Return to Eden
Return to Eden is an Australian television drama series starring Rebecca Gilling, James Reyne, Wendy Hughes and James Smillie. It began as a three-part, six-hour mini-series shown on Network Ten on September 27–29, 1983. Gilling and Smillie reprised their roles, with Peta Toppano replacing Hughes, for a 22-part weekly series that began airing on 10 February 1986.
This article is about the television show. For other uses, see Return to Eden (disambiguation).Return to Eden
Australia
English
Mini-series: 3
Weekly series: 22
Hal McElroy
Tim Sanders
Mini-series:
3 × 90 minutes
Weekly series:
22 × 45 minutes
Hanna-Barbera Australia
McElroy & McElroy
Eden Productions
Taft-Hardie
$2.75 million (mini-series)[1]
27 September –
29 September 1983
10 February –
8 July 1986
Return to Eden was created by Michael Laurence; it was an international success, particularly in Russia and France, where it has been shown 13 times.[2]
International distribution[edit]
United Kingdom[edit]
Return to Eden was screened on ITV and was a huge ratings hit during the summer of 1986 (the three-part mini-series had been screened in September 1984). The 1986 UK transmission also ended with the original cliffhanger, as did the 1989 repeat screening. However, the newer ending was screened many years later when the series was repeated on UK satellite television, primarily the now defunct Granada Plus, which showed it twice. It was shown again in the UK in 2010 by the satellite channel CBS Drama, which showed both the original 1983 mini-series and immediately followed this with the 1986 sequel series which included the revised ending.
India[edit]
Return to Eden was remade in India as the 1988 film Khoon Bhari Maang. It starred Rekha and was directed and produced by Rakesh Roshan. The film was a critical as well as box office success.
Iraq[edit]
Return to Eden was broadcast by the National Television of Iraq (Channel 1) between 1989 and 1990, it had an Arabic subtitle added by the national TV of Iraq prior to broadcast.
South Korea[edit]
In 2014, the South Korean webseries Birth of a Beauty was made, adapting the story of Return to Eden (and Khoon Bhari Maang). The plot of a wife taking revenge on the husband who had tried to kill her was kept intact.
Home media[edit]
Both the original mini-series and the follow-up weekly series have been made available on DVD in Australia. Kaleidoscope Film has released the original 1983 mini-series as two "Region 0" discs. Unfortunately, even though the packaging states "Digitally Enhanced", the picture quality of the discs actually leaves a lot to be desired and is reproduced from many generations of copies down from the master. Bonus extras on the discs include interviews with Rebecca Gilling and James Reyne in 2001.
The 1985 series was released as a six-disc set in Australia by MRA Entertainment. Although the picture quality is generally better than the mini-series, there is some tape distortion and interference on some of the episodes during the series. The episodes end on the newer 'zoom-in' Worldvision logo (present after the company was sold to Spelling Entertainment in 1988) except for the final episode which uses the original 'scroll' logo and is the originally aired episode. The DVD boxset does not include the revised ending, leaving the last episode with the unresolved original cliffhanger.
The series has also been released on DVD in the Netherlands in a nine-disc set, which contains the revised ending.
In 2018 MediumRare released the original mini-series in a two disc boxset in Europe. The picture quality in this release is a vast improvement over the previous Kaleidoscope release.
In January 2021, a new 10-disc DVD box set of the original 1983 mini-series and the 1985 sequel series was released in Australia & internationally by Via Vision. This release contains the revised ending. The picture quality of the 1985 TV series is a lot better than on all previous releases of the series however the picture quality of the mini series on this complete series box set is not as good as the stand alone release previously released by MediumRare which is still available.
Remake attempt[edit]
In 2012, the Nine Network announced it was planning to remake Return to Eden as a six-hour mini-series,[9] however in March 2013 it was announced that the planned remake had been shelved for the time being due to financial reasons.[10]