By Geoff Shearer
The Courier-Mail
April 26, 2011

TONIGHT the final season of Sea Patrol opens with a dedication to Mission Beach and its residents, thanking them for being “their home”.

Sea Patrol was filmed in the north Queensland coastal town for two months out of each of the past five years, a tenure that was book-ended by cyclones Larry in March 2006 and Yasi 11 weeks ago.

Producers Hal and Di McElroy and cast members Lisa McCune (pictured), Ian Stenlake and Kristian Schmid were in town for a “thank-you” screening and free sausage sizzle last week.

It was the first time they’d been back since Yasi hit and they were shocked by the devastation.

“Everyone told us that in the first few days it was just brown; it looked like a bushfire had gone through,” Di says.

“Part of it will never recover,” Hal adds. “It will never be the Mission Beach we remember. It will survive and prosper but it will be different.”

But chatting to some of the 400 or so locals who attended the outdoor screening, many were of the opinion the loss of the TV drama would have a similar, if not bigger effect on local spirits and finances.

“Yasi was nothin’, we’re actually gonna miss Cyclone Lisa (McCune),” said one smitten man, with a conspiratorial nod and half-chuckle that if he told me his name, he’d be “the laughing stock”.

But Alister Pike, who runs the Dunk Island Sport Fishing charter business, was more than happy to go on record.

“Millions they brought in each year,” says Pike, who moved to the beach in 1967 as a youngster with his parents, who also still call it home.

“Socially, for the psyche of Mission Beach it’s been very good these are good people,” he says, cocking a look over at Stenlake and Schmid.

“Look, I don’t make friends easily, and I do count Ian as a friend. So for me, it will be sad for them not to come up each year. It was sad for them to come back today and see the place like it is. If they’d seen it in the raw form they would have been absolutely shocked.”

McCune remembers what it was like arriving in the area after Cyclone Larry.

“But coming back this time and knowing the area and the people, it has had more impact; you have a connection to the place,” she says.

Schmid nods. “Our welcome to Mission Beach was driving through Innisfail in 2006. Houses were off their stumps, roofs were gone,” he says. “The attitude of the locals their resilience is pretty amazing.”

Stenlake also has been touched by that attitude. “It’s stoic,” he says. “They’re still staring directly into the face of adversity. What’s happened to their lives and their careers is quite possibly the most challenging thing they will ever have to face.”

But come hell or high water, Hal and Di would love nothing better than to set their next drama series in Mission Beach.

They say they fell in love with the town when scouting for locations and have no intentions of selling their luxury apartment overlooking the township and Dunk Island.

“We absolutely love this town. We would love to shoot something up here,” says Di, while Hal adds they intend to have a holding there “for a long time”.

“We believe in the district and believe in the location, the destination; we believe in the people,” Hal says.

The five years that Sea Patrol was shot in the area proved to them not only that it was logistically possible, but that it is an area “ripe with stories”.

“It is so unique,” Hal says. “It’s a crossroads for so many activities there’s such a cross-section of people.”

In the interim, the final series, which literally kicks off tonight with a bang, continues to showcase the beauty of the region and the lifestyle it offers.

Surveying the crowds enjoying the episode at Castaways resort, Hal is smiling: “If we can just bring attention back to Mission Beach and remind the world and Australia that it is still alive and kicking and it’s a wonderful place that would be a good outcome.”

Sea Patrol, Nine, 8.30pm

By Debbie Schipp
Sunday Herald Sun
April 23, 2011

SEA Patrol’s final season is its biggest and wildest even before it hits our screens.

On the Mission Beach leg of filming series five late last year, actors like Lisa McCune were given a taste of the sea and Mother Nature at their impetuous worst.

For a couple of weeks, conditions off Mission Beach in Queensland’s far north were the worst the Sea Patrollers had experienced.

Huge swells and wild weather made for spectacular shots each day, but left even experienced cast members a little rattled.

McCune, who plays the unflappable Lt Kate “XO” McGregor on the drama, was shaken from her customary cool as one afternoon, the day’s scenes complete, the transport boat lurched its way back to the mainland.

As waves broke across the vessel and it fought the swell, the whole deck was awash.

