We all remember the giddy joy we felt when we first heard about Crime Night! An ABC series where comedians made jokes about true crime cases? What the fuck? There was absolutely no way this was not going to be a massive car crash, and we were 100% there for it. Comedy is back, baby!
And then the actual show went to air and it was boring as shit.
Look, even we knew the ABC wasn’t deranged enough to put to air a show where comedians made jokes about the victims of crime. But Crime Night! is basically “what if we got the Gruen team to make crime boring?” How is it even possible to make crime boring? Glad you asked.
While Crime Night! features five panelists, it only needs two. That’d be the two experts, who provide all the information that is the only thing this show has to offer. Not interesting information like you get in true crime podcasts; boring information like you get in criminology textbooks.
Okay, that’s maybe a bit harsh. But think about it: what’s the thing that makes true crime so interesting? Is it the human element, the way people turn to crime when they’re greedy, or desperate, or pushed too far? Or is it a ten minute discussion on the scientific fact that people’s memories are basically dogshit and eyewitness accounts are trash?
Crime Night! is a panel show designed to provide information about how people examine and investigate crimes. Not information about actual crimes, though they do bring them up every now and again. Only really old ones though, back in your box lawyers.
Dry, fact-based, only one short clip from classic 90s game show Cluedo – there’s even actual experiments. It’s a wonder they didn’t get Doctor Karl on board. This is basically the kind of thing he blathers on about, only here the experts seem to know what they’re talking about. Finally, a murder-based version of The Curiosity Show. Only not as interesting as that.
And as for comedy? Forget it. Even by ABC panel show standards this is a stiff. Not that the comedians behind the desk get much to work with in the first place. They’re just there because in the ABC scheme of things comedians are one step above regular people, and this needs regular people to be impressed by the experts.
Future panelists include Claire Hooper, Rhys Nicholson, and Ryan Shelton, who must have a new agent as he’s turning up all over the place. Maybe they can find some laughs in this parade of horrors, who knows? We don’t, we struggled to make it through the first episode.
Even then, we spent much of the time asking ourselves “what are the chances this was called Crime Night! – and not the much more natural Crime Time! – because Crime Time! is already a semi-regular segment on The Cheap Seats?”
We’ve watched too much Australian comedy over the years to be picky about what makes us laugh. You want a prime-time program that’s a polished product with quality performances and absolutely no decent jokes? Our review of Ghosts Australia is just around the corner. While we wait, there’s Son of a Donkey, which is packed with dumb shit that made us laugh.
In the past we’ve praised Theodore and Nathan Saidden’s Superwog for coming up with comedy that only seems stupid. if you can get past the comedy accents, face pulling and physical abuse, there’s often been some pretty smart stuff going on. With the six-part Son of a Donkey, their first original series for Netflix, they seem to have decided it’s time to take things back to basics.
Superwog (now renamed Theo) and best mate Jimmy (Nathan) are on a quest to get back Theo’s car after a shitload of fines sees it confiscated by the cops. Earning money isn’t easy for these two, especially when an office job sees time going backwards and an attempt at begging soon has them trapped on the Illuminati’s pedophile island. Hang on, wasn’t that a plot on the final season of Fat Pizza?
Meanwhile Wog Dad (Nathan) has decided he’s going to get all his food from the dump. Unsurprisingly, this results in his kidneys exploding, sending him on a quest to get new ones. Theo’s kidneys, a random pig’s kidneys – it doesn’t matter. And Wog Mum (Nathan) has finally decided she’s had enough and (under intense pressure from her parents) it’s time to move on. Will massive amounts of plastic surgery help her find a new man?
So yeah, not exactly highbrow material. Previous series mixed satire and smart insights with a lot of shouting and getting smacked around the head. This has scaled back the satire while keeping the laundry basket labelled “poo stained undies” front and center. So it’s a step down? Yeah, nah.
Surprisingly for their biggest effort to date, this feels a lot more focused than their earlier stand-alone episodes. They’ve chosen to go all-in with the physical comedy. Nathan as Wog Dad is constantly re-defining the art of face pulling, seemingly fearless when it comes to trashing his dignity for a laugh.
Even if this kind of comedy isn’t for you – in which case you should take a good hard look at yourself – you’ve got to respect the commitment to the bit. Especially when the bit is playing some kind of primeval man-beast who is as at home mud wrestling pigs and demolishing his own house as he is assaulting random strangers and guzzling juice from smashed open trash fruit.
