The ABC has shown its hand for next year, and it is heavy on crime. At its showcase on Wednesday 21 October, the public broadcaster set out its 2027 line-up: six new Australian scripted series, returns for Fisk and Dog Park, and a long list of documentaries. Dates were not announced, so treat this as a map of the year rather than a calendar.
The new dramas and comedies
- The Great White: Hugo Weaving stars as a brilliant but disgraced barrister.
- Rural Crime Unit: a buddy-cop series about unusual crimes in the bush, with Rebecca Gibney, Morgana O’Reilly and Philip Lynch.
- Fortitude Valley: a decades-old cold case turns personal for the detectives working it. Hunter Page-Lochard, Kat Stewart, Nathalie Morris and Rupert Everett star. Screen Queensland says production began in Brisbane in February.
- John Bailey: The Enemy Within: adapted from Tim Ayliffe’s novel, a journalist and a CIA agent try to draw out a hidden enemy. David Lyons, David Harewood, Anthony LaPaglia and Yael Stone lead.
- Pilli Sisters P.I.: Tasma Walton and Ursula Yovich play Indigenous private investigators Marlee and May, searching for their missing younger brother.
- Help Me!: a darkly comic thriller in which Kate Box and Sarah Peirse play a reluctant mother and daughter trying to rescue a woman in trouble.
“Our Screen slate is built around unmissable Australian stories with integrity, originality and authenticity,” said Jennifer Collins, the ABC’s director of screen.
Familiar faces
Kitty Flanagan’s Fisk returns for a fourth season, and the Logie-winning Dog Park, with Leon Ford and Celia Pacquola, gets a second. Return to Paradise reaches season four, and Sam Pang’s Tasmanian AFL comedy Ground Up comes back for season two.
On the entertainment side, Hard Quiz, Spicks & Specks, Gruen and The Weekly all return, You Can’t Ask That is back for the first time in four years, and rage turns 40. The Assembly, Muster Dogs and Grand Designs Australia are among the factual returns.
Documentaries worth flagging
The ABC lists Silenced, a feature about women and journalists at the centre of high-profile legal fights, including Brittany Higgins and Amber Heard; Pray Harder, a three-part investigation by Richard Baker into coercive control in Australian cults; Mark of a Murderer, with Colleen Egan pursuing a suspected serial killer; and Mutiny on the Boundary, on the 1977 Centenary Test. ABC News adds The rise and fall of Alan Jones.
For younger viewers, Little Lunch: New Class reopens the classroom, and Emma Watkins fronts the preschool series Emma’s Dance Club.
Where to watch
- The Great White, Rural Crime Unit, Fortitude Valley, John Bailey: The Enemy Within, Pilli Sisters P.I., Help Me!: ABC TV and ABC iview · AU · 2027, dates to be announced
- Fisk season 4, Dog Park season 2: ABC TV and ABC iview · AU · 2027
- You Can’t Ask That: ABC TV and ABC iview · AU · 2027
Sources
Titles in this story.
Explore The Rerun
Before you go
