Lockie Leonard first premiered in the UK on Jetix, airing from April 14, 2007,[4] but would later premiere on 27 September 2008 as part of the children's Saturday morning programme TMi which airs from 09:00 to 10:30 on BBC Two. It ran for the first 12 episodes then continued to air on CBBC Channel.
The show won the 2008 TV WeekLogie Award for Best Children's Series, and star Sean Keenan (Lockie) was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding New Talent. It won the 2007 AFI award for Best Children's Drama Series. The series was also nominated for the 2007 BAFTA Awards for Best International Children's Drama Series.
The premise of the series is the same as the book series from which it is derived. Lockie Leonard is a surf rat who moves with his family to Angelus, a small coastal town in Western Australia. Lockie has to deal with starting high school in a new town with no friends and a house that is in danger of sinking into a swamp. After Lockie "nuts himself smacko in the goolies" (has an accident in which his surfboard strikes him in his "tricky bits"—testicles) in the surf on his second day in town, Lockie meets a headbanger named Egg, and the two eventually become best friends. Earlier that day, while enrolling at his new school, Lockie falls in love for the first time with Vicki Streeton, the smartest and richest girl in the entire school, whose father also happens to be the mayor of Angelus. The first series is spread over Lockie's first year spent in Angelus with his family.[5] Later in the series, Lockie finds turmoil with relationships, with him getting together with Vicki Streeton, breaking up, getting back together, breaking up. He also struggles with home life, with his mother, Joy hospitalised with depression.
Series two
The second series follows Lockie Leonard's second year in Angelus, middle of nowhere, where Lockie must cope with new situations. Vicki leaves to go to boarding school, and Lockie makes friends with new girl Mel, to whom he is initially assigned "buddy duty". His best friend Egg decides to make a new best friend in school bully, Curtis, and begins dating Vicki's friend Sasha. Lockie's brother Phillip enters Angelus High a year early owing to his impressive intelligence, and discovers a new friend or two along the way. Meanwhile, poetry-loving Sarge must deal with the new constable at the police station, and Joy decides to get out of the house and set up a new radio station, Radio Angelus.
The second series of Lockie Leonard was filmed in 2009 and screened in Australia on the Nine Network and WIN in 2010. The cast list remained unchanged, with new and original stories formulated by the show's writers. The new series follows a more mature Lockie's adventures and is once again set in Albany, Western Australia.[8] The episode guide was announced online on 6 December 2009, on the Australian Television website.[9]
The second series first screened on 17 May 2010 on Nickelodeon New Zealand, and the Nine Network in Australia on 21 August 2010, continuing weekly.[10] In the United States, the series began airing on 21 June 2010 on Disney XD at 9:30am. In Latin America, the series premiered on Wednesday, 2 June 2010 on Boomerang. In the United Kingdom, it began airing Monday 2 August 2010 and continued daily (except on Fridays) on the CBBC channel at 11:30am.
DVD release
A DVD box set of the first series of Lockie Leonard was released in Australia in mid-August 2008, and the UK on 19 July 2010, with the second series scheduled for release in Australia on 2 March 2011 by Universal Studios, and later in 2011 by Revelation Films for the UK.
DVD
Release date
Lockie Leonard: The Complete Series 1
August 2008 (Australia), July 2010 (United Kingdom)
Lockie Leonard: Series 2, Part 1
March 2011 (Australia), December 2011 (United Kingdom)
Lockie Leonard: Series 2, Part 2
December 2011 (Australia), March 2012 (United Kingdom)
