Australian Tumbleweeds
The Weekly: Mass Debate Edition
The Weekly did a special post-election debate episode and you know what? Tom Gleeson was the funniest thing on it. Yeah, we know you can read that two ways, this isn’t our first rodeo.
Exactly why they bothered is a bit of a mystery. No doubt being bumped back to 9.30pm by the election debate had something to do with it. The Weekly isn’t exactly known for it’s searing topical satire. This was no exception. The few debate jokes they served up were very much reheated goods, pulled out of a sack of generic gags they could deploy if Dutton talked about, say, nuclear power. Or even if he didn’t.
And then it was back to the usual pointless news recap. Blah blah blah, same old same old, at least Rhys Nicholson was funny God the ABC needs to give him his own show.
Thankfully Margaret Pomeranz was nowhere to be seen. Don’t worry, the bottomless pit of hilarity that is little old ladies was still plumbed for a segment about stories supposedly sent in by Pickering’s mum. Was there also a mention of Albo’s dog? You know it! They’d be taken off air for stalking if that dog were human.
Back to Gleeson. He was given the brief chance to remind us all that he was a comedian before he became a snarky host and he grabbed it with both hands. The idea of him taking on a new career as a Dutton impersonator if the LNP wins wasn’t exactly original. Every aggressively bald man in the country has been pitching for that gig. Too bad that Australia hasn’t put an actual political impression* to air since the Rudd era.
But we’re always going to laugh at a deliberately shit impression, and Gleeson delivered a good (by which we mean bad) one. We’re not going to jump on the Gleeson bandwagon any time soon. Or ever, if he keeps on with the “hey, I’m a dick, deal with it” persona and honestly, why would he give it up now? But it was still nice to actually get a laugh out of one of the handful of presenters who seemingly have a stranglehold on comedy in this country.
Oh look, Gruen is back in a fortnight for three straight months of Wil Anderson. Yay.
.
*all those characters on Mad as Hell went way beyond what you used to get on The Gillies Report
Sam Pang Tonight – half time report
Last week, Sam Pang Tonight’s mid-series renewal had a few people scratching their heads. After several decades of networks cancelling new shows of this type after just a couple of episodes (especially shows which annoyed people online and had been dipping in the ratings) it got renewed. Huh?! What’s with the programmers not shitting the bed?
The people at 10, it seems, have cool heads. Good. New comedies need a chance to find their feet, and despite Pang’s on-air gags about falling ratings, his show is not only still well within the Monday night Top 30 but worth persisting with.
There are various things you could do to improve the show, of course, but that would require a bigger budget to, amongst other things, write and film sketches that aren’t pushing someone into a Christmas tree. And the money to do that clearly isn’t on the table. Which means the team have to be as inventive and funny as possible within their budget. But this is nothing new to the people who make comedy shows for 10.
10 basically has a house style for its comedies, and it’s this: make it for cheap, don’t be too political and keep the gags coming. Have You Been Paying Attention?, The Cheap Seats and now Sam Pang Tonight, all fit this bill, and all attract a regular audience.
And if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to get laughs, making sure the guest announcer gets lots of chances to butt in is a good one. Those with long memories might remember Hannah Gadsby performing a similar function on the Adam Hills-hosted In Gordon Street Tonight, and how her quips from the other side of the studio boosted an otherwise so-so program.
So, after a lacklustre start with Dave Thornton in the first show, who didn’t seem to have much to say, subsequent guest announcers (Kitty Flanagan, Guy Montgomery, Anne Edmonds and Becky Lucas) have clearly been given the brief to jump in with zingers at every opportunity. And not only is it funny to see Pang squirm, or spar with them, or in the case of Becky Lucas, find it all a bit confusing, but it’s a welcome contrast to Pang’s more laid-back, Dad joke-adjacent style.
Not that Pang’s laid-back style is necessarily a bad thing. Only a true Dad joke connoisseur would stand in front of an increasingly sceptical public and subject them to four weeks of that Christmas tree segment.
Perhaps a little more original is the “Questions I’ve Always Wanted to Ask and Now I’ve Got My Own Show I Finally Can” segment. So far, we’ve had a doctor, a cop and chef Matt Moran, who’ve all had to sit through bizarre scenes from films showing people doing their jobs. It turns out, films aren’t always depicting professions accurately, and it’s funny seeing how.
