I'd never heard of this Australian soap opera until today!  It ran for 126 episodes.  It starts with a family who wins the lottery but the show revamps itself a few times.  The storylines toward the end involve neo nazis and carnivorous plants!

Sorry if there is already a thread for this! 

From IMDB:

"A family's life changes after winning the lottery jackpot. Initially focusing on their newfound wealth, the show takes an absurd turn with neo-Nazis, Chinese gangsters, supernatural entities, and man-eating flora"

It was released on DVD a few years ago!  (PAL, Region 0)

Even this clip from episode 14 gets whacky towards the end

 

Thanks @vote4llama 

The main way I'd heard of the show was a few of the nude scenes that floated around over the years. I never knew of the show's beginnings. 

I think the show is out on DVD or was. It would be interesting to see the shift in tone - when it happened and how fast it was.

35 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @vote4llama 

The main way I'd heard of the show was a few of the nude scenes that floated around over the years. I never knew of the show's beginnings. 

I think the show is out on DVD or was. It would be interesting to see the shift in tone - when it happened and how fast it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chances_(TV_series)

Details the history of the show. Low ratings lead to a change in timeslot and format, with a move to more outrageous stories.

One factor that may or may not have kept it on air was that Oz TV stations were required to have a certain amount of local drama in their schedule. As mentioned in the Wiki article the Nine network had endured a number of flops and probably didn't have the budget or possible projects in the pipeline ,so Chances may have been kept on air to fulfil that quota until other projects could get off the ground.

14 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chances_(TV_series)

Details the history of the show. Low ratings lead to a change in timeslot and format, with a move to more outrageous stories.

One factor that may or may not have kept it on air was that Oz TV stations were required to have a certain amount of local drama in their schedule. As mentioned in the Wiki article the Nine network had endured a number of flops and probably didn't have the budget or possible projects in the pipeline ,so Chances may have been kept on air to fulfil that quota until other projects could get off the ground.

Thanks. I'd read through that before, but it's been a few years.

20 hours ago, DRW50 said:

Thanks @vote4llama 

The main way I'd heard of the show was a few of the nude scenes that floated around over the years. I never knew of the show's beginnings. 

I think the show is out on DVD or was. It would be interesting to see the shift in tone - when it happened and how fast it was.

You're welcome.  I ordered the DVDs.  I'll report back if there's anything worth mentioning.  

I bought Chances a few years ago and made it fairly far (maybe into the early 110s) but didn't finish it. I found the final arc was less fun than the show was at it peak insanity (85ish-100).

The show starts off very slow. I'd say the first couple episodes are fairly unmemorable other than the lotto and the ending to the first episode. The show picks up potential a bit with some interesting additions (George Mallaby's gangster character) that doesn't really go anywhere. I think by 18-20 I found the show was finally finding its place. 

Jeremy Sims is very good as the young male lead, Alex Taylor. As the show slims down its cast and centers on him, Sims continues to maintain the energy and momentum from those earlier episodes. Sims is a good sport and ends up being the focus of a lot of the nudity (backside only) though there was a fair bit of female nudity as well. I thought the pre-reboot episodes were my favorite (18-60 I think) with some clunkers in there, but mostly an enjoyable story involving a murder and a secret from the past that blended into a couple other stories. 

Connie Reynolds, the nurse sister, was one of my favorite characters. She was the very working class put upon sister more reserved than her hot headed brothers, Dan and Jack. Her ex-husband Eddie Reynolds pops up fairly early on and adds a lot of drama. Their oldest son, Chris Reynolds, is involved in a sexual exploration story with a gay character that leads to a gay bashing and Chris' later affair with another character. It's probably a daring story for the time, but it wasn't amazing by today's standards. Another Taylor son, Ben, is a hairdresser so everyone assumes he is gay. The best queer content is from later when Alex and his business partner Angela and jack of all trades Cal end up in a situation that suggests Alex and Cal may have gone to bed together. It's never confirmed completely, but the insinuation is heavy. 

Annie Jones pops up with a very different look than I was used to. Briohey Behets pops up for a couple episodes as a doctors between seasons of filming Families. 

On occassion, I consider revisiting it because I never did finish (same with Eldorado) and I want to see if I would still enjoy that earlier part of the show as much as I did the first time. Often, the show had really interesting potential that it never capitalized on during both its traditional and its Aussie take on Twin Peaks meets Soap. That level of insanity was really hard to maintain and its last lap about a vampire with a lisp didn't really work as well for me.  

Thanks @dc11786 so much in your writeup I hadn't heard about, especially the gay elements. 

A lengthy piece on the show that I hadn't seen elsewhere. From a presentation at a convention. The photos are long gone but the writeup is still there, complete with some great quotes from Jeremy Sims. They give Sims a lot of credit for his work on the show and how he could play just about anything, which based on the glimpses I've seen, I'd tend to agree with.

I didn't realize until recently that the whole thing had originally been filmed as a pilot several years earlier and then they recast multiple roles. 

I also didn't know the woman who came up with the show was the sister of the infamous Neighbours producer Susan Bower.

https://jblum.livejournal.com/248295.html

Edited October 5Oct 5 by DRW50