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Sons and Daughters

AFTERNOON STRIPPED Aussie cut-price DYNASTY tomfoolery from the melodrama meister Reg Grundy. SONS AND DAUGHTERS, or SODS, followed the trials and tribulations of two disparate families: the affluent, posho Hamiltons and the ocker “she’ll be right, mate” blue collar Palmers – linked by a pair of twins born out of wedlock and adopted by both families. The sole valid reason for watching was to spot the various waifs and strays from THE SULLIVANS, THE YOUNG DOCTORS, PRISONER: CELL BLOCK H etc., all of whom who later hit the big time settling down in Erinsborough or Summer Bay. Yet SODS ushered in a few innovations in Aussie soaps in a well-intentioned effort to bridge the long-standing rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne by locating its characters and actually producing episodes in both cities. Revived at the turn of the millennium by Channel 5 to fill the crud vacuum left by the departure of PRISONER’s menopausal miscreants from the late-night schedules. Which says it all really.

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. gman

    May 12, 2010 at 10:55 pm

    Sons and Daughters will live long in the memory for me, as it’s the only soap I’ve ever seen to end an episode with the cliffhanger of a grown man being stuck up a tree. Fantastic

  2. david

    May 13, 2012 at 3:42 pm

    And half the cast of early neighbours were in it

  3. Scott McPhee

    June 18, 2016 at 3:54 am

    Ally Fowler, who starred in Sons and Daughters, is still acting and performing.

    She sings in a pop group called The Chantoozies.

    • Joanne Gray

      February 24, 2017 at 4:35 pm

      She was also in the revival of Prisoner Cell Block H (Wentworth) as shown on Channel 5.

  4. Glenn A

    May 1, 2017 at 10:23 pm

    I was stuck at my paternal grandparents one afternoon, who only ever watched ITV as the BBC was too posh for them and Channel 4 was too weird, and had the joys of Sons And Daughters and A Country Practice to endure. Suffice to say I was bored out of my mind and made the not very tactful comment about Sons And Daughters being nominated for several BAFTAs. Luckily they didn’t get the joke.

  5. Richard16378

    May 4, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    I remember on a programme (might have been Noel’s House Party) one of the guests was a fan of this, & once when they needed to record an episode & accidentally used the tape with their wedding video.

    When Granada was showing this I normally didn’t even bother with the opening titles like the other Daytime soaps, as it seemed very syruppy for a pre-teen me. The repeats on Channel 5 had one of the producers (Reg Watson?) chip in some anecdotes over the end titles.

  6. Andrew Barton

    October 11, 2021 at 10:14 pm

    Cornelia Frances was in this.

    She was in most soaps. Except for Chances.

  7. Richardpd

    October 30, 2022 at 3:39 pm

    Due to Australia having a small pool of actors it was common to see the same people appear in a lot of different things over the years.

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