Asher Keddie and Kat Stewart star as sisters in Ten's upcoming series 'Offspring'.

According to The Australian, Network Ten have commissioned a 13-episode series based on their upcoming telemovie ‘Offspring’.

The family drama, from Souther Star and producers John Edwards (‘Rush’, ‘Love My Way’, ‘The Secret Life of Us’) and Imogen Banks (‘Tangle’), stars Asher Keddie (‘Underbelly’, ‘Love My Way’) as a 30-something obstetrician Nina Proudman.

‘Offspring’ has been described as a “buoyant, romantic comedy set on the streets of Fitzroy.” It follows Keddie’s character Nina in a story of impossible loves and her fabulously messy family, as they navigate the chaos of modern life.

Kat Stewart stars as Nina’s wild sister Billie. Don Hany, John Waters and Deborah Mailman are also set to star.

Production will commence in May.

Source: The Australian

Rush follows the lives of members of the prestigious Tactical Response team (TR), which is based on the real life Victoria Police Critical Incident Response Team, a highly mobile unit that fills the operational gap between general duties police and the SWAT-like Special Operations Group. The team is seen responding to violent incidents such as carjackings, suicides and armed offences. Rush focuses on the TR officers, their intelligence officer, Leon and Inspector Kerry Vincent, head of the TR administration. It explores both the working and personal lives of the team.

The 3-disc set includes the first 12 episodes from the second series of the Australian smash hit action drama. It’s out December 3.

Ten hopes it'll be a good year, with 'The Good Wife' and 'Junior MasterChef'.

12 months paints quite a different picture for Network Ten, who this time last year boldly cancelled ‘Big Brother’ and announced plans to replace the reality series with a local version of UK cooking format ‘MasterChef’.

Just 9 months later, ‘MasterChef Australia’ is breaking records, becoming the highest rated non-sporting program on television.

But despite the success Ten saw earlier this year, as we head into 2010 it seems that the network’s brave risk taking attitude is no more.

Ten have revealed their plans for next year, with much of the same programming we saw in 2009.

What’s new in 2010? Just 3 new US series, 2 new local mini/tele dramas and 1 new local series.

Of course theres always the possibility that Ten might add additional programs to this list, but for now, here’s what you can expect to see next year.

New Local Series

• Junior MasterChef

New Local Drama

• Hawke (Telemovie)
• Offspring (Miniseries) – Potential series

New International Series

• The Cleveland Show
• The Good Wife
• Modern Family

Sporting Events

• 2010 Commonwealth Games

Returning Local Programs

• Australian Idol (TBC – See post)
• The Biggest Loser Australia
• Bondi Rescue
• Bondi Vet
• Good News Week
• MasterChef Australia
• Neighbours
• The Recruits
• Rove (See post)
• Rush
• So You Think You Can Dance Australia
• Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation
• Ten News
• The 7PM Project

Returning International Programs

• Burn Notice
• Californication
• Dexter
• Glee
• House
• Lie to Me
• Law and Order: SVU
• Law and Order: Criminal Intent
• Medium
• Merlin
• NCIS
• NCIS: Los Angeles
• Numb3rs
• The Simpsons
• Untitled Jamie Oliver Project

The network also have announced plans to launch a third digital channel in 2010, replacing their standard definition lineup One Digital on channel 12. No details on what this new channel will offer as of yet, as the network are still assessing their options.

With the second season of ‘Rush’ set to premiere this Thursday, Network Ten are really hoping to gain as much exposure for this hot action series as possible.

Having held back on selling Australian shows on the iTunes store until now, the network have finally eased up and have posted the entire first season for download. At $2.99 per episode, or $31.99 for the entire season, it makes for an easy way to catch up before the second season begins.

‘Rush’ Season 1

Also hitting the iTunes store is the second second of ‘Good News Week’, also for $2.99 an episode. For a whopping $99.00, you can get a season pass, which includes all past episodes and upcoming episodes for the current season.

‘Good News Week’ Season 2

Network Ten will post the first episode from the new season of ‘Rush’ online this Friday, almost two weeks ahead of it’s scheduled broadcast date.

The season premiere will be available online from 12pm this Friday, through to 12am Sunday night. Viewers can check it out at ten.com.au/rush.

In the meantime, the network are hoping to drum up as much buzz online as possible by asking fans to join and contribute to the show’s official Facebook page.

We’re surprised Ten haven’t jumped on Twitter yet.

Roger Corser

Network Ten’s action drama ‘Rush’ is returning to our screens for it’s second season.

The high octane police drama will premiere in a new time slot at 8.30pm Thursdays, beginning July 16th on Network Ten.

The move will shift the series out last season’s ‘Packed to the Rafters’/'All Saints’ Tuesday night warpath.

The new season will unfold over of 22 episodes, up from the 13 episodes which aired last year.

‘Rush’ stars Rodger Corser, Callan Mulvey, Samuel Johnson and Catherine McClements. Joining the cast this season is Jolene Anderson (‘All Saints’), who plays specialist negotiator Senior Constable Shannon Henry.

‘Rush’ is produced by Souther Star Entertainment under John Edwards, Mimi Butler and executive producers Rick Maier and Hugh Marks.

Sources: TV Tonight, Screen Australia

We’re live in the new primetime! Just like Prison Break, Heroes and Gossip Girl! However, like our friends in the same timeslot, we struggle to find an audience from the start. As the numbers grow, we dive into deep discussions on Freeview, Thank God You’re Here, This Is Your Laugh, Packed to the Rafters, Eli Stone, Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, Prison Break, Gossip GIrl, How I Met Your Mother, Fringe, Dance Machine, American Gladiators, Rush and Don’t Forget The Lyrics. We also play three rounds of Mystery Voice and a challenging segment of Cameron’s Sixth Sense.