SIDEBAR: Imagine for a second how a low-budget ABC comedy show, like Gruen or Question Everything would handle the same topic. Not by showing clips of Rambo burning his wound and then having a doctor comment, “Well, it’s not the treatment I’d recommend”, that’s for sure. More like several minutes of Wil Anderson or someone giving a dull and largely laugh-free explanation of the correct way to deal with injuries whilst sheltering in a cave in Afghanistan.
But even with Sam Pang Tonight’s ability to make a decent show with no budget, there are still going to be people wishing this was The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon or The Graham Norton Show or INSERT TALK SHOW HERE. Because what these people perceive as great tonight show entertainment is celebrity guests.
Like we’ve said before, the kind of big-name guests who’ll show up for Fallon aren’t likely to be anywhere near 10’s Melbourne studios on a Monday. Or any other day. So, the key here is booking the most interesting, hopefully funny, locally-based chatters, getting as much out them as you can, and then doing other stuff. Like playing weird old news footage and segments where people guess what cutlery has been shoved into a tub of dip. It may be a bit lame, but it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than someone famous plugging whatever thing they’re on to plug.
So, while Sam Pang Tonight hasn’t been perfect, it has quickly learnt what works for it, and what doesn’t, and the network has backed that. Which might not sound like a win, but in 2025 Australian comedy definitely is.
Double the Fresh Blood
In their wisdom, the ABC are now showing this year’s Fresh Blood winners on the free-to-air channel as well as iView. Well, two of them at least. While we’re getting Urvi Went to an All Girls School and Westeners, the third of the pilots – Going Under – is nowhere to be seen. The press release said it was a comedy-drama “about personal growth and the connection between individuals and their communities”. Yeah, we’ll wait.
We’ve expressed our views (basically, “meh“) on both these pilots before. These finished versions don’t change things up all that much. And why would they? They won the competition. But the extended run time does give them more room to breathe. Does that make them worthy additions to the ABC line-up? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Urvi isn’t quite a YA series. But its focus on teenagers at high school (plus some family drama) does give it that vibe. It’s also more of a dramedy than an outright comedy. The jokes are often funny and there’s some silly stuff mixed in, but “I want to do drama at high school” isn’t much of a hook. It’s a funny and well observed look at high school from the students point of view. It just doesn’t go beyond that to become anything universal.
(this definitely feels like something 10 or a streaming service might pick up. Just add a few more diverse characters and make it more of an ensemble show)
Likewise, this version of Westeners has a lot more (and better) jokes, but if you’re not into the arts / media scene in Australia we don’t know what to tell you. A lot of the humor and observations here are very much insider stuff. They’re strong jokes; it’s still a show where the main storyline is that an artist gets lured away from her calling with the promise of making lots of money speaking on panels.
(Westerners has the comedy advantage out of the two shows, but the subject matter is firmly “niche ABC project”)
Both these pilots do a great job of bringing their settings and relationships to life. The personal and cultural elements in both are especially strong. In both cases we would have happily watched a few more scenes focused on that. And to be fair, it’s a fine line between “who cares about this stuff?” and “by being so specific, they’ve managed to make it universal”. Maybe given a six episode run both shows could cross that line. Both these pilots – again, can’t stress this enough, they’re well made and often pretty funny – just aren’t there yet.
A problem is that they’re both about people who want to be in the arts. Urvi wants to star in a drama production; the two leads in Westeners are an artist and a fashion designer. Sure, write what you know and all that. But if Fresh Blood just keeps on serving up pilots that are thinly veiled autobiographies from twenty-somethings working in the arts, it’s going to look even more pointless. The ABC in its current state is never going to give a show like that a series*.
If the ABC still ran local comedy on ABC2 / ABC Comedy / whatever it used to be called? Both of these pilots would definitely have a proper home. It’s a sad state of affairs when we’re shaking our heads at two pretty funny shows and saying “that’s not enough”. But in 2025? When the ABC is maybe only doing three local sitcoms for the year and one is the UK co-production Austin? It’s not enough.
