and the new cop, which is just hilarious. Putting sex in A Country Practice is like putting sex in Star Wars or Play School, and you could imagine the uproar if that happened!
If you ever chance finding a copy of 10's version, I suggest you do humanity a favour by burning it. Stick to the original and pretend the continuation never happened.
