The Sonny Disposition is a new sitcom streaming on Stan about podcasters and other creative types who work in a co-working space. With each episode lasting less than 20 minutes, it’s the kind of show that would normally be popping up on YouTube, so kudos to writers Simon Taylor and Josh Samuels for getting it onto a platform that people pay for.
As well as co-directing the show, Taylor stars as Sonny, a podcaster in his 30s who’s successful but not yet number one. The Sonny Disposition is about Sonny’s attempts to climb the podcast rankings whilst planning his upcoming wedding to Beth (Joanna McKinnon Ward), and dealing with co-host Toby (Oliver Robertson), show producer Angie (Claudia Greenstone), show engineer Danni (Desiree Katakis), co-working space receptionist Maddie (Maddy Tyers), and photographer Suren (Stefan Ranaja Weerarathna).
With all these regular characters, plus Sonny’s podcast guests and various others, there’s a lot going on, and there’s not as much time for character development as there should be. In fact, a lot of the characters don’t seem to have much of a character at all, in some cases, falling back on sitcom stereotypes we’ve seen done better before (the dumb receptionist, the fiancé obsessed with minor details about the wedding flowers). There’s also a will-they-won’t they/sexual tension plot between two of the characters, which presumably heats up as the series progresses.
The laughs, when they come, often feel easy or crude – a podcast guest who has a brand deal with an anal lubricant leads to lots of jokes about…yeah, you know. And some of the dialogue and plot rarely seem driven by the characters, although the sub-plot in episode two, when receptionist Maddie uses AI to write some slop, has its moments. We’re also enjoying the moment of background slapstick, which occurs once an episode, just for the hell of it.
Mostly though, The Sonny Disposition is an opportunity to poke fun at influencers, content creators, chatbots, UFC fighters and bro gym culture, which are relatively unexplored topics for sitcoms. Largely because almost no one makes sitcoms anymore.
We also respect the story in the show’s media kit, which says that when Taylor and Samuels took their self-shot pilot of The Sonny Disposition to a production house, the unnamed production house wanted them to recast the show with “established actors” rather than the lesser-known cast of actors and comedians they’d assembled. We’re glad they stuck to their guns and said no to that. It’s good to see some fresh faces and not Darren Gilshenan again.
The Sonny Disposition, while far from perfect, feels like the kind of show that leads to those who made it doing something better next time. It’s also the kind of relatively inexpensive show every streaming service should be putting out every other month. Give the lesser-knowns a chance. Give Darren Gilshenan a holiday.
Beloved comedy Austin returnsto the ABC inNovember
The ABC is thrilled to announce that season three of the beloved comedy Austin premieres Wednesday 11 November at 9pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Produced by Northern Pictures (Love on the Spectrum), the new season sees the Hartswood family navigate a chapter of chaotic love, blurred boundaries and wedding plans as Austin (Michael Theo) and Hayley (Natalie Abbott) prepare to tie the knot.
When Julian (Ben Miller) and Ingrid’s (Sally Phillips) upbeat divorce party triggers Austin’s impulsive marriage proposal to Hayley, both families find themselves at Hayley’s family’s traditional Australian homestead. As old bonds rekindle and truths surface, the wedding is thrown into uncertainty and the families are forced to rebuild.
Joining the acclaimed cast this season are Australian favourites Justine Clarke and Stephen Curry, alongside Gia Carides and Roy Billing.
Heartfelt and funny, Austin celebrates that while love may be messy and complicated, it’s worth fighting for.
Ahahahahaha “beloved”. And also, “comedy”. Fortunately, the trailer also calls it “charming”, which as everyone knows is the absolute kiss of death when it comes to getting laughs. At least with this one we won’t have to act surprised when yet another Aussie sitcom ends with a wedding.
Though if they’re going to stick that close to the formula, there’s only one question left. Who’s going to die in the second-to-last episode?
Divorce in the delivery suite? That’s just the beginning of the chaos in ABC’s new comedy Separated at Birth
Comedy besties Nazeem Hussain and Urzila Carlson lead the cast of new ABC comedy Separated at Birth, premiering Wednesday 11 November at 8.30pm on ABC TV, with all six episodes available to stream on ABC iview.
