All Saints (season 11)

The 11th season opens with the majority of the team held hostage in the Emergency Department at gunpoint, the hospital's pathology lab exploding and a drug robbery underway. This is the All Saints team at its best, with patients to keep alive while their own safety is at risk. The siege unlocks a memory Von Ryan has managed to keep buried for decades and must now deal with. Despite this, Von is supportive when Bart West falls deeply in love with a woman whom he diagnoses with cancer and then later dies. Mike Vlasek donates a kidney to his son and must deal with post-op pain when he can't have morphine. A volatile triangle is formed between Steve Taylor, Gabrielle Jaeger, and Jack Quade with the men coming to blows when personal agendas spill into the professional arena. And finally Dan Goldman and Erica Templeton provide us with the first All Saints wedding since 2003.

By the end of Season 11, when the fights have been fought and won, when newlyweds are beginning their lives together, when the ED family is settled and closer than ever, Admin has been given money to launch a full trauma unit that will introduce new characters to the mix.

Actor Mark Priestley, who played Dan Goldman on the show, took his own life on 27 August 2008. As a result, the show's final two episodes had to be re-filmed. It is presumed that the nature of these episodes, in which Mark's on-screen wife goes missing, led Mark to suicide. The Seven Network paid tribute with a video clip in the following episode, along with actor John Howard in a plea to all those with depression to get help.

As a result of Mark's death, the on-screen wife, played by Jolene Anderson who had already been absent from his last seven episodes (including the penultimate episode in which he only appeared in the first half), was killed off in the show as Jolene believed she could not go on playing the role. Mark's final episode was aired on 18 November.

The Seven Network faced potential legal action after the airing of episode 432, "Never Tell" on 27 May 2008. The episode suggested that children with Down Syndrome are a result of incestuous relationships, provoking advocacy group Down Syndrome Australia to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, insisting that major advertisers in the show's timeslot boycott it and asking for a public apology from Seven. In the episode, a brother and sister are told that their unborn child is at risk of developing Down Syndrome as a result of their sexual relationship – according to Down Syndrome Australia, there is no evidence to support such a claim:[1]

All Saints has stigmatised every person with Down syndrome and their families. We already know of one instance where a child has been victimised because of this episode.

— Peter Sloan, Down Syndrome Australia

Seven responded with an apology through a newspaper on 2 June.[2]

All Saints values its audience and has the greatest respect for their commitment to the program. Without reservation, to any members of the audience who have found an element of a recent story offensive, Channel Seven apologises.

Down Syndrome Australia rejected the apology on 3 June, saying that the Seven Network's response was insufficient.:[3]

We're not going to accept a wishy-washy attempt at an apology that's come second-hand through a newspaper. They must say once and for all that there is categorically no link between Down syndrome and incest. We'll give them the opportunity to make a retraction during tonight's episode before we formally pursue legal advice and write official letters of complaint to the show's advertisers.

— Catherine McAlpine, Down Syndrome Victoria

Until there's a formal recognition of error, it's not enough. First they flat refused to apologise at all, and now they've apologised if they happened to offended anyone. The next step is to broadcast a message saying 'if we implied Down syndrome is a product of incestuous relationships, we were wrong. It's an easy thing to do and the only way to put this thing to bed.

— Peter Sloan, Down Syndrome Australia