Lives are turned upside down by the reappearance of Mike Thompson - the man who suddenly walked out on his family and business to find his long-lost love in Australia. In this episode of Families, Sue welcomes her husband back to the UK, but what has she been up to with John, her brother-in-law? Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, tensions are running high with young couple Chris and Corinne and her pregnancy announcement.

After the failure of the soap Albion Market in 1986, Granada Television made another attempt to create a successful daytime soap to rival popular Aussie imports Neighbours and Home and Away. Families was created by writer Kay Mellor, who later produced popular television dramas Band of Gold (1995-97), Fat Friends (2000-05 and The Syndicate (2012-21). It was a daytime, twice weekly soap set in the UK and Australia. Each episode switched between the two locations. Reportedly costing Granada £3 million to produce, exterior scenes were filmed on location in Australia, and interior scenes were filmed in Manchester. The soap tackled a number of controversial storylines in its daytime slot, including incest, drugs and suicide. The programme ended in 1993.