Created by, written by and starring Hussain, alongside Carlson as his sharp-tongued best friend and colleague Donna, Separated at Birth follows paramedic Sameer (Hussain), whose life is thrown into disarray when his wife asks for a divorce moments after the birth of their first child.
As he juggles co-parenting, family expectations and his own fears about fatherhood, Sameer finds unlikely support from his “work wife”, Donna, who suddenly finds herself living under his roof after her own dream home renovation turns into a disaster.
These two paramedics become partners in crisis, as Sameer tries to work out how to be a father and Donna is forced to rethink her fiercely independent approach to life, all under the watchful gaze of two feuding, opinionated and drama-loving extended families.
Joining Hussain and Carlson is an ensemble cast including Sana’a Shaik, Nadie Kammallaweera, Leah Vandenberg, Jeeves Verma, Akhilesh Jain, Osamah Sami and Rodney Afif, with special guest appearances from Tom Sainsbury, Melanie Bracewell, Luke McGregor, Ryan Shelton, Bron Lewis, Sarah Michaels and Takashi Wakasugi.
Set against the backdrop of Melbourne’s multicultural communities, Separated at Birth is a raucous dive into family, friendship, parenting and identity.
So, you know, there’s that. Hey, there’s a trailer!
The funniest thing about Cop This is that it exists at all. A star-studded comedy telemovie made on the smell of an oily rag? You could make a petty strong case that all we really needed to get full value was a promo or two and a cast list.
While it’s technically a movie, its more like a move-length collection of scenes. Yes, there is an overall story, and there are a couple of surprises that build on what’s come before. But if you were going to turn this into a traditional movie, you’d end up cutting out at least half of it. The cameos and random scenes are as important as the plot – ok, they’re more important. You’re not going to remember what happened to Gary Sweet’s character, but you are going to remember Glen Robbins’ random one-off scene promoting a gambling app.
So the story is both superfluous and overly complicated. Do we really care about how a drug deal gone bad affects a power struggle within the top ranks of the police force? No: we want to see Mick Molloy doing a random scene as a police dispatcher clearly filmed at some point when he had a spare ten minutes and nobody else was around.
Ed Kavalee wrote, produced, co-directed and appears in this. While there’s too many top-notch comedians here for this to be any kind of auteur project, you can clearly see his hand in the broad strokes. Commercial radio, podcasting, sports gambling (and the commercial side of sport in general), pretentious actors, jokes about racist jokes gone wrong, Matchbox 20 – there are a lot of familiar comedy targets here.
Kavalee’s comedy always feels like the result of hard work rather than of inspiration. The closest he ever gets to anything personal or revealing is a line like “It’s as useless as an Ed Kavalee protein power”. Which is just a joke about his public persona. That works to his advantage here. Anything personal or meaningful would just be a waste of our time. The script could have done with a polish, but only to tighten up a few of the scenes.
Being a ramshackle mess is a strength rather than a weakness here. It’s so shoddy there’s no way you can take it seriously, which is what you want in a comedy. If you think it looks thrown together on the cheap, you’re right. If you think that automatically makes it a bad comedy, you’re a chump.
And it’s not even all that ramshackle. The performances are all over the place, but the broad comedy characters mostly interact with other comedy characters. Meanwhile, the few comedians giving a more serious performance (Rob Carlton, Lehmo, Tony Martin kind of) mostly interact with each other or get scenes where they dominate proceedings.
The big takeaway from all this is that a lot of recent Australian sitcoms would have been a lot funnier if they’d been edited down to a 90 minute telemovie. No ongoing plots, no character development. Just gags and plenty of them in a format that directs your attention to the only thing that matters: the comedy. Cop This isn’t the future of comedy – it’s barely the present – but in 2026 it is a breath of fresh air.
Or at least, it has Toby Truslove saying the immortal line “I played Hamlet once. In a Dan Murphy’s commercial”.
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*to quote from that piece:
Hughesy has been part of Kevin Whyte’s powerful Token management stable for a couple of decades, but recently the parties agreed to part ways.
Hughes is no longer on the Token website. Clicking through to his former profile page, you find a note reading: “Whoops, it looks like the page you are looking for no longer exists or has been moved.”