A big part of the problem is that, as we saw earlier this year with Optics, an ABC sitcom really does have to go as broad as possible to try and grab as many viewers as possible. Did the way Optics took a young up-and-coming comedy duo and then paired them with the middle-aged Charles Firth and then stuck them in yet another generic sitcom explaining how the media “really works” make for a funny show? Of course not. But that’s the path that ABC sitcoms, even a winner like Fisk, have to travel.
If the ABC made more than a handful of scripted comedies a year, sure. Then there’d be room for some actual variety. They could seriously develop new talent instead of running yet another program that creates a bunch of one-offs that are never going anywhere. They could run series where being funny was the whole point.
And maybe pigs might fly. They’d probably be funnier than another series of Austin.
.
*was the possibly relevant White Fever really a comedy? We still don’t know – and we’ll probably never find out, as a second series seems off the table
Biff Pang Pow
Press release time!
Back By Popular Demand.
Sam Pang Tonight Confirmed For Second 2025 Season.
It’s been a long time between drinks for Australian tonight shows, but this year, Network 10 is giving audiences a double shot: that’s right, Sam Pang Tonight is coming back for season two.
Sam Pang Tonight will bookend the year with a fresh eight-episode run in late 2025. Expect more laughs as Sam takes on the week’s news and welcomes a bunch more guests, including local legends, engaging experts, and comedy mates playing the part of Special Guest Announcer. Will the crowd-favourite Wheel of Segments return? Hard to say, but turns out there’s no shortage of people willing to be pushed into a Christmas tree.
Sam Pang said: “I’m thrilled to be coming back for Season 2. I’m very grateful to Channel 10 for their support and commitment to the show and giving me the opportunity to continue doing something I love.”
Daniel Monaghan, Senior Vice President Content & Programming said: “It’s always a thrill to share a fresh new format with viewers, and we’re absolutely delighted with the success of Sam Pang Tonight. Aussies are loving Sam’s signature comedy style so it’s no surprise Sam Pang Tonight was 10’s biggest new show launch since 2022. We’re excited to keep the laughs rolling with a second season confirmed for the back end of 2025.”
Good news for fans of somewhat ramshackle comedy! Bad news for a lot of people who seem to have spent the last few weeks complaining Sam Pang Tonight isn’t the perfect tonight show they’ve had playing in their heads for the last decade or so.
This somewhat unexpected return – yeah, even we were wondering if it was going to see out the original eight episode order – does raise one question. If it’s coming back later in the year, what’s it going to replace?
Usually HYBPA? and The Cheap Seats see out the year and then some, and that’s the Monday and Tuesday evening slots taken. Will one of them be ending their season early this year? Will Sam Pang Tonight make the move to another (to)night? Was Sam Pang Tonight really Ten’s “biggest new show launch since 2022”? Has Ten actually had any new shows since 2022? And will they still be pushing people into Christmas trees when it’s Christmas?
Taken to Task
Taskmaster is back for season… four? Five? Three? Let’s say four. And you know what that means: proof positive that the format doesn’t require comedians at all wait what?
Taskmaster has traditionally featured comedians and Julia Morris because parts of the format – mostly the part where they sit around in a studio while Tom Gleeson insults them – work better with everyone cracking jokes. That doesn’t mean it works well, as anyone who soaked in all the dead air in the first episode of this seasons knows. But still, jokes: maybe we’ll get lucky.
This season tho, we have joining the cast one Lisa McCune, AKA “Australia’s sweetheart”. McCune is an actor who has been in some funny-ish shows over the years, like… Um*… That one where she was sisters with Alison Whyte from Frontline and they were lawyers or something**? And everything else we can think of it was really Lavinia Nixon on Micallef Tonight.
So far McCune has done fine. Maybe even better than fine. A big part of what makes Taskmaster work is seeing different characters deal with the tasks. Again, this is why you get in comedians: they usually come with an outsized persona that audiences are hopefully familiar with, and so people will tune in to see how they react to a whole bunch of frustrating shit.
But when you’re talking Australian comedy circa 2025, there just aren’t that many comedians people have heard of. For example, a lot of this season seems to be pushing the idea that Tommy Little is a lowbrow comedian obsessed with arse jokes. Which may very well be the case, but unless you’re following comedy a lot closer than the Taskmaster audience Tommy Little is just some guy who presumably turns up on The Project a bit.
