Series Ending
The final episode screened in Australia concluded with a cliffhanger ending in anticipation of a second season. Closing scenes featured Dennis being knocked unconscious and kidnapped by an unseen assailant. Meanwhile, upstairs at Stephanie's mansion while a party went on downstairs, Jilly pulled a gun on Stephanie in yet another attempt to murder her. Jake attempted to wrest the gun from Jilly but the gun went off in the struggle, fatally wounding him and splattering Stephanie with his blood. Stephanie then grabbed the gun away from Jilly as Jake careened into the hallway and down the stairs where he dies in full view of the shocked party guests. A horrified Stephanie, with blood on her face and clothes and still holding the gun in her hand, descends the stairs after Jake. Jilly then appears and tells everyone that she just saw Stephanie shoot Jake.
The show's ratings had not been high enough to justify a renewal so this cliffhanger was never initially resolved for Australian audiences. The actors playing Stephanie, Jilly and Dennis were later brought back to film a hasty five-minute conclusion to the various unresolved story threads that was added to the end of the final episode. Dennis' abductor, revealed as his half-brother and Stephanie's long-lost son Chris (Graham Harvey), quickly abandoned his plan to hold Dennis to ransom when he learned Stephanie had been arrested for Jake's murder. Chris had in fact been following Stephanie so had witnessed the shooting incident from the bedroom balcony, and what's more had photographs that proved what had really happened. He quickly cleared Stephanie who was released while Jilly was arrested for murder. This new ending was never seen in the original Australian run and only included in the version of the last episode that was sold internationally. Network 10 repeated the series twice in the 1990s and at least one screening contained the revised ending.
In the UK, Return To Eden was screened on ITV and was a huge ratings hit during the summer of 1986. 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.
Read more about this topic: Return To Eden
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