The Doctor Blake Mysteries - Season 1

A body found in the lake turns out to be a girl from the local reform school. Lawson immediately suspects a gang of local hoodlums who have connections to the girl and gets Constable Parks to make an arrest. Lawson's ready to charge him, but Blake isn't convinced and together he and district nurse Mattie O'Brien find out more about the reform school and the girl.

When a member of staff is found dead at the hospital, Lawson immediately suspects former morgue attendant Ron Jackson, who has vanished without trace. While the manhunt for Jackson begins, preparations for Anzac Day celebrations are underway in Ballarat. Lucien Blake encounters an old friend from the army at the colonial club. Major Derek Alderton is in town looking for two deserters, but that's all Blake's allowed to know.

Danny is directing traffic on the road out of town when a driver, seemingly drunk, narrowly avoids him and crashes. The driver, a travelling salesman staying at a Ballarat hotel, is pronounced dead at the scene. But it turns out it wasn't the crash that killed him - someone had hidden a snake in his car. When Danny is bitten by the snake too, Blake faces a rush to both find the murderer and save Danny by identifying the snake and the antidote.

Blake is called to a prisoner on death row who is delirious. The prisoner, Sean McBride, confessed to a murder long ago and pleaded guilty. But in McBride's delirium, Blake hears him say he didn't do it. With a signed confession, and with McBride maintaining his guilt when he recovers, Blake faces a struggle to find proof and convince Lawson that McBride should not hang. Meanwhile, outside the prison in Ballarat, tensions run high about the rights and wrongs of capital punishment and Blake finds himself out of his depth.

Doctor Lucien Blake, still a fish out of water in Ballarat, finds himself on the judging panel for the Begonia Festival. When one of his fellow judges is found dead in his burned-out greenhouse, the prime suspects are the head of the judging panel, Charles Griffith, and his rough-hewn local rival Nick Manos. Both seemingly have a motive, and Danny is only too keen to keep interviewing Nick Manos's beautiful daughter Maria about her father's whereabouts. But Blake feels there's more to this than a rivalry about begonias. Meanwhile, a letter arrives for Blake from Singapore, finally giving him some hope that his missing wife and daughter may still be alive.

Doctor Blake is called to Patrick Tyneman's shoe factory where a migrant worker has died using one of the machines. Initially it looks like an industrial accident, and Blake's enmity towards Tyneman leads to a showdown about safety practices and worker exploitation. But when the dust settles, Blake looks more closely into the politics and relationships of the workforce and begins to suspect foul play.

A psychiatric nurse is found murdered in a bathroom at the asylum, with a patient standing over her holding the murder weapon. When the inmate even confesses to the murder that's enough for Superintendent Lawson, but Blake isn't satisfied. It all looks too neat to him and he digs deep, causing trouble at the asylum in the process. Meanwhile at home, Blake continues to hide from Jean his grief about the search for his wife and child in Singapore.

When a contestant in a popular TV game show is electrocuted in his dressing room, Blake, in one of his more unusual cases, suspects foul play. Superintendent Lawson and the show's sponsor Patrick Tyneman - Blake's habitual adversary - both suspect the victim's opponent on the show, Simon Lo. Simon is certainly a difficult character, but Blake is convinced that part of the suspicion may be caused by prejudice, and sets out to make more detailed enquiries.

A prospector walks into the pub while Blake and Danny are playing darts and declares he's struck gold. Shortly afterwards he's found dead down his mineshaft and Blake - suffering from claustrophobia since the war - is obliged to go down there. Mattie is preparing to be bridesmaid at a wedding and is stunned when her friend's fiancé Russ is arrested for the murder. After a misdemeanour of his own, Blake finds himself locked up in the cells with Russ for the night.

Ballarat Hospital's only female doctor is found hanged at the hospital in an apparent suicide. If Blake can prove it isn't suicide there are several potential suspects, not least the hospital's untrustworthy chief surgeon Geoffrey Nicholson, a close friend of town bigwig Patrick Tyneman. Blake's antipathy towards both leads him to some seemingly obvious conclusions - but has he gone too far this time? Meanwhile, a telegram arrives for Blake with some news about his family.