Cover your eyes! Number 96 is coming to streaming!

Incredible news by way of Australian streamer Brollie. All of the available episodes of iconic Australian soap Number 96 are coming soon.

If you don’t know Number 96, the debut episode of the show in 1972 is termed by Australian press as the “night Australia lost its virginity.” It was a sex and nudity-fuelled soap stripped (pun intended) five nights a week.

This show was PROGRESSIVE. Set in an inner-city Sydney apartment block, Number 96 was reflective of a more modern era than one had really seen on TV before then. Or, well, even decades after it. This is a show that gave audiences an eyeful, but also tackled topics like rape, drug use, interracial romances, abortion, and… steady yourselves… gay relationships.

You’d never see anything like this on TV outside of Australia… especially not in the 1980 NBC remake of the show in the US…

I like this quote about the show from Aussie soap historian and (importantly) friend of ABW Andrew Mercado:

“There was this whole bunch of really groundbreaking taboos in Number 96 and that prevented it from being sold around the world,” writer and TV commentator Andrew Mercado told news.com.au.

“You could maybe cut the nudity, but you couldn’t cut out the gay characters.”

Speaking of Mercado, here’s a good segment about the show from an appearance he made on daytime talk show Studio 10 back in 2014.

You can find collections of episodes on YouTube, but the full-ish archive is coming to free streamer Brollie.

Brollie will have 18 of the original 584 black and white episodes on the streaming service from May 16 (episodes 1-12, 31-35 and 450). Why so few episodes? That’s all that remain. The rest have been lost to the winds archivists who saw no value in holding onto the many tapes that were sitting around.

All of the colour episodes (starting with episode 585) will then be released on Brollie in batches of 5 every Friday starting May 30. A special bridging episode produced by Mercado will be released along with the B&W episodes.

I wouldn’t imagine that this is a show that will pick up many new fans (it’s certainly well before my time), but for older generations of TV viewers and for those with an interest in cultural history, this is pretty exciting.

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Atomic Batteries to Power! Turbines to Speed!

A replica of the 1966 Batmobile is on display at Gilbert’s Motor Museum in Strathalbyn (South Australia) for six months. I’m left wondering how I can justify a trip to the other side of the country to see this.

The 1966 car is the only live-action Batmobile that I’ve never seen with my own two peepers and the Batmobile I love the most. I got to ride in a 1989 Batmobile replica back when working at SBS, but I also remember fondly seeing the 1989 Batmobile as a child in South Australia after seeing the movie in the cinemas.

Or so goes my memory from me as a 9 year-old. Can anyone else remember the Batmobile being displayed when the 89 film came out?

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News Desk

• CBS has cancelled the not-good sitcom Poppa’s House and the US version of reality adventure competition show The Summit after one season each. Read: Variety

• CBS has given series orders to single-cam comedy DMV (starring Tim Meadows and Australia’s own Harriett Dyer from Colin From Accounts) and drama Einstein (a silly-sounding show starring Matthew Gray Gubler about Albert Einstein’s great-grandson who teams up with local police to solve crimes… yeah…). Read: Variety

• CBS has killed off spin-offs for The Equalizer and The Neighborhood. That leaves Titus Welliver a free agent and I’ll bet he’ll be starring in an NCIS show before you know it. Read: Variety

• CBS is scaling it’s FBI franchise from three shows to just one next season, but will add a spin-off that will also have the FBI brand removed. CIA (still a tentative title) has been greenlit and will star Tom Ellis. A plan to seed the show with a backdoor pilot in an episode of FBI also never happened, so I guess this isn’t really a spin-off? Read: THR

• The producer of CBS’ 60 Minutes, Bill Owen, has announced he is quitting, blaming the network for removing his independence. Read: NYT

• There’s no season 4 of Heartstopper on Netflix, but the show will wrap up with a final two-hour film. Read: Dark Horizons

• Jim Jefferies will host US competition reality show The Snake. He is also the host of the Australian version of game show The 1% Club. Read: Deadline

• Max in the US has announced a $7.99 ‘Extra Member Add-On’ fee to add users outside of your household. Read: TV Line

• For whatever it’s worth, new Star Wars show Andor has the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of any Star Wars show or movie at 98%. The lowest score goes to the truly awful Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker (51%). Read: THR

  

• The BBC‘s workplace culture review will publish on Monday. Read: Deadline

• The pilot for TV series adaptation of Holes (once a book, then a film) will star Greg Kinnear, Aidy Bryant & Shay Rudolph. Read: Deadline

• Will Sharpe and Ayo Edebiri will co-star in new Apple TV+ show Prodigies about former child prodigies. Read: thefutoncritic

• Netflix ANZ director of content Que Minh Luu is exiting her role. I’m certain local industry types have a very strong opinion on this. Read: IF

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Trailer Park

This looks so good. New Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show, Succession) HBO original film Mountainhead debuts May 31. It stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef.

Wealthy friends meet-up amidst an ongoing financial crisis.

The Disney+ exclusive The Simpsons episode Yellow Planet is streaming now.

Alien: Earth debuts mid-year on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally.

Rick & Morty debuts season 8 on Adult Swim May 25.

Documentary Octopus! has Phoebe Waller-Bridge narrating, which proves the naysayers wrong - she actually did work on something at Prime Video. She also has a credit as an EP.

The documentary, narrated by Waller-Bridge, transports viewers into the otherworldly depths of one of the most intelligent and mysterious life forms on Earth as it follows the Giant Pacific Octopus from birth to death. The documentary features an eclectic mix of characters who have their own unique connections to these creatures, from the scientist trying to save them, the explorer trying to understand them, to the Emmy-nominated actor and comedian, Tracy Morgan, who is obsessed with them. Their adventures will make us laugh, cry, and question our own place on this planet along the way.

The Royals debuts on Netflix May 9.

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That’s the newsletter for today.

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