EXCLUSIVE TO THE OFFICIAL SHORTLAND STREET WEBSITE:

Shortland Street is set to reveal the face of the serial killer in the final episode for 2007 (Dec 14).  With anticipation at an all-time-high we spoke to Producer Jason Daniel about the most talked about story in the show's 15-year history:

Did you decide who would be the killer at the start, or pick one along the way?

We wrote the entire story with our killer very much in mind.  I suppose we could have done an Agatha Christie and kept our options open until the last moment, then picked the character that the audience least expected.  But it would have been much harder to make that psychologically plausible.  Once the killer is revealed I hope everyone will see how the pieces all fall into place - especially if you've been picking up on the various clues along the way.  Our killer fits the typical profile of a serial killer fairly perfectly.   
   

Then how come the police haven't been able to make an arrest?  Lara Wade hasn't done a very good job, has she?

She's done about as well as most real police seem to do.  One of my missions with this story was to depict the police rather more realistically than they are depicted on most TV dramas.  If you watch Law & Order or CSI they always get their man, they rarely make a serious mistake, there's always handy bits of forensic evidence, and they always out-smart the bad guy in the final interrogation scene.  But in the real world the bad guys frequently out-smart the police (or their lawyers do).  There isn't always any definitive forensic evidence.  And all too often the police stuff up badly.  They pollute the crime scene, they let the killer go, or - as happened in New Zealand very recently - they take three days to find a body that's right under their noses. 

And when you read the case histories of some of the more notorious serial killers the most startling thing is how inept the police often are.  In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer (who killed 17 times between 1978 and 1991) the police actually let him go several times.  They even took one of Dahmer's victims, who had escaped, back to Dahmer's apartment, where he had the severed heads of other victims in his refrigerator.  Dahmer claimed the 14-year-old was his 19-year-old boyfriend and the police believed him!  The fact is that most serial killers continue getting away with murder for years, sometimes decades.  All things considered, Lara Wade hasn't done too badly.

Where does the serial killer story go from here?

As the story continues next year we'll go inside the head of the serial killer and get to see exactly what motivates them.  One episode is virtually "A Day in the Life of a Serial Killer", and it's very, very creepy.  I can't give too much away, but I can promise that it builds to a very tense and disturbing finale.

It seems like the serial killer story has been great for ratings?

Yes, the ratings have been steadily building through most of the year.  In recent weeks we've consistently attracted around 60% of the available audience in the key 18-39 demographic, and around 75% of the key female demographic.  "Concerned parents" keep telling me that they no longer allow their children to watch Shortland Street because the serial killer story is too disturbing", but this certainly hasn't been reflected in the ratings.

So what kind of story can you do next year to top the serial killer story?

Something entirely different.  Although our last really big ratings winner was Jay and Maia's wedding at the start of 2006.  So it has been suggested that what we need next is a lesbian serial killer.   

What has the audience reaction been like?

Massive.  Traffic to the TVNZ (official) Shortland Street website has more than doubled in the past month alone, and we had nearly a million hits in November.  The actors are besieged wherever they go, the first question on everyone's lips being "who's the killer?"  At the Qantas Awards, we had the Campbell Live production team badgering us, desperate to know.  It's great to know they're not missing out, thanks to the Sunday omnibus. 

Unfortunately, the line between fact and fiction gets a bit blurry for some viewers.  Adam Rickitt was attacked in a furniture store a few months back by a woman who was convinced Kieran had killed Claire.  And a few of the other "suspects" have been abused and hassled in a less-than-friendly way.  It's great that the story has captured their imaginations, but let's keep it real, eh:  They're actors, people!  And no nurses have been harmed in the making of this series.

So - the three endings - leak or publicity stunt?

You can see for yourself on December 14.