In contrast, we have Hughesy – one of the best known comedians in the country. And yet, his act still doesn’t really work here. Dave Hughes the human being is a smart guy driven to succeed. He’s not an offbeat suburban surrealist coming up with wacky angles. Hughesy the comedian is “entertainingly” opinionated and lowbrow, the Dave Hughes competing here is not.
Presumably that contrast is entertaining for those five or so people who are peeking behind the curtain for the first time. Considering Hughes has already been on I’m a Celebrity and Australian Story this year as himself, everyone else is pretty much up to speed with the news that Hughesy isn’t much like Hughesy away from controlled comedy environments.
But McCune, being a professional actor who gets gigs in large part because she brings “Lisa McCune” energy to a role, doesn’t have these problems. We know who she is (well, the kind of roles she plays). She’s nice, she’s kind, she’s plucky, and occasionally she’s slightly befuddled. On Taskmaster, the fun comes from seeing the Lisa McCune we (think we) know tackling all kinds of wacky situations.
So when Tom Cashman asks her for the keys in a task where her job is to hide the keys from him, she’s too nice to actually keep the keys hidden and just… hands them over. It wasn’t a winning move by any stretch, but it was probably the best move in terms of pure comedy.
Which must suck a little for the comedians on the show.
.
*We said “funny-ish”, which rules out How to Stay Married
**Marshall Law
No Pangs Of Regret
There is no possible way to make a successful tonight show in Australia in 2025. It just can’t be done. Tonight shows rely on items we just don’t have in mass quantities here. Interesting celebrities, comedy writers, that kind of thing. Throw in the fact that time is no longer on your side – tonight shows are meant to be cheap and cheerful television that airs late at night, but even the cheapest and most cheerful Australian program has to air before 9pm or there’s no way to get enough viewers to justify the cost – and Sam Pang Tonight was always going to be dead on arrival.
Well, at least to a certain kind of viewer. A lot of Australians say they want variety and live entertainment back on our screens – just not the kind that anyone is going to make in the 21st century. Nothing’s ever big enough or flashy enough or American enough, and where are the big name guests anyway?
Far be it for us to point out that Australia hasn’t generated a home-grown movie star in decades. It’s not like music or television are serving up a lot of name-brand chatty newcomers either. And forget sport (unless it’s a talk show about sport) because the big names in half the country will cause the other half to instantly turn off.
So once you realise Sam Pang Tonight was always on a hiding to nothing, what was the actual show like? Honestly, pretty much what we expected: good, not great. A few first night jitters but nothing catastrophic. Enough of the host’s charm came through to make plenty of the jokes land.
Pang himself is a bit of an old-fashioned comedian – old school laughs, bit retro, decent night out. And that’s the show he delivered. Having your first guest be the 84 year-old Jack Thompson was a pretty solid statement of intent. This is a tonight show for people who remember tonight shows.
So while it wouldn’t have been out of place 30 years ago, it also would have been on at 10.30pm thirty years ago. Which would have been a much more natural timeslot for it, but we’ve already been over the financials. It’s a show almost entirely driven by how much you like Pang himself. If you’re not a fan or were expecting him to break out a new style, sorry for your loss. There’s only seven more episodes anyway.
It was also a reminder of how dated the tonight show format is. The opening monologue was largely jokes about news clips, which is a form of comedy that is pretty much the only comedy we currently have on Australian television because everything else costs money.
The best segment (the one with the doctor) was largely Pang showing her clips from movies and television and asking “how bullshit is this?”. When most of the comedy is clip-based, the only reason left to do a tonight show in 2025 is for the guests. And yeah, we’ve already pointed out the problem there.
(next week features Kitty Flanagan and that kid from Boy Swallows Universe, which suggests they’re making the right move and going to go hard on the comedy guests moving forward)
Asking people to lower their expectations is always a big ask. But this was a perfectly decent example of the kind of show that usually gets crushed because everyone watching has their sights set too high. We’ll say it again: Australia just doesn’t have enough famous faces to make an interview show work on commercial television*. It also doesn’t have enough writers, viewers, interesting guests or money to get a tonight show over the line.