This time around the team are keeping it simple for the international* audience. The comedy targets are broad. We’re talking boring fast food jobs, boring office jobs, decadent rich folk (the Prince Andrew gags are pretty timely), creepy sex pests, online masculinity hustlers. In between there’s bum jokes, dick jokes, vomit jokes, poo jokes, lube jokes, and the occasional old lady giving the finger. You know, the classics.
Speaking of comedy classics, Google AI decided to give us the rundown on this series:
At least they got the Netflix part right. He’s holding a pig you gronk!
Things do start to flag a little around the middle stretch. The office job episode is a highlight; pedophile island not so much, even if the way you get there was pretty funny. By the end, when Theo and Johnny are on a quest to bash Dad Wog by the use of “superhuman semen power”, the whole thing has become a twisted parody of online masculinity. Only, you know, with a Skibidi Toilet reference.
Calling Son of a Donkey the best scripted Australian comedy of 2025 is not what you’d call high praise. Far be it for us to name and shame the other pissweak contenders for that title. But unless you’re the kind of comedy fan that values class above laughs in their comedy, you’ve got to admit: Son of a Donkey, for good or (very) ill, is the one to beat.
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*while the series is filmed in Melbourne, there’s occasional references to it being set in Sydney (there’s a Sydney rail map on a train wall in the final episode, even though they’re clearly on a Melbourne train). Maybe Sydney has more international appeal?
What’s the one thing that links many of Australia’s most average sitcoms of the last five years? No, it’s not that SOMETHING VERY DRAMATIC happens in the second-to-last episode. Although that does often happen too. *
The answer is that there’s a wedding – or a wedding of sorts – in the final ever episode. And having watched the wedding of sorts in the final episode of Mother and Son, it’s really starting to grind our gears.
In the final episode of series two, hopefully the last episode of Mother and Son ever, Maggie (Denise Scott) and Arthur (Matt Okine) have a joint birthday party, organised by their daughter/sister Robbie (Angela Nica Sullen).
A promo shot for Mother and Son not featuring any wedding-esque antics.
Robbie, it’s been established over the series, isn’t great at listening to what other people want or need, so she goes off, without consulting Maggie and Arthur, and hires a big church hall, organises decorations she thinks are nice and buys a massive cake. All of which sounds like a great set-up for the worst joint birthday party of all time. And it is, except not in a way that is funny or makes a lot of sense.
You see, Robbie’s organised what looks, to anyone who isn’t her, exactly like the kind of party you’d organise if you were organising a wedding. There are white decorations, including something that looks kind of like a bridal arch, a big sign at the entrance to the hall reading “Maggie and Arthur’s big day”, and the pièce de résistance, a three-tiered cake with little figurines of Maggie and Arthur on top of it. Dressed in wife and groom gear.
Obviously, this was all intended by the writers to be a funny situation that we, the audience, laughed at. But what it actually felt like when watching it was that the people who made Mother and Son had lost their minds. No one would deliberately order all this stuff and think it was suitable for their mother and brother’s joint birthday party. Robbie is insensitive, self-absorbed, and greedy, but she’s not stupid or ignorant of what a reasonable person might read as a celebration of incest. So, as a plot, it didn’t work.
But it got us thinking, why end the series with a sort of wedding plot? And why have so many other sitcoms gone down that route in their final episode recently?
Australian sitcoms ending with a wedding dates back to at least 2007 (Kath & Kim), but it’s in the last five years that shows have really embraced the idea. In 2021, Rosehaven ended its fifth and final series with main characters and best friends Daniel (Luke McGregor) and Emma (Celia Pacquola) playing bride and groom in a rehearsal wedding officiated by Daniel’s mother Barbara (Kris McQuade). Promos featuring scenes from the rehearsal wedding, which looked every bit like a real wedding, attracted a lot of buzz, and, we’re guessing, prompted a lot of network executives to think that sitcom weddings guaranteed ratings and good times.
They really do look like they’re getting married. Aaawwww.
Aftertaste’s second and final series (2022) included a wedding, although, in a twist, it was in the first episode of the series rather than the last. This was followed by final episode wedding(-ish) plots in Wellmania (2023), Colin from Accounts (2024) and now Mother and Son. And almost none of these wedding(-ish) plots resulted in substantial laughs, feel-good moments, buzz or ratings. So why do shows keep doing it?