Hughes confirmed to CBD he was going in a new direction under his own steam, saying he had been heading towards being independent for a while, long before finding his political voice.
This week Australia greeted the arrival of two new game shows featuring comedians: Shaun Micallef’s Parents Evening and Class Clowns. Regular readers will know that comedy games shows – even the good ones – aren’t really our thing. Looking for praise for Taskmaster? Can’t get enough of Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee? Tell your story walking, pal. So in light of our obvious and frankly somewhat repetitive dislike for the combination of answering questions and telling jokes, does anyone think we’ve been having a good week?
Pretty much the best thing we can say is that it could have been worse. Parent’s Evening is, individual quirks aside, pretty much a regular game show; you could even do a non-celebrity version. Class Clowns is basically just Shit Taskmaster. Comedy fans can safely give both a miss.
Unfortunately we didn’t realise this until after we watched both. So we’re going to waffle on about them a bit more to try and get something out of the experience.
Parent’s Evening does have one advantage: it’s hosted by Shaun Micallef. As always, he provides a base level of quality. The trouble here – from a comedy perspective – is that like every game show he’s hosted since the first run of Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation, the actual show feels nothing like him or his comedy. He’s parachuted into a format almost anyone could host, and a few decent quips aren’t going to change that.
Then there’s the guests: who cares? Most Australian celebrities are barely interesting in their own right. Having them sit next to their even less interesting parents or children does not improve matters. The single joke the entire show is based around is “watch a semi-famous person squirm as it turns out their relative doesn’t give a shit”. We say again: who cares?
Family awkwardness has been mined for comedy and drama since the ancient Greeks had Oedipus go on a bad date. These days even real life examples need to be insanely brutal to cut through. This is not that show, no matter how many times the chairs move back and forth or someone shakes their head in dismay. These are not polished comedy teams; the banter rarely rises to the level of Christmas dinner conversation.
Once it’s clear we’re not going to see families torn apart, what’s left? A bunch of pop culture questions one group or another can’t answer? Charities getting a few thousand dollars? Shaun’s son Gabe actually being not bad as the low-key sidekick? Just because they’re things happening on television doesn’t mean we want to watch them.
At no point during the first episode of Class Clowns does Dave Hughes start ranting about Albo destroying the economy. Which is a shame, because it could certainly do with some livening up. It’s not that it’s a bad show; in fact, it was slightly better than we expected. It’s still an educational ABC panel show. Our expectations are so low we’re worried they might cut a gas main.
Hosted by Julia Morris as the fake headmaster at a fake school, the three teams of two comedians (the others are Becky Lucas and Matt Okine, Luke McGregor and Bron Lewis, and Nina Oyama alongside Hughesy) first answer a bunch of educational questions, then attempt a couple of slightly less obviously educational challenges. Did someone say “Shit Taskmaster“? Oh wait, it was us.
Everyone here is a comedian, which is good for comedy. But all the questions and challenges are at least slightly educational, which is bad for comedy. Wombat shit is square; hilarious. Pin the organ on the lycra-clad comedian; thigh-slapping. And so even when this is funny, which is some of the time, it’s still frustrating because it could easily have been funnier.
That’s the problem with just about every “comedy” game show. Unless you really work hard to cut the game show part to the very bare minimum (that’d be something like Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee or Have You Been Paying Attention?), the game show side of things kills the comedy. Random challenges can be funny, but they’re usually not as funny as a funny situation funny people worked out beforehand.
But this is the ABC and for some bizarre reason they think their audience wants to learn about things. Rather than working towards that goal by simply creating informative programming about interesting things, they make zany panel shows where comedians demonstrate their lack of knowledge.
If the point of the show is to be educational, why do we have to sit through comedians answering questions wrongly before we get the information? If it’s a quiz show, why is there so much other non-quiz stuff going on? And if the point of the show is to be funny, why not make something that’s funny?
Like a lot of ABC programming, the whole thing reeks of ambivalence. Rather than committing to be the best possible version of one thing, it’s three or four things mixed in together to create a bland substance nobody’s all that excited about.
Maybe it’s stew, maybe it’s spew. Either way, it’s not worth a taste test.