“Just for a couple of seconds there was water everywhere and I thought for a second we’d flipped,” she says.

“It was the first time in five seasons I’d been scared, just that moment of thinking we were upside down.”

Months later, residents of Mission Beach, who for the past five seasons have welcomed the Sea Patrol cast and crew, saw just how rough Mother Nature can be when Cyclone Yasi hit. The Sea Patrol cast and crew were on the Gold Coast by then, but felt the devastation almost as keenly as the locals who have embraced them year after year.

“It’s so, so sad,” McCune said. “One minute it’s paradise and the next that community is defenceless.

“We’ve all made great friends up there in the past five seasons. You feel for them.”

The Sea Patrol cast will make one last visit to the stricken community, treating the locals to preview screenings of the final season.

The decision to wrap the drama at series five follows the end of financial assistance for 65 episodes under government rebate. Season five, titled Damage Control, will wrap at episode 68.

For McCune and co-star Ian Stenlake, who plays CO Lt-Commander Mike Flynn and McCune’s love interest, it will be a bittersweet ending.

They are original cast members and firm friends and the on-screen couple laugh easily as they share memories.

“It’s become like family,” McCune says. “There have been engagements, marriages and births off-set and on-set that sense of family has been the centre of the show.

“How great was it that (producers) Hal and Di (McElroy) managed to get a show that’s really outside the norm of shows we make in Australian television and get such great access and assistance from the Australian navy and do five series?

“It’s not a cop show or a medical show. It did combine both of those things but it’s more.
“Personally, I’ll take out of it a lot of good friends.”

Stenlake agrees.

“I’m glad it’s taken them this long to work out,” he says, when, taking in Mission Beach on a perfect summers day TV Guide remarks its a great location, but the gig is finally up.

“Already I know that when I look back on my career I know five of the best years — these,” he says.

“My approach to work, whatever the role, is always the same — enjoy the hell out of it,” he says. “But this one’s special. I’ve had two kids, become a family and worked with producers who run the show like a family.”

McCune says farewelling XO feels natural.

“It’s not with sadness that I see it finishing. I think it’s life,” she says.

“In some ways, if it were to go on it wouldn’t be realistic, because in the navy life changes a lot — that’s why it’s lent itself to cast changes, because the ship is the star, the navy is the star.

“I don’t know where Kate could go — she’d have to come back in charge of her own ship, or she’d have to marry this man and have baby Flynns.”

Neither will be drawn on how audiences will say goodbye to the show’s HMAS Hammersley and her crew.

The only hint came the previous night, when Di McElroy joked that another long-time cast member had begged for a big exit so an explosion may well be in the offing.

McCune is looking forward this season to again showing XO’s vulnerable side as she and Stenlake’s Flynn continue their relationship.

“We got to play nice stuff that contrasted with the life on the boat last year,” she says.

“The scenes where she got to be vulnerable in her love life, I revelled in — they were such a change from barking out orders.”

McCune and Stenlake laughingly catalogue the injuries of five seasons on a show that has an amazing safety record despite the complexity of its stunts and the fact that much of it is filmed on water.

Another original star, Kristian Schmid, still gets bagged about last season’s man overboard incident when, as Stenlake puts it, “Schmid walked on to a boat that wasn’t there”.

“Those calm days going back after lunch were when you relaxed and took mis-steps,” McCune says.

Stenlake takes up the topic with relish.

“Our safety fellow did a knee stopping: a director going overboard,” he says.

“John Batchelor hit his head on a stationary boat and ended up with stitches.

“Someone got a fish hook through his arm. JLT (Jeremy Lindsay Taylor) did his calf muscle and went down like he’d been shot.

“I’ve got off scott free. It’s safe on that air-conditioned bridge.”

The closest they’ve seen to potential casualty this season was off-set, when Conrad Coleby (Dutchy Mullholland), insisted on hurtling home downhill on a skateboard after barbecues at the McElroys’ Mission Beach house.

If there’s any sadness that this is the last series, it’s not in evidence here.

SEA PATROL, Tuesday, 8.30pm, Nine

By Natalie Dixon
The Cairns Post
Wednesday, April 20, 2011

SEA PATROL stars Lisa McCune and Ian Stenlake will be at Mission Beach tonight to give the community a sneak preview of season five of the top rating television show.