But it does have Sam Pang, and he’s pretty good at what he does.
.
*unless it’s doing a dozen other things at once (see: The Project)
Might as Well Get This Over With
The Weekly is back and who gives a fuck. Maybe someone somewhere outside the upper levels of ABC management is excited about the return – for an eleventh season – of “Bitchy News”. We seriously doubt it. Have you ever heard anyone discuss anything they’ve seen on The Weekly? We haven’t, and we know people who’ve worked on it.
Time for a contractually mandated moment of balance. A big part of what makes The Weekly such a piece of shit comes from factors outside the show itself. If it aired at, say, 10.30pm on a Sunday night, the lowered expectations that come from a graveyard timeslot might possibly make the format seem more entertaining. If it was hosted by, say, a pile of old laundry, then at least it wouldn’t be hosted by Charlie Pickering. If civilisation collapsed and it was the only form of entertainment left, at least the survivors would have an enemy to unify against. And so on.
The ABC’s topical comedy – we can’t even lump this one under the extremely broad term “satire” – has always been a bit hit-and-miss. But as it currently stands, The Weekly is barely worthy of the term “work experience project”. Having a host make fun of news clips only requires a decent host and decent jokes; The Weekly has neither.
As a host, Pickering is a smug smartarse when reading the news, and an easily confused low-status dimwit when doing anything else. It’s not that we don’t enjoy on some level the way Rhys Nicholson treats him dismissively. There’s just no clear comedy reason for the shift. We’re meant to cheer Pickering on when he sticks it to the man, and then side with his guests when they treat him like shit?
You know what? Who cares. Pickering is a crap host, but it’s not like Daryl Somers wasn’t worse and his career spanned decades. But occasionally Daryl had decent material. Pickering gets gear like having Nicholson ask him what his favourite race is and he says “either The Jews or the Tour de France”. Which okay, let’s break this one down:
Maybe the joke is meant to be that Pickering has misunderstood the question in a hilariously inappropriate fashion. So why does he give two answers? Maybe the joke is meant to be that Pickering has understood the question and has given a hilariously inappropriate answer. So why does he give two answers? The set up for the joke is clearly pointing to the comedy answer being “the Tour de France”. So why does he even mention that his favourite race is the Jews*?
Also, and this is one of the things that has consistently given us the shits about The Weekly pretty much since it’s inception, why would anyone with the slightest awareness of what’s going on in Australia and the world today think that now is a good time to make a confused throwaway joke about race?
Not that you can’t make jokes about race, or any other sensitive topic if that’s what floats your boat. But when people are doing it tough, a decent comedian’s job is to make fun of the people making life hard for others. Or at least, stop and have a think about what kind of jokes you want to make on the subject.
The Weekly is stuffed gullet to gills with lazy jokes about how all politicans are basically the same and rich people are a bit silly and reality television is trashy and breakfast television is a great place to find enough material to fill out the rest of the show. The result is beneath you, us, and probably even Charlie Pickering.
The only difference is, he gets a six figure salary out of it.
.
*you can probably figure it out
If You Want Blood, You Got It
Press release time!
Fresh Blood pilots premiere on the ABC this April
ABC and Screen Australia are thrilled to announce Fresh Blood pilots, Urvi Went to an All Girls School and Westerners, will premiere Wednesday 9 April on ABC iview.
Both uniquely hilarious, the pilots are part of the joint initiative which supports emerging Australian talent and innovative storytelling.
Urvi Went To An All Girls School is a coming-of-age comedy about one teen girl’s survival, with disastrous and hilarious consequences. Urvi (Urvi Majumdar) is an awkward, unpopular 16-year-old girl entering Year 11, at the painfully academic, selective public school Grogan Girls High. She desperately wants to become a famous actress, and dreams of being noticed by Hot Ryan, the hottest Year 12 at Grogan Boys.
Urvi’s school year looks doomed. Her little sister Maya has skipped a grade and joined forces with Urvi’s school bullies, her parents want her to become a doctor and the only boy she knows is her dad. That is until a Grogan Girls alumni turned soap actress named Sophie turns up out of the blue to direct the Grogan Girls and Boys combined school musical. Urvi finally sees a path to stardom – and sacrifices her other subjects (and her sanity) to pursue her dream.
