Pacific Drive is an Australian television soap opera, which debuted on 29 January 1996 on the Nine Network. It was a co-production between Nine, Village Roadshow Pictures Television and American distributor New World International. Set in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Pacific Drive focuses on the lives and ambitions of a group of young people, most of whom live in the same apartment building. It was filmed at the Movie World Studios. 130 one hour episodes were initially commissioned and it aired twice a week in a 11pm time slot.
Despite getting 1.7 million viewers for its first episode at 9.30pm, within a few weeks the show was getting just 135,000 viewers in its regular 11pm timeslot. Most critics described it as rubbish but some changed their minds during the show's second season. The Sydney Morning Herald said it was "immeasurably improved in looks, acting and writing" while The Sunday Telegraph named it one of the 10 Best Shows on TV for 1997. Pacific Drive ended in December 1997. When it concluded, it was shown in reruns being in a late night timeslot for years. It was also repeated and edited to tone down its racier overtones for a daytime slot on Nine while they unsuccessfully lobbied to the Australian Broadcasting Authority for a daytime drama to count towards their local drama quota points.
The "final" episode was screened on 6 April 2000 before Nine realised a mistake had been made (when the first three episodes had been edited down into a punchier one hour premiere), so they eventually screened the last episode a year later as a one-off send-off. Had it aired without interruption, it would have taken just 18 months to complete its run instead of five years.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
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