The first female constable to join the station, she is faced with the prospect of not only learning how policing is a little bit different in a country town, but also with overcoming the chauvinism of some of the locals, and of some of her colleagues.

[note 1] The character of Maggie Doyle was created by Hal McElroy and Tony Morphett as a young constable just arriving in the town of Mount Thomas.

[1] Maggie officially joined the Victoria Police midway through 1992, having graduated from the Academy in the same class as her then lover, and later colleague, Wayne Patterson (Grant Bowler).

After reporting for duty, her first day was a whirlwind which saw her shoot a vicious dog before saving the rape victim from a suicide attempt, and finished it off by exposing the rapist for what he truly was in the midst of a crowded pub.

Back at the station, Forbes finally took the breath analysis and was found to be nearly twice the legal limit, but both men insisted that Maggie was mistaken and Glenn had been driving.

Maggie insisted on going through with the charges, backed up by Tom Croydon (John Wood), and was soon put under intense pressure from several sources to drop the case, which resulted in her father, Pat (Dennis Miller), coming to help.

The police were faced with the prospect of children in possession of a loaded weapon which had been modified to require less pressure to pull the trigger, a nightmare waiting to happen.

The news of a crashed prison bus saw Maggie manning a checkpoint on one of the roads out of town and, after her boss is shot while negotiating with a hostage taker, she found herself at the hospital and faced with the mastermind of the escape.

Although the investigation uncovered the fact that she had sex with Adam Cooper (Damian Walshe-Howling) at the party, he was discounted as a suspect and the police decided to use Maggie as bait for the rapist.

The next morning, Maggie and her father took part in a raid on a suspected drug house, where they found the last thing they could've expected: Robbie (David Wenham) unconscious from an overdose.

[11] In early 1997, the Mount Thomas district was gripped by fears that cattle were dying from mad cow disease, and the tension sky-rocketed when the first cases were reported in humans.

[18] The autopsies for the two dead women identified the cause of death as encephalitis and an investigation found it to be the Japanese strain, but P. J. realised that Maggie couldn't be infected because of the 5 to 15-day incubation period: she'd only been to the host farm more recently than that.

[20] While waiting for rescue, the trapped couple discussed, among other things, their hopes and dreams for the future while managing to stay hydrated thanks to water dripping from the mine ceiling.

The rescue was complicated by the fact that the blast which caused the cave-in had made the rest of the tunnel unstable, but the State Emergency Service volunteers managed to extricate them both before the roof caved-in completely.

The real culprit, Gavin's girlfriend, managed to surprise Maggie and was planning to have her drive head-on into a wall, but was prevented from doing so when Robbie arrived on the scene.

[22] For the rest of the season, Maggie was faced with the prospect that Robbie might be back on heroin and was eventually forced to make the heartbreaking decision to arrest him again on drugs charges, with the likely result being his incarceration.

Within minutes of arriving in town, she was plunged headfirst into a fight for survival with Samuel, a young boy in witness protection, against a crazed man, Hank, after being forced to surrender her gun.

[5] P. J. was initially fingered for the murder by a witness and the disappearance of his service weapon from the safe, but the case quickly fell apart, leaving P. J. free and determined to find the true killer.

She also had brief relationships with Glenn Ritchie (Jeremy Callaghan), the press liaison for a local politician, and Sean Neale (Richard Huggett), a detective based in St Davids.

Her father, Pat Doyle (Dennis Miller, is a frequently recurring character throughout the first seven seasons of the show, often arriving in Mount Thomas after hearing that his daughter needs help.

Maggie's eldest brother, Mick Doyle (David Field, later Terry Serio), first appears when the Internal Investigations Division (IID), with whom he is a detective sergeant, arrives in Mount Thomas and raids the home of her colleagues.

For around three years, Maggie's closest friend was her roommate, Gina Belfanti (Rachel Blakely), a local paramedic whose work often crossed path with that of the police before her death, which came after contracting Japanese encephalitis.

[13] Maggie was friendly with all her colleagues, even the occasionally dour Nick Schultz (William McInnes), but found her closest friendship with fellow female officer Dash McKinley (Tasma Walton).

Despite having a strong sense of pride in being a cop, Maggie found herself despising her profession on more than one occasion, describing the force as a "boys' club" after being pressured by her superiors to move out of her room at the Imperial Hotel while she was pursuing charges against a politician.

[1] The character of Maggie Doyle was initially conceived as a strong, opinionated woman who had little time for the outdated and chauvinistic views of her male colleagues and many of the townspeople who were not used to female police officers.

Despite her police heritage, Maggie is shown making her fair share of mistakes, which sometimes have the potential for serious consequences, including one time where her decision to leave her gun belt unattended to help what she thinks is a drowning youth almost ended in the death of a child.

As the only female officer for the first two and a half seasons, Maggie is usually called upon to perform the roles which need a softer touch, like dealing with babies and young children, but she isn't one to shy away from wading into the middle of a brawling crowd.

[1][29] Although higher-ups have tried to convince her to back down on more than one occasion, Maggie is nothing if not stubborn and this bloody-minded determination comes to the fore when she investigates the drug ring she believes led to her brother's death.

[27] Although Blue Heelers was not expected to become a popular programme, the show became a hit shortly after it began airing, with much of this success credited to the quality of the ensemble cast, including Lisa McCune as Maggie Doyle.

[citation needed] As a result of her time on the show, McCune rapidly progressed from being relatively unknown to being one of the most recognisable, and popular, faces on Australian television.