Westerners follows three young diaspora adults navigating the chaos of life in Western Sydney, where even the simplest tasks spiral into the surreal.
Jackie (Natasha Cheng), a struggling artist, makes a deal with the Devil to cure her creative block. Taz (Sana’a Shaik) must choose between living with share house mould or even worse: moving back in with her parents. Dulla (Ubai Dahoud) can’t walk down the street without being chased by a horde of women who all want to play matchmaker. Between existential crises and absurd misadventures, they’re just trying to live their version of an ordinary life.
Both pilots will also make their broadcast debuts on ABC TV with Urvi Went to an All Girls School premiering Wednesday 9 April at 9pm and Westerners on Wednesday 16 April at 9pm.
Yeah, you lost us at “both uniquely hilarious”.
But sure, bring it on – it’s not like comedy musicals and aimless young people aren’t sure-fire comedy gold hang on I’m just being handed a note it seems this joke format is so tired it also qualified for a Fresh Blood pilot. Hurrah!
Hughesy Loses It
Yesterday’s episode of Australian Story focusing on Dave Hughes was business as usual. This kind of show – at one point Hughes was driving around Warnambool pointing out his old haunts like an episode of Julia Zemerio’s unlamented Home Delivery – is all about promoting a certain image of the celebrity involved. Is Dave Hughes a loveable family man with a troubled past he’s struggled to overcome? Fuck yeah he is!
Unless, of course, you were actually paying attention. Hughesy’s rep has taken a bit of a battering in recent years, mostly from own goals like his many pro-Covid rants during Victoria’s lockdowns or his swooping in to buy one of the houses on The Block seemingly on a whim. Pro tip: regular fair dinkum Aussie blokes don’t usually have a couple of million burning a hole in their back pocket when they just happen to be driving past a building site.
But you don’t get to be at the top of the Australian comedy tree for decades at a time without knowing a thing or two about media management. This year we’ve already seen Hughesy on I’m A Celebrity being likable while eating bugs in the jungle (not a euphemism). In a fortnight or so he’ll be doing his thing on the new series of Taskmaster, just as he’s settling in for a string of gigs at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (just don’t be talking in the front row). What better time to remind everyone that yes, he’s a loveable family man with a troubled past he’s struggled to overcome?
The premise of this episode was that Hughesy had given up the booze only to replace it with a relentless drive to succeed. Sounds like a good trade! By pretty much every possible metric, he has succeeded. So with nowhere to go as far as the end of the story was concerned, all the new news came at the start. If you didn’t think much of Hughesy before, guess what? You’re a heartless bastard: he survived a harrowing childhood where his drunk gun-toting dad made it an open question whether he’d live or die!
Anyone still breathing would feel more than sympathetic towards someone going through that kind of shocking ordeal. Anyone who’s followed Hughesy’s comedy career would be like “huh”. It definitely helps explain his relentless drive to succeed. But considering he’s obviously succeeded in pretty much every way possible, that’s the end of that. Maybe if he was a very different kind of comedian we’d be like “wow, can’t wait to see how he addresses his personal struggles in his act”, but c’mon: it’s Hughesy.
Beyond that, we got plenty of the usual. Hughesy managing to be both dux of his high school and spending a year working in an abattoir? Hughesy’s old school mates who all somehow look years – decades – younger than him? Someone saying with a straight face “that was when Hughesy found his comedy voice” without immediately going “you know, ehhhhhhhhhhhhhh O’m angriiiiiii”? Hughesy’s big break in making the leap from community radio Triple R (where he was a weekly guest) to the newly launched Nova FM as part of their “Hughesy, Kate and Dave” breakfast team? Hang on, what happened to Dave?
And that’s the problem with this kind of promotional video. There’s always a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite fit. Maybe it’s the way the breakfast radio promo photos mysteriously go from three wacky funsters to two. Maybe it’s Hughesy’s wife saying “he’s got this bogan persona, but really he’s a vegan who meditates”. At least he spends lots of time with the kids now, unlike – it’s hinted at – years ago when they were little and he was even more driven to succeed.