Australia’s Only Tonight Show Is Back With The Golden Touch.
Sam Pang Tonight Returns Monday, 19 October At 8:40pm On 10.
Fresh from winning “the big one” at the TV Week Logie Awards, Sam Pang is back on Monday, 19 October with Australia’s best (and only) tonight show, Sam Pang Tonight.
Season three will be stacked with Monday monologues, uninhibited celebrity interviews, sketches, and the anything-could-happen energy of Wheel Of Segments.
Sam Pang said: “I’m thrilled to be back for season three of Sam Pang Tonight. The network wanted to replace me, but the name of the show got in the way. I am however confident this third instalment will go down as everyone’s favourite, just like The Godfather Part III.”
Last season of Sam Pang Tonight was packed with stars, including Russell Crowe, Priscilla Presley, Rosie O’Donnell, and 5 Seconds Of Summer. Riding shotgun with Sam as guest announcers were Shaun Micallef, Denise Scott, Sam Campbell, Tony Martin and more.
If last season is anything to go by, season three is shaping up to be solid gold.
Okay, so clearly “the golden touch” is what you say when you have no idea what’s actually going into the show this season. Three weeks out and they don’t know who the guests are going to be? Sounds about right.
It’s a bit of a shame this always feels a little crammed into whenever Ten can fit it in. Which is to say, whenever Have You Been Paying Attention? isn’t on. But with Pang also busy mid-year with The Front Bar, it’s down to his availability as well. Whatever the reason for the scheduling, it’ll be good to have him back.
Okay, so Sam Pang never actually goes away, but you know what we mean.
Cop This Premieres Monday, 5 October At 9.40pm On 10.
Australia’s comedy community has been called in for questioning. Pretty much all of them.
Created, written, produced and co-directed by Ed Kavalee, Cop This is the telemovie that brings together an outrageous line-up of Australia’s funniest people, premiering Monday, 5 October at 9.40pm on 10.
Set across 24 hours on Grand Final Day, Cop This follows a suburban police station where the two remaining officers are about to be replaced by an AI-powered police “Terminal”.
Sergeant Jo Hardy (Nicolette Minster) has spent 20 years watching mediocre blokes make bad decisions and get promoted for them. She’s had enough. Her mild-mannered colleague, Matt Pepper (Ray O’Leary), is somewhat less equipped for confrontation. Or life.
All they have to do is survive one last day. Naturally, that’s when dangerous lifelong criminal Jayden (Gary Sweet) is dumped in their care. It’s also the day actor and self-described “Storyteller”, “Activist” and “Human Experience Reflector” Peter King (Toby Truslove) chooses to go “full method” and embeds himself at the station.
What could possibly go wrong? Turns out, quite a lot.
Ed said: “I’m just so grateful to the comedy community who came together to make Cop This.It’s a dream come true to make a comedy telemovie that shows off just how good the comic talent we have is. Plus, we all got to stare into Gary Sweet’s blue eyes while he told us what The Logies used to be like before camera phones. Cop This is not ‘darkly comic’ or ‘comedically dark’ or a ‘dramedy’ or a ‘darkly comedic dramedy’. We tried to be, but the cast were just too darn good at being funny.”
Joining Nicolette, Ray, Gary, Ed and Toby is a frankly unnecessary amount of Australian comedy talent, including Rob Carlton, Tony Martin, Anthony ‘Lehmo’ Lehmann, Dane Simpson, Celia Pacquola, Luke McGregor, Rob Sitch, Josh Lawson, Julia Morris, Dave Hughes, Dilruk Jayasinha, Lizzy Hoo, Tommy Little, Claire Hooper, Ryan Moloney, Lawrence Mooney, Mick Molloy, Glenn Robbins, Tom Gleisner, Kate Langbroek, Grant Denyer and many, many more.
Filmed entirely on location in Melbourne, Cop This is a love letter to Australian comedy, packed with an ensemble cast that would normally require either several television shows or a very large Christmas party to assemble in the same place.
So put down the weapon, step away from the AI Terminal and prepare to Cop This.
A telemovie? In 2026? On Australian television? A comedy telemovie? You’re going to have to give us a second here.
