The Flying Doctors

The Flying Doctors was an Australian drama series produced by Crawford Productions that revolved around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the real Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. The series was set in the fictional outback town of Cooper's Crossing.

Initially a 1985 mini-series starring Andrew McFarlane as a doctor, the following year an on-going series began, which ran until 1993 and was successfully screened internationally.

A New Girl In Town [1.12]

 * David Gibson: [to Tom Callaghan] There's an aging hippie in there somewhere, struggling to get out.


 * Ron Miller: What do we play for?
 * Emma Plimpton: You're the big time gambler, why don't you set the stakes?
 * Ron: Okay - what about your shirt?
 * Emma: Ah, no, I couldn't, mate - you see, a friend gave this to me, and it's got sentimental attachments.
 * Ron:Ah. It'll have to be cash then.
 * Emma: You're on.

A Choice of Enemies [1.13]

 * Tom Callaghan: You know, I was kinda hoping you'd have changed your plans.
 * Adrian Bailey: Why should I?
 * Tom: I don't reckon you know too much about the outback.
 * Adrian: I got this far!
 * Tom: It gets worse the further north you go.


 * Adrian Bailey: I get the feeling there's a lecture coming on.
 * Tom Callaghan: I get the feeling it's time you listened. That was a long flight we made yesterday. What if somebody had been in serious trouble and needed our help, huh?
 * Adrian: I was in trouble. Anyway, you're the flying doctors. It's your job.
 * Tom: It's not our job to bail people out because of their own stupidity.


 * Adrian Bailey: All I want to do is go out there on my bike and cope with it physically and spiritually.
 * Tom Callaghan: There are easier ways to proving yourself, you know.
 * Adrian: I've had enough of this.
 * Tom: So have we, Adrian. The police, the flying doctor service - we've had enough of people who go out there do their own thing and expect us to get them out of trouble!

Million Acre Prison [1.19]

 * David Gibson: What are you doing here?
 * Chris Randall: Nothing.
 * David: You wanna swap seats? You can try for a take-off.
 * Chris: I had to be by myself for a while.
 * David: Yeah. You want me to clear out?
 * Chris: No. [Pause] I made a mistake, Dave. I might have been able to save him. The bullet went in through the liver. It hit a rib and deflected upwards, nicking the aorta. While I was patching up the liver, he was bleeding to death through the aorta.
 * David: You know that now. You couldn't have known it then.
 * Chris: If I'd had the guts to be radical. If I'd had the courage to open him up when we first got there, I might have found it.
 * David: And you might have killed him.
 * Chris: Something we'll never know.
 * David: So. Now you're sitting out here, wondering what Tom might have done. [Pause] I was with Tom once, out at Buckawoodgy. Bloke got kicked in the head by a horse and Tom had to decide whether to try and operate on the spot, or fly him back to the hospital. Tom opted for flying him back. Bloke died at six minutes out from the Crossing. Tom didn't say a word. And about three weeks later, we got very drunk together and he started talking about it. We had exactly the same conversation, damn nearly word for word. Except Tom was wondering what the doctor before him might have done.
 * Chris: That should help, but it doesn't.
 * David: Yet.
 * Chris: Yeah. Yet.

A Distant Echo [2.16]

 * Chris Randall: Given Violet's medical history and her present state of mind, we could lose her, so I've liberated these bits of hre grandfathers journal from the shop and made copies. Now, what we're looking for, I suppose you might say, is mitigating circumstances. Anything that will bring back her pride in old Henry.
 * DJ: Hey, I like this bit.'I am truly convinced that here in the remote Antipodes, we may build a new Albion beneath the Southern Cross.' Pretty good, isn't it?
 * Geoffrey Standish: [on Henry Cooper, founder of Cooper's Crossing] He actually had vision, you know?
 * Kate Wellings: I don't think 'vision' is gonna get us there.


 * Geoff: A-ah.
 * Chris: Where are you up to?
 * Georff: [reading from Henry Cooper's journal] 'The native making savage depredations on our life stock.'
 * Chris: Doesn't improve from here on.
 * Kate: The shepard, Thomas Grey, is missing.
 * Geoff: Here he is. Weighted down with stones in the billabong. I take it this is where the rot set in. 'The deed is done and the menace of further depredations may now have passed. Our intend was that only males should pay the price of blood for Grey's murder. But in the haste and darkness, certain others -'
 * Chris: Women and children
 * Geoff: '- paid the penalty for the crime. Augustus Baxter [pause] - Augustus Baxter and his young son were in the forefront of the fray. We should thank God Almighty that we have such men amongst us. Men, who will put personal considerations, even considerations of [pause] of blood ties on one side in the dread cause of justice.' Blood ties?
 * Kate: Well, there weren't a lot of white women around in the early days. And George's [Baxter] grandfather was always called Darkie Baxter.
 * DJ: [laughs]
 * Chris: I would have that that'd be something to be proud of?
 * DJ: Yeah... Tell George Baxter that.


