And the comedy Logies go to…

The winner of last night’s 64th TV Week Logie Awards wasn’t television, or even Sam Pang, who seems to be becoming the Bert Newton-esque go-to-guy for Logies hosting. Oh no. The winner of last night’s Logies was Working Dog, who won every single one of the four comedy awards.

As Australia’s leading and probably most prolific comedy producers – they recently celebrated 30 years of program and filmmaking – it couldn’t have gone to better people. Some of the awards, however, have gone to better Working Dog shows. Three Logies for Utopia? Seriously. Are you sure these weren’t the results for the 2014 Logies?

We don’t begrudge Kitty Flanagan her Silver Logie for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy; some members of the public will have been thinking of Fisk or even Have You Been Paying Attention? when they cast their votes for her. And, yeah, it’s nice to see Rob Sitch get an award, but he’s done better things than this. And so have Working Dog.

Amongst other things, season five of Utopia was beset by not especially good gags about topics like diversity and political correctness. It wasn’t quite a Herald-Sun editorial or old man yells at cloud, but it was heading in that direction. Australia’s leading and probably most prolific comedy producers can – and should – do better.

Utopia also won one of the peer-voted awards, Best Scripted Comedy Program. It certainly deserved it against depressing suicide dramedy In Limbo and shithouse reboot Mother and Son. But it could have been nice to see Deadloch, a more original and 2020s show, get something.

On the other hand, it’s hard to argue against Have You Been Paying Attention? winning Best Comedy Entertainment Program. It was easily the most deserving show against Gruen, Hard Quiz, Thank God You’re Here, The Weekly With Charlie Pickering, The Yearly With Charlie Pickering. Seems that whoever votes for the Best awards can get it right sometimes!

Perhaps the same great minds can turn their attention towards acknowledging the truly best comedy scripted comedy program next year? Although given that next year’s nominees will include the likes of Austin, Colin from Accounts and White Fever, maybe not.