One reason is that weddings are a great way to a) bring a lot of characters together and b) set up the kind of high-stakes situation where there’s tension, drama and the potential for things to go wrong. Also, and this is a lesson Rosehaven took from the world of soap operas, wedding plots are a great way to get media coverage for your series. Especially if the “wedding” involves two leading characters.
But as for any of this being funny – and as we’ve discussed many times on this blog, being funny isn’t the point of a lot of Australian sitcoms these days – weddings don’t actually deliver laughs. Unless the show’s gone down the slapstick route, and the bride ends up in a septic tank, while the groom’s been hog-tied to a truck heading for Darwin, a wedding’s more likely to deliver touching, feel-good moments. Based on the last five years of Australian sitcoms, they’re mainly used as a device to prompt several previously fighting characters to come together and realise they actually agree with each other. As happened in Mother and Son.
And while that’s not the worst way to end a show, it’s worth noting that none of the really good Australian sitcoms of the last 30 years ended with a wedding. They ended with something right for the characters. Like Frontline ending with Mike Moore missing a flight because he’s lazy, inadvertently saving himself from being killed in a plane crash. Or how The Games ended with John, Gina, Bryan and Nicholas getting out of Sydney before shit went down. Or how Frayed ended with the Newcastle earthquake and some of the main characters floating the corpse of a man who deserved to die out to sea.
Funny, true to the characters and not a wedding in sight. That’s how you end a sitcom.
We rarely bother with the commercial network’s upfronts, mostly because they rarely bother with comedy. But this did catch our eye:
Comedy returns to prime time on Seven with a new format featuring Mick Molloy and Glenn Robbins and funny friends as guests. It is produced by Molloy Boy Productions.
AR: “This was the best pilot we’d seen for years. We just absolutely laughed our heads off. We really want to make sure no one steals the idea before we get it to air. Hence why, we haven’t put a title against it at this stage!”
Maybe the idea really is so good they want to keep it secret. Or maybe the title will be Mick Molloy Tonight because it’s probably a tonight show. “Funny friends as guests”? Please.
We can see it now. Mick’s behind the desk, Glenn Robbins is the sidekick / announcer, any resemblance to Sam Pang Tonight is purely coincidental. Especially as Mick can point to The Front Bar (which is also returning) and say he’s been hosting a (footy-based) talk show for ages.
[Brooke] Hall is coy about the details, only revealing to Mumbrella: “It’s not a quiz show, it’s not reality, and it’s not scripted — but it’s fucking funny.” Sold!
“I think if we can make it work here, these guys might have a successful format that will travel around the world, because it’s transferable.”
Yeah, that doesn’t exactly rule out a talk show, though it does suggest it’ll have at least one trademarkable angle. Talk show but it’s at a pub?
We’d like to think this is going to be an Australian version of The Trip. Mick and Glenn driving around wineries cracking jokes? Sign us up. But Seven has been trying to get a talk / tonight show up for at least a decade: if Ten has one that works starring one of Mick’s mates, why not tap him on the shoulder? And if it’s not a quiz show, not a reality show, not scripted but does feature funny friends… what other options are there? Mick and Glenn Pull Down People’s Pants?
Special shout-out to Seven Group Managing Director, Television, Angus Ross for saying “This was the best pilot we’d seen for years”. You’ll notice he didn’t say “comedy pilot”, because when was the last time Seven was seriously interested in local comedy – back in 2014 when they gave Kinne a go? Sure, that was also when Paul Fenech’s Bogan Hunters made its debut, but unlike AR we’re talking about comedy here.
Snark aside, at least Seven is trying. Over on Nine, their upfronts were notable for, well, let’s let a Nine publication point it out:
Notably, no new scripted drama or comedy was announced, with the free-to-air broadcaster instead leaning heavily on its ratings-winning combination of sport, game shows, reality and crime for the next 12 months.
At least Outback Murder Highway promises to be a bundle of laffs.
Hey, Sam Pang Tonight is back. Also back: many of the elements that made the first season such a fun watch. Which makes sense, even to us. If the show’s good enough to bring back, why would you mess around with it? Especially when all you need to do is make one change to turn it into exactly what the network needs.
