City Life (1996)

Genre

drama

Country

New Zealand

Length

2 seasons, 26 episodes

Rating

5.0 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A group of ten single people live in a fancy apartment building in Auckland. The show follows their relationships and personal dramas. It starts with a building owner who dies hours before his wedding.

glossydramaticromanticsoapylightheartedfast-pacedsensationalurban

What happens

City Life is a New Zealand soap opera that screened on TV 2 from 1996–98. It was portrayed the lives and loves of ten singles who lived in an upmarket apartment building in Auckland, New Zealand. The show was touted as New Zealand's answer to Melrose Place. The show starred Claudia Black, Lisa Chappell, Laurie Foell and Oliver Driver and featured a guest appearance by well known New Zealand actor, Kevin Smith. The show had a long development period, and the original treatment for the show had it set in Wellington with the working title 96 Oriental Parade. However, it was decided to produce the show in Auckland instead, and as such, the shows setting was changed along with the name to City Life. The first episode began with a controversial first scene, featuring a drunken Damon (Kevin Smith) who owned the apartment building, in a homosexual kiss with his former lover Ryan on the night before his wedding. Damon was later killed off in the same episode after being hit by a car on the way to his wedding, and he left his apartment building to all of his friends. However, Damon's fianceè vowed to fight for her share of Damon's estate, leading to a storyline that would span the show's first five episodes. The show initially rated well but executives were somewhat alarmed by a major drop in the show's audience in the first five minutes of the first episode (believed to be the result of the kiss between Damon and Ryan). Within weeks ratings had dropped to the point where the show was placed in a later timeslot. A few weeks later, the show was taken off air entirely, after ten episodes had been screened. The show was not brought back until late 1997, and the remaining episodes were screened until the beginning of 1998. The series has never been repeated. The success of the first season prompted broadcasters from over eighty countries being interested in buying rights for the show, including proposals from three major networks in Britain and Australia. In late August 1996, however, it moved from its key 8:30pm timeslot to 9:35pm, being displaced in favour of Chicago Hope, which was experiencing a ratings upsurge in the United States. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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