That bit was presumably left in because it fits with the “Hughesy’s got problems” narrative. Or at least, it does until you remember his half hour comedy special Hughes the Boss, which aired on Nine in 2016 and revolved largely around footage of his kids. Being too busy to hang with the kids because you’ve got a Footy Show appearance to prepare for is one thing; still finding time to do a half hour special on how annoying they are is another thing entirely.
So, on the one hand Hughesy has built a massively successful comedy career on being just a regular Aussie bloke constantly enraged befuddled by suburban life. On the other, he’s actually a millionaire teetotal vegan who’s been mainlining inspirational quotes since he was a teen and thinks being driven to succeed is a likable trait. But is it?
When Rove tells us that Hughes was on the outer with the cool kids in the Melbourne comedy scene back in the mid 90s because he cracked “confronting” jokes about sex workers, anyone who knows anything about the 90s is like “hang on, back then Greg Fleet was doing entire shows about being a junkie while also being a junkie and everyone loved him”.
Then again, Fleet doesn’t have soulless staring dead eyes that are gaping portals into a hell devoid of all meaning or sanity, which probably counts for something.
Vale Optics, Hello Full Story – Battle of the PR sitcoms
Just as Optics, a sitcom about a PR company which finds it has some problems close to home, finishes up on the ABC, Troy Kinne has released Full Story, a sitcom about a PR company which finds it has some problems close to home. Which means we’re one sitcom about a PR company which finds it has some problems close to home away from it feeling like that time when everyone in comedy seemed to be trying to make an Australian version of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And we know how well that turned out. *
But enough snark from us. What’s probably more interesting about the two shows is that while Optics is exactly the sort of sitcom you’d expect the likes of Charles Firth, Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst to make, we’re guessing there weren’t a lot of people who had “satirical sitcom” on their Troy Kinne 2025 bingo cards. It just doesn’t seem like his style. And yet Full Story is a satirical sitcom that is very much in his style.
Whereas Optics had some pretty good gags about how women, especially young women, are treated in the workplace – including a male client who seems to not hear all female voices – Full Story features jokes about women where women are the butt of the jokes. Which isn’t wrong in and of itself – women are as ridiculous as anyone else – but is more than a little questionable when the jokes are about being hormonal and the people who wrote those jokes are men. And having a woman deliver those gags doesn’t make them okay either, guys!
Still, that’s not to say that Optics is necessarily the better of the two shows. Both Optics and Full Story, while funny in parts, suffer from the fact that they’ve set up the central spin doctor characters as the heroes of the story, trying heroically to overcome various PR problems. Except…why should we care when neither they nor their well-off, entitled and downright corrupt clients are remotely sympathetic?
In better satirical sitcoms, like The Games or Utopia, the audience could side with John, Gina and Bryan, or Tony and Nat, and want them to succeed, because they spent most of their time being screwed over by people more senior than them. And whether you work in a government body or not, this is something that happens in a lot of workplaces, which makes it relatable. And makes the show funny because it’s relatable.
Ensuring the audience cares also works when the central characters are less downtrodden, like in Frontline. Here, we see everything that’s true and decent, as personified by assistant producer Emma, being constantly stamped on by the tabloid current affairs jackboot. We also learn quite a lot about how the media works, not something you can say about Optics or Full Story, because in 2025, any semi-media literate member of the public can see through a social media influencer or a dodgy footballer setting up a charity to launder his image.
In the end, the only thing that could save Optics or Full Story is if they contained a lot of great gags. Neither do. Optics, like all ABC sitcoms these days, spends way too much time sacrificing comedy in favour of hitting various dramatic plot points, while Full Story relies on cheap gags and stunt casting (hello, Sophie Monk!) for many of its laughs.
Still, while if you haven’t enjoyed Full Story, you’re not obligated to donate to Kinne’s crowdfunder to keep it going, Optics ends with the suggestion that it’ll be back for a second series, in which the PR wonks will spend a bunch of time defending the reputation of their deceased, Jeffery Epstein-esque boss. Should be hilarious.
* To be fair, Peter Moon’s Whatever Happened To The Guy wasn’t the worst thing ever.