Okay, sure, a hefty percentage of that line-up presumably filmed their appearances in a room all by themselves. Bad news for fans hoping for a Martin/Molloy reunion. But even if the joke is just “look who we got!”, Kavalee seems to have got pretty much everyone. Tom Gleisner in a comedy mustache! That’s his second scripted comedy appearance this year – we’re officially in a new golden age of Australian comedy here people.
Even if Rob Sitch does seem to be turning into Shane Bourne
Family. They know you better than anyone. Or at least, they think they do.
Shaun Micallef and his son, Gabe, are opening the doors to a hilarious new evening of family revelations, wildly conflicting memories and all-round shenanigans when Shaun Micallef’s Parents’ Evening premieres Monday, September 28 at 7.30pm on 10.
Each week, three famous Australians will pair up with either their parent or their adult child, ready to put years of family knowledge to the test.
Presented with a topic, the parent must predict how many questions their child will answer correctly. Get it right and they win money for their chosen charity. Get it wrong and the money goes to another team’s charity.
In the premiere episode, Australian media icon Ray Martin and his daughter Jenna go up against reality star Callum Hole and his dad Phil, and comedian Joel Creasey and his mum Jenny.
Across the series, plenty more familiar faces will be putting their family knowledge, and dignity on the line, including Jessica Rowe, Amanda Keller, Abbie Chatfield, Felix Cameron, Brett Blake and more!
There’ll be bragging rights, bruised egos, family secrets dragged into the light and more than a few moments that probably should have stayed at home. Thankfully, it’s all for a good cause!
Micallef’s tragic gameshow addiction has reached new depths: now he’s even drawn his son into his sick sad world. Shaun Micallef’s Court-Ordered Intervention: coming in 2027
Hey, there’s a promo. Looks like someone’s had a haircut:
We’ve never been huge fans of Colin from Accounts. Prioritising romance and cute dog chaos over straight-up laughs isn’t the way to keep anyone who wants comedy to be funny interested. But there was almost enough good stuff going on in series three for us not to totally hate it.
Production has commenced in Sydney on Tough Love, a new Australian original comedy series about a family confronting the possibility of life without their mother and three very unprepared children.
Created by and starring Rick Donald (Population 11, Educators), it also stars acclaimed Australian actress Miranda Otto (The Lord Of The Rings, Talk To Me) as Kerry Hart, mother to 39-year-old Shane played by Donald, Liz Kingsman (F1: The Movie, Project Hail Mary) as daughter Steph, Hugo Johnston-Burt (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, Return To Paradise) as middle son Rodney, and Jay Ryan (North of North, Territory) as Steph’s partner Mick.
The series will be directed by Trent O’Donnell (Hacks, Sunny Nights) and Madeleine Dyer (Ghosts Australia), the directing team behind Colin from Accounts.
Set within the chaos of a suburban Australian family, Tough Love follows Kerry as she receives a cancer diagnosis. Her immediate crisis isn’t her own mortality: it’s the terrifying realisation that all her adult children are totally incapable of surviving the world without her. Through the chaos, Tough Love explores the complicated bonds of family, the fear of losing someone you love and the messy, often hilarious struggle to become self-sufficient.
Ah yes, death, cancer and children having to cope without their mother, those three naturally hilarious topics. We’d rather watch a sitcom about 2000s Triple M show Tough Love than this. At least that’d have Mick Molloy and Robyn Butler in it.
So, maybe we take it back? Colin from Accounts is actually fine compared to Mum Cancer Death LOL?
At least Colin from Accounts put the effort in to make the non-“will they get back together (hint: yes)” parts of the show amusing. Like making Ashley’s dodgy stepfather Lee look increasingly like Rolf Harris. Or turning Gordon’s brother into a Hughesy-esque sweary whiner. And they were just the tip of the iceberg when it came to peripheral characters. There were plenty of them to enjoy throughout the series.
Ashley and Gordon’s obviously wrong for them new partners, twitchy, fish fanatic David and annoying lawyer Chelsea were pretty good value. And who knew Ashley’s Dad was a gay cruise ship entertainer? Played by, who else, Mark Trevorrow. Bob Downe may not be such a well-known comedy character these days, but after his one-episode cameo, Trevorrow definitely still has it when it comes to physical comedy and dodgy crooning.
