A Bad Look

Optics is the ABC’s big sitcom for 2025. If you’re thinking “hang on, that can’t be right”, we agree. Now point out what else they have to offer this year. The return of Mother and Son? A bunch of imports? Nothing else? Sure, the usual unfunny dramedies are no doubt soon to surface, but as far as actual sitcoms go? This is it.

This is also not very good.

There’s a lot going on here, so to summarise: this is the story of two twenty-something women, Greta Goldman (Vic Zerbst) and Nicole Kidman (Jenna Owen), who find themselves unexpectedly put in charge of a PR firm. Oh hey, Gruen but it’s a sitcom, finally.

It is also the story of middle-aged media executive Ian Randell (Charles Firth) who suddenly discovers his slacking off days are over and now has to work for a living when he’s passed over for a long-expected promotion. Take that, Gen X!

The reason why we list them separately – obviously the women got the gig Randell wanted, thus tying the two together – is that usually one would be the lead and the other the antagonist, thus creating comedy. But here, they’re…all leads? They have different skills and world views (guess who’s good at social media and who’s good at buttering up newspaper journos!). But it repeatedly turns out that those skills are complimentary and by working together oh who gives a shit.

This is also one of those comedies where much of the plot comes from behind the scenes looks at how things really work in a particular industry. Remember The Thick of It? Frontline? A seemingly endless parade of other sitcoms that all for some strange reason were focused on politics and the media? You know, the kind of shows that always seem to get glowing reviews in the media? Because if there’s one thing the media is interested in, it’s coming home from a hard day working in the media and immediately watching a show set in the media.

Here’s an idea. If you made a six part sitcom set at a garage and every episode was an in-depth look at one of the ways mechanics screw over their customers, you would have the highest rating sitcom in 21st century Australian history. But why make something interesting to regular people when you can lift the lid on the way that the media heroically manipulates the public because nobody’s ever revealed that before. Stop the press oh wait economic forces already did that.

Anyway.

There’s also a mystery as to why the women were put in charge. Only it’s not a mystery as the show spells out that they were given the top job to take the fall when all the dirt hidden by the previous, now dead, CEO comes to light. And the nature of the dirt isn’t exactly a mystery either. He was a sleazy old man in a business built on cover-ups so *gestures at headlines* take your pick.

Still, there’s always the jokes, right? And again, this is (at least) two different shows smushed together. In one Charles Firth is playing a fairly trad comedy character who is loud, deluded, entitled and bungling – but who also is halfway decent at his job, so there’s that. It’s hardly cutting edge stuff, but he’s an old pro and he gets laughs.

Zerbst and Owen are an established double act specialising in millennial anxiety and entitlement. Which mostly means they talk very quickly and are often impressed with themselves. Unlike Randell, who looks and acts like a dipshit but is competent, the joke here seems to be that they seem competent, but… maybe aren’t?

For example, the first episode has them seemingly solving the PR crisis only for the moronic AFL player (who they told to do nothing) to go partying again. It’s presented as being his fault, but it kind of seems like something they should have predicted considering, you know, he was a moron.

Also, while there’s two of them, their dynamic is “supportive besties”, which is notoriously hilarious. Just kidding, having two out of three main characters on a comedy be bland nothings is death. This is a sitcom, everything here should either be funny or be making something else funny.

If Firth was playing some kind of high powered evil antagonist then sure, there being two of them would make sense. They need mutual support! And someone to bounce ideas off, and handle separate parts of their schemes, and so on.

But – in a move that we have a feeling was suggested in an ABC memo that said something like “Everyone who watches the ABC is over 50, we can’t make a sitcom where two twenty something women are the heroes and the bad guy is basically OUR AUDIENCE” – he is not really the bad guy and both sides usually end up needing each other to get the job done.

If only that job involved being funny.