The tourist spot was a base for the cast and crew of Sea Patrol for five seasons and a lot of the action was filmed in local waters.

The special advanced screening of episodes one and two will be shown at Castaways Resort tonight after a free sausage sizzle at 6.30pm. The event is open to the public and some of the cast and crew will be present.

Sea Patrol producers Di and Hal McElroy said episode one would carry an on-screen dedication to Mission Beach.

“We wanted to do something to lift the spirits of the community after cyclone Yasi,” Mr McElroy said. “Mission Beach has been the base for the location filming for Sea Patrol over the past five seasons and the cast and crew hold a special place in their hearts for the community.”

TV Week
23 April 2011

Will one of our favourite Hammersley crew members die when an explosion rips through a bar?

Naval drama Sea Patrol is set to return with a bang this week when a bomb detonates at a bar where the crew from HMAS Hammersley are drinking.

Before the blast, the close-knit group are out enjoying leave in the heavily packed nightclub district on a popular island tourist destination. But when several of the team members, including Kate (Lisa McCune) and Dutchy (Conrad Coleby), decide to leave the bar, one sailor makes the potentially fatal decision to remain behind after becoming smitten with a fellow patron.

“We leave the bar and one of us stays behind, and then the bar blows up. The expectation is that we’re going to find little pieces of our mate inside, so we’re all extremely distraught,” Conrad explains.

The fiery blast scene draws comparisons to the deadly 2002 Bali bombings, in which 88 Australians lost their lives.

“An influence [for the episode] was taken from the Bali bombing,” Conrad confirms.

“It was a similar nightspot to the one where [Bali] happened, and we were all out enjoying a drink with other tourists and people from Australia, and then there’s this terrorist attack.”

Conrad also admits the atrocities that took place in Bali were in his mind as he shot the harrowing scenes.

“I thought, ‘Geez, this is what it would have been like,’” he says. “You’re just having a good time and then all of a sudden, ka-boom! [The Bali bombing] was just a horrible and gutless act.”

Desperately searching for their fellow crew member, the Hammersley team must put their own lives in the line in order to find him.

“We also have to deal with all these injures people, and you’re looking for your mate,” Conrad says. “There’s also a lot of terror and confusion.”

The actor admits to feeling “a bit scared” during the “blast”.

“Oh, I certainly felt the flames – we were only about four meters in front of the explosion,” he notes. “It does get your adrenaline pumping, because you think ‘Geez, there’s this massive thing about to go off behind my back!’”

The terror attack isn’t the only drama the gang must face. On the chaos surrounding the explosion, a second bomber manages to slip aboard the ship. Will they be discovered before it’s too late?

Look Who’s back!

Also making a return to Sea Patrol is hunky SAS Captain Jim Roth (Ditch Davey), who was last seen in season two.

On top of assisting with the aftermath of the bombing, the Hammersley crew are asked to help out on a covert SAS parachute operation gone wrong.

“Jim Roth comes back into Kate’s life,” Lisa McCune confirms. “He literally falls out of the sky and we pick him up in a boat!”

But will the return if her former flame spell trouble for her romance with Mike (Ian Stenlake)?

TV Week
Jan 22 2011

Make sure you’re on deck when HMAS Hammersley sets sail for the final time.

With filming underway in Queensland for the fifth and final season of naval drama Sea Patrol, TV WEEK coaxes some set secrets from producers Hal and Di McElroy.

Expect upheaval in Mike (Ian Stenlake) and Kate’s (Lisa McCune) romance with the reappearance of Captain Jim Roth (Ditch Davey).

Mike and Kate won’t be the only ones with love dramas, however, with Di hinting of “an interesting lady who may have her eye on Dutchy (Conrad Coleby).”

Filming conditions have been the worst the cast and crew have never experienced, with production complicated by heavy rain on 20 of the 28 days they were based at tropical Mission Beach. “It’s the most dramatic footage we’ve ever captured,” Hal says. “But it’s been scary, because we were worried about injuring people.”

Who dies? Di spills that a Hammersley crew member will perish in the final season.