When Mike Thompson suddenly walks out on his life in Britain to find his long-lost love in Australia, lives are turned upside down on opposite sides of the world. This is what forms the central storyline of Families, a short-lived daytime twice weekly soap produced by Granada Television in 1990. In an attempt to rival popular Aussie soaps Neighbours and Home and Away, Families was created by writer Kay Mellor who later went on to produce popular television dramas Fat Friends (2000) and The Syndicate (2012). 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.