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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 443301" data-attributes="member: 23">The IninerantsAnd in the very next episode, hypochondriac Esme Watson is introduced… a more fully-formed version of “Norma” seen in the first episode. We now see that new supporting characters (beyond the “one and done” guests) are being introduced in each story, which suggests the first episode may indeed have been produced along with the series rather than as a separate pilot. At the same time, if the plan all along was to introduce Esme, I’m now puzzled about why Joyce Jacobs would play Norma a few episodes before stepping into Esme’s shoes. Since both of them haunt the waiting room of the surgery, is Esme simply a revised version of Norma? Was one of them intended for a different actress? Was Esme written for Joyce after she appeared in a pilot? Or perhaps Joyce just fitted in well with the cast and it was decided to cast her in this second small role. Both parts, after all, are very small. Combining her two characters, Joyce probably has less than a minute of screen time in the entire first season, and it’s not that unusual for actors to play several small parts in Aussie drama, even if it is more unusual for them to be so close together. Whatever the case, Esme is here, adding background colour, and this small moment is far from the last we see of her.Esme is after her annual dosing up to steady her nerves because of the imminent arrival of the titular characters: travelling fruit pickers, who she feels are apt to cause trouble in the town but who, more rational characters observe, never do.The rational side is proven when we spend time with three characters from that community: a young boy whose distended stomach worries medics enough to seek him out and take him to hospital for tests; his struggling mother, working in difficult conditions to put food in her son’s mouth even if she herself gets none, and her father-in-law who provides a connection to her late partner. It’s a decent little arc that wraps up with a happy-but-not-too-neat suggestion that they will be given a home by Bill, a kindly farmer who shares a hospital room with the boy and falls for his mother (which appears to be mutual). Bill, by the way, has neglected to take his cystitis medication, meaning he staggers into the hospital in agony and is the first ACP character to drop into a dead faint (a traditional faint, anyway. The mother’s collapse at the end of Part I is shown more from a POV of a camera falling into fruit bushes). Shirley’s response is enjoyably Australian - she tuts and curses him out for the inconvenience. A dilemma about this ward situation is a nice way of reminding us we’re in a small town. Marta and Brendan discuss where to put Bill because they are full. Since we only see mother and son in their respective hospital rooms (she having passed out from worry, fatigue and overwork), it leads me to wonder if two rooms is the entire capacity. Esme is not entirely wrong, mind you. The darker side of the intinerant community is shown with a prowler frightening people of the town.I am, admittedly, quite easy when it comes to a jump scare, but I really never expected a moment in ACP to get me this way. The scene where Molly returned home and this strange man barged out of a darkened side room past her made me jump out of my skin (I may have shouted). It was even pre-empted by some sinister music, letting the audience know that something wasn’t right, so it’s not like I wasn’t warned. I’m going to blame it on the loud sting that played as it happened.Balancing this, there was a nice line of dialogue that made me chuckle when Frank came round afterwards. Molly, looking on the bright side, said it was good that the stranger could at least see there was nothing at the Joneses’ home worth stealing. Looking over the kitchen, Frank - rather too quickly - agreed “He’s probably still running”.A later scene with the prowler returning to the house while Molly and Shirley are inside was nicely balanced, with some genuinely creepy imagery - a ghoulish face appearing at the window outside - yielding almost comical screams from the women. It’s pleasing that Frank was shown to be competent in apprehending the prowler, since most of his other scenes - focussing on the romantic undercurrent - have put Shirley firmly in charge, while Frank comes off as seeming oblivious or unworldly.The prowler is a drug addict who has also caused trouble at the hospital, feigning illness in a bid to get a fix of pethidine and when that fails, ransacking the place. It’s the first time this series has addressed the subject (unless we count alcohol addiction) and I like to hope it will be done in a more substantial way further down the line. This particular story is one-sided, with the addict being someone we observe and talk about through the eyes of regular characters. We don’t know anything about him, his experiences or his feelings.The everyday stuff is really finding its legs: Molly making a dress for Vicky as part of a barter arrangement for Vicky’s veterinary services is sweet, and very much evokes Barbara Good; Shirley’s dinner, intended to put Frank off his pursuit with her terrible cooking went wonderfully off-plan when it turned out he was a really good cook; adding insult to injury, when Vicky - in her new dress - returned from her date with Simon in tow, the two men ended up sharing cooking tips in the kitchen while the two women sat frustrated in the living room (the gentle humour sold with the subtle gender stereotype reversal).Then there’s Doris refusing to mate with a mate supplied by a local farmer. For a moment, I wondered if one of the pigs was going to be ACP’s first gay character (after all, I recently watched an Eighties Bergerac which featured a gay horse). Instead, there’s a curious feminist angle with Doris booting out the mate for wanting to sleep and cuddle instead of satisfying her, which wins Molly’s approval. Of historical interest, the would be mate’s owner is played by future director extraordinaire Baz Luhrmann.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?