TV: Island time in Fiji

Lynette Forday as Grace Kwan and Michael Galvin as Chris Warner. Shortland Street in Fiji.

Intrigue and romance abound. By Joanna Mathers.

Third-world hospitals and five-star resorts. White-sand beaches and pot-holed village roads. Shortland Street's Fiji sojourn will be a tale of two islands.

As regular viewers probably know, the unlikely foursome of Chris, Harper, Kylie and Boyd will touchdown in Fiji next week. Ostensibly the trip is for charitable work at a Fred Hollows eye clinic, but Shorty wouldn't be Shorty without intrigue, romance and ulterior motives, and the humanitarian mission is set to be overshadowed by some rather more salacious storylines.

The mission is spearheaded by Boyd (Sam Bunkall), who is suffering a bad case of the blues after his part in the demise of Sarah Potts (Amanda Billing) and the sudden departure of former wife Brooke (Beth Allen). The four are set to experience the best and worst the island has to offer - from pina coladas poolside to emergency surgery in sub-standard conditions - but it's the relationship dramas that will get viewers hot under the collar.

Fiji will provide the backdrop for a reprise of the controversial Chris/Grace (played by Michael Galvin and Lynette Forday) storyline - it prompted pages of Facebook derision when first played out earlier in the year. Chris agreed to father Grace's child (the natural way) while he was engaged to Rachel. Then there was the "miscarriage", the dramatic Sydney encounter where Chris discovered the baby (a girl) is still alive, the unrequited love.

As it transpires, Chris' motives for visiting the island are more to do with his unborn child and seeing Grace than helping locals regain their sight. Expect Grace to make an unexpected visit to the Fred Hollows clinic early in the week.

Forday is prepared for the Fiji-based Chris/Grace storyline to ruffle a few feathers back in New Zealand. "I think it's safe to say that there will be a fair few who react badly to the Grace/Chris situation. Chris and Rachel have only been married for a matter of months, and here's Chris having a baby with another woman and lying about it to her," she says.

But she feels Grace's insistence on Chris being honest about the forthcoming baby may see public opinion soften towards her. "Hopefully, she will find some redemption due to her constantly asking Chris to tell Rachel the truth."

The hospital location is also the background for a medical drama in which two Fijian actors will play a starring role. Reapi Navuku, who is in her 60s, and Reama Vulaca, 12, play a grandmother and granddaughter in the episodes, which deal with diabetes, a disease that is almost at epidemic proportions in Fiji.

Wainibokasi Hospital outside of Suva doubled as a Fred Hollows clinic for the filming and the medical scenes were played out against a backdrop of real-life emergency and illness. Forday says it was hard to switch off from the off-screen dramas when filming was taking place.

"As it was a working hospital, much of what we saw was so very confronting. But it was also very humbling to see the extraordinary work done by the staff there."

Galvin agrees. "The hospital entrance was next to the morgue. At one stage, we had
to stop filming so a family could pick up their dead relative and load him into the back of a borrowed truck. That was sobering, to say the least."

It's not all work for the Shorty foursome in Fiji, however - they do get to take a much-needed break at a beachfront resort. Poolside, things start to sizzle between Boyd and Harper (a future love match maybe) - there's some lingering application of sunscreen and longing gazes in the swimming pool.

Kylie, on the other hand, discovers her inner Mother Teresa and throws herself into work at the Fred Hollows clinic - possibly in an attempt to assuage the embarrassment of the earlier handcuff incident.

But it's the Chris/Grace storyline that's likely to hold viewers' attention this
week. And Galvin's not so sure they'll be happy with the outcome. "I don't imagine many people will have an awful lot of sympathy for either of them. It is totally
a situation of their own making."

Shortland Street screens weeknights on TV2 at 7pm.