Overview
McLeod's Daughters is a 1996 Australian television film, it aired on the Nine Network on 11 May 1996, which was Mother's Day. It remains the highest-rated telemovie of all time in Australia. The movie serves as a back door pilot for the later McLeod's Daughters television series.
Synopsis
Following the death of her mother, Tess Silverman travels to Drovers Run, a rural cattle property in South Australia, and the farm where she spent the first few years of her life. She intends to make her visit a short one and move on to Venice to continue on with her life. Once there she endeavours to reconnect with her only remaining family, her father Jack McLeod and her half-sister Claire, whom she has not seen in 20 years, since her mother left Jack and moved to the city, and taking Tess with her. Tess arrives in a complex situation and finds herself meeting an adoring father but a hostile sister whom she no longer knows and who resents her sudden arrival and even quicker ability to win over Jack, something she feels that she has never completely been able to accomplish.
The unexpected accidental death of their father forces the sisters to overcome their differences and the many obstacles before them to realise their father's dream of running Drovers Run together. To complicate matters, Tess begins to take drastic action to alleviate the property's debts, including firing stockmen, and organising an all female muster of cattle for sale. Her actions alienate her sister's fiancé, putting strain on their engagement and forcing Claire to begin re-evaluating her own future plans. Despite problems with the local bank and the temporary loss of their prized bull, things turn out well in the end as the sisters learn to work together and are able to refinance their father's loans, thus saving the property.
Cast
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).