 * Dougie Kennedy: You cut the roots of a tree, it dies. A man - a woman - looses their dreaming - they die.
 * Dr. David : Look, I didn't want it this way. I just wanted it to be out in the open. I wanted the truth - for once.
 * Father Jacko: Doug, there's nothing Chris or I could say to Violet that'd help her. But you and I share the dreaming. The Jesus-dreaming. It says forgive. Always forgive. Choose love, not hate.


 * Kate Wellings: G'day, mate!
 * Dougie Kennedy: G'day, Katie.
 * Kate: Dave is gonna keep going, isn't he? Until he gets his memorial?
 * Dougie: Yeah, I reckon.
 * Kate: So, the faster we give it to him, the less dust will get kicked around. [pause] Tell me about Darkie Baxter.
 * Dougie: George's granddad? What'd you wanna know?
 * Kate: Well, Henry Cooper's diary said something about - blood ties?
 * Dougie: Just between you and me, eh? Darkie [Baxter] and my granddad - they were half-brothers.
 * Kate: Same mother?!
 * Dougie: Good ol´ Baxter? First Baxter? He used to breed his own stockmen. Real gover he was.
 * Kate: You and Baxter - you're what, second cousins?
 * Dougie: We're all cousins around here, Kate. Cooper's Crossing. We're all cousins. Didn't you know that?

Repeat performance [2.24]

 * Father Jacko: We celibates know a lot about marriage. After all, you don't have to be a turtle to be a marine biologist, do you?

Out of a clear, blue sky [3.5]

 * Geoffrey Standish: Who was that?
 * Chris Randall: Oh. Shoddy dropper.
 * Geoff: What?
 * Chris: Walter McKay. Lovely old bloke. Hopeless alcoholic. He buys up all this cheap junk at auction sales in Brisbane, piles it into his truck and flogs it off all over the outback.
 * Geoff: I know I've been out here too long, because I'm gonna ask: what is a shoddy dropper?
 * Chris: But I just told you!
 * Geoff: No you didn't!
 * Chris: Shoddy. Cheap, used. Dropper. Drops in, drops off, drops out again.
 * Geoff: Is that the Oxford or the Webster definition?
 * Chris: Aussie English. From the Latin derogative.

A shade of doubt [4.16]

 * Geoff Standish: If anything happens, we'll send Sue down to the hotel.
 * Marty Jarvis: The pub? Have you got any idea what kind of jobbos hang around down there?
 * Paula Patterson: Yes we do.
 * Geoff: Somebody's got to train them, mate.
 * Marty: Ha ha. Anyway, where's she going to sleep? [Pause] She can stay at my joint.
 * Geoff: Now that's the Marty that we've grown to known and - got used to.

Next to go [4.23]

 * D.J: Don't tell a Greek what he needs for a barbecue, he invented it.


 * DJ or Claire: Victor Charlie Charlie calling Mike Sierra Foxtrot.


 * Dr. Geoff Standish: [To George Baxter] You know I was told that my predecessor once dragged you into the lane and punched you into the nose. May I say that I wish I'd had his good judgement!


 * D.J: What does David have that I don't?
 * Paula Patterson: A medical degree.

Cast

 * Andrew McFarlane as Dr. Tom Callaghan
 * Liz Burch as Dr. Chris Randall (1986-90)
 * Maurie Fields as Vic Buckley
 * Val Jellay as Nancy Buckley
 * Lenore Smith as Kate Wellings/Standish
 * Robert Grubb as Dr. Geoff Standish (1986-91)
 * Lewis Fitz-Gerald as David 'Gibbo' Gibson (1986)
 * Rebecca Gibney as Emma Plimpton/Patterson (1986-89)
 * Peter O'Brien as Sam Patterson (1987-89)
 * Bruce Barry as George Baxter
 * Beverley Dunn as Claire Bryant (1989-91)
 * George Kapiniaris as Dimitrios "D.J." Lonniadis (1987-89)