Renegade Planner Lives on the Edge

Press release: For Immediate Release

Premiering on Nine next Month, fresh from its Emmy award-winning debut season in the US, is the hit drama Material Detriment, set in the high stakes, high pressure world of urban planning. The series follows the life – and loves – of planners in a tough inner urban municipality, as they battle petty one-off developers and the larger, more sinister Mendoza Development Group (MDG).

Material Detriment centres on the tumultuous lives of its four leads:

  • Senior Planner Jack Detriment (Kiefer Sutherland) is a tough, street-wise planner. Abrasive and argumentative, he is committed to doing whatever it takes to keep his neighbourhood orderly and proper. He has little patience with the pen-pushing bureaucrats who seem to be emerging from Planning Academy, and just wants to get on with clearing the unresolved applications off his books. If he has to bend a few rules to get there, so be it.
  • Cadet Planner Dwight Rosewood (Jesse Spencer) is an idealistic rookie planner, straight out of the Academy. He graduated top of his class and his knowledge of the key planning texts is unparalleled. Strongly committed to appropriate statutory process, he is partnered with Detriment in the hope of reigning in his senior officer’s more extreme methods. Out in the “real world” for the first time, he learns a few lessons about life, loyalty… and love.
  • Team Leader John Taggart (Brian Dennehy) is the grizzled, cynical head of the branch, and the man responsible for pairing Detriment and Rosewood. Just 6 weeks from retirement, he is constantly exasperated by Detriment’s methods, warning him that one of these days, he’ll have to hand in his ID card. Yet he secretly respects his star officer, grudgingly acknowledging that without him, the branch’s processing times would be much longer. Gunned down in the 2 part series finale.
  • Junior Planner Tiffany Summers (Katherine Heigl) is the rising star of the branch, still fighting to make headway in the testosterone-filled halls of the Planning Branch. Raised in an exclusive suburb and the daughter of the Planning Minister, she constantly riles against the assumption that her wealth and connections got her the job, and that she plans on sleeping her way to the top. Her love / hate relationship with Detriment (source of much “will they or won’t they” discussion amongst the series’ fanbase) comes to a head when they attend an interstate Planning conference together.

Season highlights include:

Incompatible Uses:” In their first assignment together, Detriment and Rosewood clash over the best methods for imposing order on the streets. But when their car breaks down in an underdeveloped area, they encounter a group of disgruntled residents with some old scores to settle.

Expert Witness:” A crucial witness could lift the lid on MDG’s latest plans, and Detriment and Rosewood must see that she is transported across the City to the Tribunal. Yet the MDG don’t want to see her arrive on time… or at all.

Passive Surveillance:” An officer from the shadowy Urban Design Branch argues the benefits of increased surveillance of the streets. But the residents of a new MDG development might not like what they see…

Further Information:” An old partner of Detriment asks him to process a seemingly harmless application. In order to get it out to advertising promptly, Detriment neglects to ask for a crucial piece of further information… and is drawn into a web of deception.

Limits of Discretion:” In a tense episode filled with crackling dialogue, MDG fight at the Tribunal for a variation to a mandatory height limit. It seems like an open and shut case, and Summers is handed the application… only to find the height limit is more discretionary than it first appears.

Enforcement Action:” Against the recommendations of the Branch, the Tribunal lets a notorious development go with only a slap on the wrist: a series of weak and inadequate conditions. Disillusioned with the system, Detriment turns to an old friend who specialises in the dirty business of “enforcement.” But Detriment’s nightmare has only just begun.

60 Days is Not Long Enough to Grieve:” In the season finale, plans are drawn up for Taggart’s retirement party. He has just one final appearance to make: arguing at the Tribunal against an MDG proposal to place a major entertainment complex outside of an existing activity centre. But Taggart meets an unexpected fate. Leads straight into the season 2 opener, “… But 28 is Enough to Avenge.”

Originally published in the “Clause 101” column of Planning News 34, no. 7 (August 2008): 30.