No, not the set.
Okay, maybe we need to provide some context. More than most commercial networks, Ten has always been the place celebrities turn to when they want to flog their latest project. Until this very year there’s been an unbroken line of Roving Enterprises productions stretching back decades built around providing venues for celebrity chat. What, you thought The Project stayed on air because of the news?
There’s a big market for celebrity chat out there. Amongst viewers, not so much. But there’s a large and somewhat powerful PR industry that demands outlets where their clients can come on and talk about whatever it is they have to sell. If you have a movie star on your talk show, chances are that during the ad breaks there’ll be ads for their movies, which brings in the cash. And you know, in theory viewers like celebrity interviews too.
Seven and Nine have breakfast shows for this kind of thing. There’s also various news-ish shows that can handle a bit of celebrity chit-chat. The ABC does a surprising amount of this as well. Stars are often popping up on 730 or their breakfast show to talk up stuff. Even Australian Story is happy to have a star on, so long as they’ve been battling some serious illness or drama so the episode looks like more than just an infomercial.
Thing is, none of these shows are what you’d call the home of light entertainment. Ten, on the other hand, does make light entertainment, which is exactly where the big stars feel right at home. One hitch: most of Ten’s light entertainment, stretching back to the 20th century, has been made by Working Dog.
The WD team aren’t big fans of discussing their working methods. So it’s hard to know exactly why they’re not big fans of having on big stars. We do know that publicists have been complaining about it since the days of The Panel. And their approach to interviews has remained the same for well over two decades: they like sports people, their mates, comedy types, and fresh faces. The usual jaded types flogging their latest TV series or album? Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
When The Project was on the air and chatting to everyone under the sun, it didn’t matter that Have You Been Paying Attention? and The Cheap Seats were focused more on guests who’d be entertaining than guests who had something to flog. It was a win-win: The Project pulled the big names that audiences might tune in for, the WD shows got to be decent shows. And then it turned out the audiences weren’t tuning into The Project for big names, or much of anything else.
The first season of Sam Pang Live was, unsurprisingly, not big on big name guests. Maybe they didn’t want to jump on board a ship that was probably sinking. Maybe the so-so results of Jack Thompson’s appearence in episode one made the producers decide that more casual, entertaining guests were the way to go.
Either way, it led to one of the first season’s big strengths. Rather than having to sit through some vibe-killing slog with a high profile stiff, the chats were, for want of a better word, fun. Pang spoke almost entirely to comedians. The guest announcers? Also comedians. In something of a shock twist for Australian television, it turned out that stuffing a show full of comedians resulted in a funny show.
Having absolutely no idea how commercial television works, we have no clue if someone high up at Ten thought “if Sam Pang Tonight works we don’t need The Project for celebrity interviews, and without celebrity interviews we don’t need The Project“. What we do know is that Sam Pang Tonight was given a second season halfway through its first, and The Project was axed not long after Sam Pang’s first season finished.
This week on Sam Pang Tonight the special guests are Russell Crowe and Rachel Griffiths.
Things are about to get seriously spooky and spirited, when Ghosts Australia floats onto screens on Sunday, 2 November, with a double premiere episode at 8.30pm on 10, and all eight episodes available to stream on Paramount+.
Who says the afterlife can’t be dramatic, hilarious, and just a little bit awkward? Based on the critically acclaimed British comedy series, that has also been a huge hit in its US version, the local adaptation is full of haunts, humour and so much heart.
When Kate (Tamala: Cleverman, Nowhere Boys) and Sean (Rowan Witt: Totally Completely Fine, Book Of Mormon) inherit Ramshead Manor, a dilapidated country estate, they see a fresh start to live together and transform it into a boutique hotel. But the real test isn’t the renovations – it’s the six ghostly residents haunting the place.
After hitting her head, Kate develops the ability to see the dead, and soon after, the couple are dragged into a whirlwind of hauntings, tantrums, and century-old secrets that refuse to die. As Kate and Sean try to fix up the house, they end up fixing ghost problems instead – putting their relationship through the wringer but ultimately finding a new kind of family.
The hilarious ensemble of ghosts are brought to life by Mandy McElhinney (Love Child, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars), Brent Hill (Hamilton, School of Rock), Ines English (Last Days of the Space Age, The Last Anniversary), