Winners & Losers | |
---|---|
Created by | Bevan Lee |
Starring |
Virginia Gay Melanie Vallejo Zoe Tuckwell-Smith Melissa Bergland Blair McDonough Damien Bodie Stephen Phillips Denise Scott Francis Greenslade Sarah Grace Jack Pearson Tom Wren Mike Smith Tom Hobbs Katherine Hicks Sibylla Budd Nick Russell Nathin Butler James Saunders Laura Gordon Demi Harman Paul Moore |
Country of origin | Australia |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 5 |
No. of episodes | 109 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | John Holmes Julie McGauran |
Producer(s) | MaryAnne Carroll (S1) Paul Moloney (S2–) |
Location(s) | Melbourne, Australia |
Running time | 44 minutes |
Production company(s) | Seven Productions |
Release | |
Original network | Seven Network |
Picture format |
576i (PAL) 1080i (HDTV) (2016) |
Audio format | Stereo |
Original release | 22 March 2011 | – 12 September 2016
External links | |
Website |
Winners & Losers is an Australian television drama series first broadcast on the Seven Network on 22 March 2011. It was created by the producers of Packed to the Rafters and is aired in the show's former time slot. Winners & Losers focuses on the lives of four women living in Melbourne, after they win a large amount of money in the Oz Lotto. Seven renewed Winners & Losers for a second season in July 2011 and it began airing from 26 June 2012. Two months later, it was announced the series had been renewed for a third season. A fourth season was confirmed on 19 December 2013. A fifth season was confirmed on 3 December 2014.
Angus Ross, the Director of Programming at the Seven Network, confirmed in an interview with Australian television blog, TV Tonight, that the fifth season of Winners & Losers would be the final season. The season premiered on 5 July 2016 and concluded on 12 September 2016.
Winners & Losers was created by Bevan Lee. Lee wanted to create a drama focusing on females for a number of years before the programme's creation. He also created Packed to the Rafters. While the former is focused on family relationships, Winners and Losers concentrates on friendships and is aimed at a younger demographic. Lee said it focuses on the "fun and drama of how we all carry the inner loser inside us, no matter how much life makes a winner of us." Lee said the programme's genre is "charmedy" consisting of drama, comedy and charm.
The series revolves around the lives of four women: Jenny Gross (Melissa Bergland), Bec Gilbert (Zoe Tuckwell-Smith), Frances James (Virginia Gay) and Sophie Wong (Melanie Vallejo). The girls were "the losers" in high school. Ten years later, they realise they are really winners once they are reunited at their school reunion and afterwards, win the Oz Lotto. At the time of early production, the main actresses were required to spend time together off set to build believable chemistry between themselves. The show's producer Maryanne Carroll was partly responsible for creating the lives of the four main female characters. She oversaw a "team of experts" who chose music for scenes, styled their homes and chose their clothing. The items placed in each home were designed to identify with the characters living there.