Snowy River: The McGregor Saga

[birdienl]

4 Reasons to watch Snowy River: The McGregor Saga (and 1 reason not to)

When I was a teenager, a lot of 'Wild West' tv-series aired on Dutch television, which we as a family would watch and enjoy. I fondly remember Dr. Quinn (including my first ever tv crush on Sully) and Christy.

But there was another series, not taking place in 19th century rural United States, but it's counterpart in Australia. I never really thought about Snowy River: The McGregor Saga again, until I read an article about it in one of the Costume Chronicles (volume 10). The series originally aired from 1993-1996 in Australia. As I was already looking for a longer period drama series to watch, I decided to rewatch the adventures of  Matt McGregor, his children and all the villagers of Patterson's Ridge. And because I like to recommend little known and undervalued period dramas, I'm going to give you four reasons why to watch this to!


Reason 1: the Gents

There are quite enough handsome men in Snowy River to keep even the most demanding of you happy. Most attention will probably go to Rob McGregor as the youngest son of Matt and his American cousin Luke, played by the young Guy Pearce and Josh Lucas.

Personally, I really like Brett Climo, who plays Colin McGregor, the kind eldest son of Matt who has become the local minister.

And there's also head of the family Matt McGregor, the succesfull cattle farmer, played by Andrew Clarke, who's not bad to look at. Ofcourse, since it's a Western series, all these man do 'manly' things like drive cattle, break wild horses and cut down trees, which doesn't hurt to look at!

 

Reason 2: the ladies

From what I've mentioned above, you could almost think the ladies of Snowy River have nothing else to do than lean backwards and let themselves be rescued. Well, not really. There are some pretty strong female characters in the series.

First, there is Kathleen O'Neill, the fiery neighbour of the McGregor farm. This widow and her young son Micheal have come back from England to take up their cattle farm again. In the process, Kathleen butts heads with Matt and many of the local men who do not believe a woman can run a cattle farm on her own. Leave it to her to prove them wrong!

Matt's youngest child, 14th year old Danni, likes to be treated exactly the same way as her brothers. In her eyes this means she can easily do all the work on the farm just as well as the men! In one of the first episodes she exclaims she hates dressing up, but later in the series we discover there's a little bit of a budding woman in her as well.


Reason 3: the relationships

 

The McGregor family is a warm and loving bunch. They look out for each other and often include others less fortunate into their family circle.

Ofcourse there's also some romance in the series, but you'll just have to watch if you want to know who and what!


Reason 4: the setting

As I said above, Snowy River takes place in the Australian 'equivalent' of the American Wild West. It's interesting to see how many things are the same (farming live, the coming of the railways, the changing position of women), but also how there are differences. In the first season these differences are seen through the eyes of Luke McGregor, nephew of Matt, who was born and raised in America. I have no idea how accurate the image of 19th century rural Australia the serie offers is. Maybe one of my Australian friends could comment on that? But it's interesting none the less!

The series offers some very nice settings; from the small town of Patterson's Ridge to the large city of Melbourne, from the Snowy Mountains to the desert.


Why not to watch Snowy River:
And why in heaven's name did I include a reason not to watch this wonderful little gem? Because it notoriously hard to find and you might get frustrated!

Outside of Australia, the series has never been released on DVD or VHS. At the moment, the first two seasons can be found on a certain well known video site, but as you've all probably experienced now and then, they could be taken of at any moment. So be warned, because once you start watching, you'll probably be hooked!

Comments

[lunalove24.livejournal.com]

Hi again. :)

I used to watch this show as well (actually, I still do, from time to time). I bought the first season when I was on holiday in Australia. Which for a while caused a problem (I live in Denmark) with the region codes, but now I have the VLC-player on my computer, and that's region-free! Woohoo! Now I'm really bitter because I didn't buy the other seasons, though! But good to know that s2, at least, is (for the time) attainable!

But the show has been released on dvd in Denmark (maybe other places as well?) and the USA, and that means that they are available as both region 2 and region 1.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

Hello there!

Hmmm, I guess we must be television twins or something like that! I just watched an episode yesterday and saw the uploader on YT had started uploading s3. So if it stays on, I've got something to look forward to!

The only releases (outside of the Australian) I've ever seen (on Amazon for example) were only a few episodes on a dvd.

[lunalove24.livejournal.com]

I guess we must be television twins

We certainly seem to bump in to each other quite a few places. :)
Actually, I found this post because I did a google search on this show! And then I was like 'wait a minute - birdienl, that rings a bell!'. ;)

I haven't forgotten about Servants. I'm working on converting the files into .avi (instead of .vob), I've just been home on holiday, so I've been away from my computer. Now I'm sick, so I'll have some time to work on getting the episodes up.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

That's so funny! You finding my blog post about McGregor Saga via Google!

I'm sorry to hear you're ill. I hope you'll feel better soon and I'm looking forward to hearing from you about Servants.

[lunalove24.livejournal.com]

Hi again.

I ended up being way sicker than I thought I would be - figured I'd just be down with the flu, which doesn't usually hit me that hard. Well, I was wrong. I've been sick as a dog with influenza A and then I got pneumonia. So I haven't worked on converting the files. Will do though.

Hope you're well.

[birdienl.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear you've been that sick. Pneumonia, that's quite something! Don't you worry at all about converting the files, I've got (more than...) enough things to watch at the moment.

Hope you'll be well soon