Director Michael Carson
Written by Peter Schreck
Starring Gary Sweet, Sonia Todd, Steve Bastoni, John Clayton, Tammy Macintosh
Rated PG
Score 4.5/6

‘Mickey” struggles with now being a weekend dad, tries to help a potential suicide, and has an altercation with his Inspector.

For those of you who haven’t heard of Police Rescue, it’s an Australian Television series that originally ran from 1989 until 1996 it was produced by ABC and Southern Star Xanadu in association with the BBC and in Australia originally aired on the ABC. The series dealt with the New South Wales Police Rescue Squad based in Sydney and their work attending to various incidents from road accidents to train crashes. It should be noted that there was a 90-minute telemovie pilot for Police Rescue that aired in March of 1989 and the first episode of the first season did not air until February of 1991. There was also a movie that received a cinematic release in 1994.

As a series it seems that Police Rescue has aged well. There were some moments ‘oh my this is old’ looking at the footage of the episode. I thought that the use of a specific telecommunication company’s logo on the door of a telephone booth had a certain nostalgic quality to it. There was also some beautiful shots of the Sydney skyline.
The episode was anchored by the performances of Gary Sweet and Philip Quast who portrayed Sgt. Steve ‘Mickey’ McClintock and Bob Harrison. Sweet and Quast had great onscreen chemistry together mainly because each man had such a different philosophy about life. The drunken singing of Goodnight Irene by their characters towards the beginning of the third act was a nice counterpoint to the overall dark tones of the main plot of the episode.

After watching this episode there is part of me that wants to see Gary Sweet sing Streets of Laredo.