Having said that, you need more than a sprinkling of funny characters to make an eight-episode series classic comedy, and the plotting and story arc were a real weak point in what should be a good send-off for Colin from Accounts.
Why was Gordon’s awful new boss (played by Broden Kelly) in only two episodes? And where was the reckoning after dodgy Lee’s appearance at the sperm bank?
There were some enjoyable episodes – the druggy sex party, the disastrous road trip – and then there was the meandering course of Ashley and Gordon getting back together. We know this isn’t one of those American shows where they’ve scoped out the multiple plot arcs of six seasons before episode one’s even aired, but the people who like Colin from Accounts watch those shows, and if we were one of them, we think we’d feel a bit ripped off about how this ended.
Three episodes into the second series of Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey, and we realised that we’d rather watch this than most of the new Australian sitcoms aired this year. And indeed, most of the new Australian sitcoms aired in the last decade. Yes, TV comedy really has sunk to the point where we’re kinda recommending comedian-hosted travel shows over scripted comedy. But before you unsubscribe from our RSS feed and vow never to read us again, let us explain why…
As with most of the new Australian sitcoms aired this year (or in the last decade), Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey isn’t a comedy-focused project. If you tied the producers of the program to chairs and shone bright lights into their eyes, they’d eventually be forced to admit that they’re more interested in touching your heart, even making you cry, than making you laugh. And yet, in the comically unpromising format of a show where well-known personalities visit the land of their ancestors and walk in their shoes – a sort of mash-up of Who Do You Think You Are? and the numerous travel documentaries which litter the schedules of SBS – Shaun Micallef gets more laughs than Dog Park, Colin from Accounts or Ground Up. Of course he does; he’s Shaun Micallef. He was even funny on Dancing with the Stars.
In the first episode, Shaun accompanies actor Pia Miranda to Sicily, where her grandparents came from. And Shaun, being the film buff and impressionist he is – and even after warnings that mentioning the Mafia is inadvisable whilst on the Italian island – could not be physically stopped from breaking into impressions of Marlon Brando at almost any opportunity. This may not be classic comedy, but it’s one of the biggest laughs we’ve got from Australian television in a while, so we’ll take it.
The second episode took Shaun to Germany with Denise Scott. But if you’re expecting to see Shaun goose-stepping or making Hitler jokes… Okay, there’s one reference to the fact that SBS airs a lot of documentaries about Nazi Germany. Still, there were a few laughs when Shaun and Denise went to a local restaurant and ordered some questionable dishes featuring large, boiled sausages. And, for those with popcorn handy, there’s a lengthy conversation between the pair about their ill-fated 2005-2007 breakfast radio show on Melbourne’s (now defunct) Vega FM, which, while not exactly funny, had some juicy moments.
SIDEBAR: For those who don’t remember Shaun and Denise’s ill-fated Vega breakfast show, it didn’t really work. Shaun Micallef isn’t the right person to host a breakfast radio show on commercial radio – his reflection that he was “misused” is somewhat of an understatement – and he and Denise didn’t exactly click as a team. Stories of breakfast radio hosts going mad, falling out with each other and eventually having a sort of breakdown are commonplace, and Shaun and Denise’s conversation in the back of a car on a German autobahn felt cathartic for them both. Enjoy!
Then it was off to an archive, and then to the sort of mine where Denise’s ancestors toiled, or whatever was next… Oh yeah, they went for a ride on an old steam train, and so Shaun got dressed up as Michael Portillo. Red trousers, pocket square, the lot. Obscure? Sure, but when’s that stopped him?
In the third episode, there was less opportunity for impressions and more opportunity for quirkiness when Shaun accompanied Matt Okine to his father’s ancestral home in Ghana. Ghanaians, it turns out, go all out when it comes to funerals. So, if you’ve ever wanted to see Matt Okine’s funeral, tune in. It’s more entertaining than his version of Mother and Son!
So, while the opportunities for laughs aren’t frequent, as this is mainly about family history and interesting locations, Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey is pretty entertaining. Which is the best you can hope for from Australian television in 2026.
