This was published 1 year ago
Melissa Leong joins SBS, Alone winner Gina Chick scores two new roles
By Karl Quinn
Melissa Leong will swap designer threads for hospital scrubs as she fronts the immersive documentary series The Hospital: In The Deep End for SBS next year.
Leong says that when she was approached to be part of the three-part series, in which actor Samuel Johnson and Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis will also get a small taste of life as a public hospital staffer, it immediately resonated because of her mother’s experience in healthcare.
The Hospital: In The Deep End hosted by Samuel Johnson, Melissa Leong and Costa Georgiadis.
“She was nursing unit manager in the emergency department in Sutherland Hospital for about a decade, and she’s been a nurse since she was 17,” she says. “So to be given the opportunity to be a deeply unqualified fly on the wall, to get a feel for how much pressure the public health system is under, why would you say no to that?”
The unveiling of Leong as an SBS star comes a week after Network 10 revealed a new-look four-person hosting line-up for its flagship MasterChef Australia – minus Leong. Of the three hosts who joined the show in 2020 after the shock departure of original trio Matt Preston, George Calombaris and Gary Mehigan, only Andy Allen will remain in 2024.
Leong, who was nominated for a Gold Logie in 2022, will, however, remain with 10 as co-host of Dessert Masters. The MasterChef spin-off has been renewed for a second season in 2024, even though the first 10-episode run does not begin until November 12.
Leong insists her departure from the main show was always part of the plan.
“I always said I would love to be in the position where, when it’s my time, I get to welcome and congratulate the next batch of judges and hand that baton on,” she says. “And I get to do that, which is the most wonderful thing, and I get to explore so many other parts of who I am.”
Working on MasterChef, she says, “made me wake up to the other parts of my life that bring me joy, that turn my brain on … [now] I get the best of both worlds – I get to be able to grow a beloved institution with Dessert Masters, plus I get to do this [The Hospital].”
Also getting to stretch in a (somewhat) new direction next year will be Gina Chick.
The winner of season one of SBS’s breakout hit Alone Australia – which is the most successful original commission in the network’s history, and has now been sold to the US, UK and Canada, with other territories expected to follow – will host a companion podcast in 2024.
Alone Australia winner Gina Chick. Credit: SBS
The survival show’s second season has been filmed in the South Island of New Zealand, and will see contestants able to hunt feral animals such as possums using crossbows and arrows, in stark contrast to the tight restrictions on hunting faced by the first season’s contestants in Tasmania.
Chick will also be a participant on the second season of outdoor adventure show Great Australian Walks (alongside Julia Zemiro and actor-comedian Susie Youssef), a clear indication the network feels it has unearthed a rare talent with a bright future.
“People loved her,” SBS head of television Kathryn Fink says of rewilding advocate Chick. “She’s such an incredibly engaging and unique voice, so natural and relaxed in front of the camera. We’re really happy to be working with her again.”
Ray Martin will host the three-part documentary series The Last Goodbye, in which the veteran presenter and journalist responds to the fact that, “statistically speaking, he has only four years left on the clock” by planning his own funeral, and otherwise taking a deep dive into all things death.
Ray Martin prepares for death in The Last Goodbye.
Shaun Micallef is journeying in the opposite direction, accompanying a bunch of comedians as they go back to where they came from, culturally speaking, in the six-part Origin Odyssey.
On the drama front, Four Years – from Easy Tiger, producers of The Twelve and Colin from Accounts – is a romance about a couple who try to find their way back to each other after four years of living apart, one in India, the other in Australia.
Swift Street, from Zimbabwean-born Tig Terera, is a father-daughter crime comedy set in the western suburbs of Melbourne, starring Cliff Curtis (Fear The Walking Dead, Avatar: The Way of Water) and Tanzyn Crawford (Tiny Beautiful Things).
The Handmaid’s Tale will return for its sixth and final season, and Rogue Heroes – which was one of the network’s standout hits this year, with an average 952,000 viewers per episode – will return for a second season.
SBS also has the broadcast rights to every game of the FIFA World Cup in 2026 – 104 games, live and free, from the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the USA.
SBS has had a long history with the world game’s biggest tournament, but was beaten to the lion’s share of the rights to the 2018 event by Optus Sport. But following widespread issues with Optus’s ability to handle the streaming volume, SBS stepped in as an emergency broadcast partner.
Contact the author at kquinn@theage.com.au, follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin, and read more of his work here.
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