It’s only been a few days since the announcement, but already we’re starting to see the fallout from Network Ten’s new 24/7 sports channel, One HD, which will arrive early second quarter next year.

The biggest question being asked is, what will happen to all my Ten HD shows? You know, the shows that were shafted from their original home on the standard Network Ten channel.

Well, with One HD taking over, it appears as though all those Ten HD shows will once again disappear into the television void. Just when we thought “Hurray to Ten for showing entire seasons of Battlestar Galactica and Friday Night Lights“, they’re taken from us once again and we’re left thinking, “Sport? Who the frack needs that in HD anyway?”

We’re also left wondering, if One HD will be a 24/7 sports channel, what happens to all of Network Ten’s regular shows like Neighbours, Rush and Australian Idol which are all produced in high definition? The networks view seems to be “Dude, SD digital television is awesome – it like totally looks better than analogue, so quit your bitching’ yo!”

Now, while they may not have been so colloquial on their position, they haven’t seemed to have provided any solution at all for those people out there with 42-inch 1080p plasma screens who actually watch Neighbours (I know, there’s like five of them out there at the moment, but still).

The more serious question at the moment seems to be, and bear in mind if your not technically sound, this may bore you to pieces. How will Network Ten broadcast one HD channel and 2 SD channels over a 23mbps signal without reduced image degradation?

As it stands Network Ten current broadcast one HD channel and one SD channel. With the addition of an extra SD channel, the bandwidth for both the existing HD and SD channels will have to be reduced. In other words, the image quality on the current HD and SD channels will be reduced so that the extra SD channel will have reasonable image quality.

Our current digital television quality is already questionable (especially in high motion scenes), reducing it even future would be like going back to analogue. I exaggerate of course, but just exactly how many channels will our television signals be able to support without the picture looking like it’s made of lego?

One solution someone on the Ten.com.au forums pointed out was that they could end up broadcasting the HD channel in 720p rather than higher 1080i format like the existing channel, which would free up quite a bit of bandwidth. But with ‘HD’ in the name of the new channel, it’d seem odd to only broadcast in 1080i’s smaller, less developed HD cousin 720p.

I think Neo Kitten over at the DTV Forum has summed things up quite well, if you don’t have Ten HD you probably wont get it, but for those who do:

I can see clearly now my show has gone
The networks put all these obstacles in my way
I can see more money spent on broadband plans
It’s gonna be a big
Downloady day
Yeah it’s gonna be a big (big! big!)
Downloady day

It seems people want to embrace the new channel, but not at the expense of their current Ten HD programmes or reduce image quality, and until we receive some kind of clarification from the network, we’re all going to be left in a frenzy of confusion and frustration.

We’re back again with another great episode of TVAUSCAST. This week we discuss the new 90210, Privileged, Fringe, Packed to the Rafters, The Strip, Rush, Taken Out, Australian Idol, Make Me A Supermodel and more. We also go into a long winded discussion on tech and other forum topics. We wrap up with some self congratulatory praise.

Last night Packed to the Rafters aired for the second time on Australian television.  The majority of new shows peek at their first episode then slowly decrease to find a solid audience. Packed to the Rafters which last week premiered with 1.945 million viewers this week increased with 2.045 million viewers.  That’s an increase of 100 thousand viewers and a huge boost to Australian television drama. I think it’s official, Packed to the Rafters is an Australian hit. 22 episodes have been filmed for the first season.

Meanwhile Rush premiered on Ten last night at 9:30 following Ten’s popular US crime drama NCIS.  It’s opening numbers were solid with 1.61 million viewers. As long as it can keep those solid numbers for the rest of the season it too should be an Aussie hit.

It’s a new season of television! And boy is there a lot to talk about. In our first post-olympics podcast, we discuss Packed the Rafters, All Saints, Idol, Make Me a Supermodel, ABC Family, and plenty of Aussie Drama. The return of Cult Show of the Week and our new segment So You Think Concepts.  We wrap up by discussing the new season of Dancing with the Stars.

Remember the days when you would switch on the tube and find yourself desperately searching for an Australian alternative to escape the onslaught of American shows.  Well, now a whole lot of decision making will be required when you switch on the television come September, with networks pitting their Aussies dramas against each other. Something we haven’t seen in just about forever.

What decisions will you be making this September? Well, Network Ten has daringly pitted their new police drama  Rush against the Seven Network’s long running medical drama All Saints. So which will you be watching? Are you a sucker for sex, guns and fast cars? Or is blood, guts and the annual hostage situation more your style?

Hit us up know in the comments.

If like me, you’re eager to see the new Australian drama Rush, then this should satisfy your hunger.  A brand spanking new promo for the Melbourne based police drama.

Rush premieres 9:30pm Tuesday, September 2nd on Network Ten.

“Rush” is the latest addition to the ever expanding cop drama category on Aussie TV.  The show premiering September 2nd on TEN, and stars Rodger Corser (“Underbelly”), Callan Mulvey (“Underbelly”), Catherine McClements (“The Secret Life Of Us”), Samuel Johnson (“Love My Way”) and Claire Van Der Boom (“Love My Way”, “East West 101″).

“Rush” is a Southern Star John Edwards production, and will be produced by John Edwards (“The Secret Life of Us”, “Love My Way”, “Out Of The Blue”) and Mimi Butler (“Forensic Investigators”, “Blue Water High”).

So it looks like it has the right people in place, but how will it stack up against an already heavily populated genre?  Let us know in the comments.

See the promo after the break.