The return of Return To Eden
From TV Week, 20 April 1985. Written by Jacqui Johnson.



    The ratings record-breaker is coming back as a 22-episode series

    RETURN TO EDEN, the Network 10 mini-series which broke ratings records in Australia, England and the U.S., is coming back.

    And this time around it will be a 22-episode series featuring two major cast changes.

    As our exclusive photo shows, Peta Toppano and Daniel Abineri have joined Rebecca Gilling and James Smillie as the four characters around whom the storyline revolves.

    Missing will be Australian Crawl lead singer James Reyne, who made his acting debut in the original mini-series, and Wendy Hughes.

    Producer Hal McElroy decided to spin the mini-series into a Dallas and Dynasty-style night-time soap opera after he sold Return To Eden for world distribution last year for nearly $4 million.

    The mini-series was sold to Worldvision for American distribution and Paramoun t sold Return To Eden to Britain, Italy, Finland, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Malta, Monaco, Panama and Ecuador.

    This time McElroy has pre-sold 22 episodes to America and England.

    The new cast will start filming on April 29 and the series is expected to go to air around Australia before the end of the year.
    British actor Daniel Abineri, best known for resurrecting the transvestite Dr Frank 'n Furter in The Rocky Horror Show, takes over as the heart-throb, playing new character Jake Sanders, an attractive and ruthless corporate pirate.

    Peta Toppano, who played a bashed wife in the film Street Hero last year, takes over Wendy Hughes' role as Jilly Stewart.

    Rebecca Gilling will continue the dual roles of Stephanie Harper and Tara Welles and James Smillie is back as handsome plastic surgeon Dan Marshall, who transformed the mutilated face of frumpish heiress Stephanie into glamorous mode l Tara.

    A bevy of new and spectacular characters will be added by series writer Michael Laurence and his team.

    The series will keep up the story of life among the high-living super rich in Sydney and the playgrounds of northern Australia.
    Return To Eden told how Stephanie,after surviving being thrown to the crocodiles by her husband (James Reyne), had plastic surgery, became a top model and took her revenge.

    The plot of the TV series will revolve round Jilly Stewart who, after being released from jail (after conspiring to kill Stephanie), has a face-lift to seek revenge on the now happily married Tara Welles.

    Daniel Abineri's character Jake Sanders arrives from Perth, to at- tempt a takeover of one of Stephanie Harper's mining companies.

    This establishes him as a threat to Harper Mining and, on a personal level, to Stephanie and her family.

 &nbs p;  "Jake is a real smoothie and wraps women around his finger," Daniel said. "He's a mystery man with a secret reason for wanting to see the Harper empire crash."

    Peta Toppano has always wanted to be given the chance to play a super-bitch. "I have been typecast as a sweet, girl-next-door type," she said. "That's why I was so grateful to be given the chance to play a conniving character."

---

Back to index