I'm near the end of Season 4 as I write this. My thought is that these folks cannot possibly represent Australia's Navy. More like McHale's Navy. The show started out well in Seasons 1 and 2 and it remains entertaining, but this crew cannot learn from experiences. How many times will you leave a skeleton crew on a suspect vessel only to have them taken prisoner/hostage? How many times will you allow someone to take over your ship? Then there is the over-the-horizon super camera. When someone is SHOOTING at you, don't tell them to drop their gun- shoot back! Then there was the slasher movie episode (S3E8). The review here on it was spot-on. This series has a Lifetime movie-esque quality to it in that someone is always in jeopardy, often a female. I hope Season 5 improves, but I am not holding my breath.

I just returned from an overnight trip to Toronto and while there happened to see an episode of Sea Patrol. It was an interesting series and of course populated by a bunch of Australian players none of whom I would know. The show is about a bunch of men and women who serve on a patrol boat in the Australian Navy. Might be nice if some American network started running these episodes.Of course this is peacetime and the mission seems to be more one that our Coast Guard would be doing. Air sea rescue, running down smugglers, stuff like that. The craft these folks serve on is somewhere between the size of a destroyer and a Canadian Corvette.The episode I saw involved the rescue of some kids whose fishing dinghy capsized off a coastal island. The crew also has to detonate an old mine, one of Mr. Tojo's calling cards from World War II.It seemed like a competent well made series. When next in Canada, maybe I'll see another episode I hope.

A large amount of the funding for Sea Patrol comes from the RAN, who in turn took their cut from many tens of millions given to the ADF under the Howard Government to "promote" the armed forces. In return for putting up the money, RAN reportedly have a fair amount of say in the scripts.Nine made Blue Heelers the same way (with the NSW Police Media Liaison Unit having final veto over the scripts). It means they aren't paying all the bills, but it also means the primary purpose of the show is not to provide quality entertainment. The result is a show with poor quality stories and acting. Visually it is very good, but it has no substance. It features a cast of well known faces playing the same kinds of roles they've been playing for years. They have no real emotional investment in their characters and it shows.The execs involved are happy to let all this slide because none of it matters. There is one purpose only to Sea Patrol, and that is to make life in the Navy look exciting and attractive to impressionable youngsters so they are more likely to join up when they're old enough.There's enough rubbish on TV. It saddens me that creative options are foregone in favour of what amounts merely to government advertising.

If they'd worried less about trying to cram a couple of hours' worth of storyline into 43 minutes, but without the necessary money or talent in the effects department, it would have been vastly improved.In the same vein as ER, in that it concentrates on a small group of people working together in a fairly confined space, unfortunately it reaches neither the excitement nor personal interest levels achieved at County General.There were a few redeeming moments (at least in Seasons 1 and 2 - I have yet to see Season 3).You can at least believe that some of the cast could actually handle life on an Australian warship - notably David Lyons (ET), Jeremy Lindsey Taylor (Buffer) and Matthew Holmes (Swain), but I'm afraid the rest of them may have looked more at home in an office, or on the sales floor at a department store.From a very shallow point of view, at least David Lyons provided some much needed eye candy, plus a clear indication of the fine actor he was in fact becoming.On the whole, though, this series really isn't worth investing much time in.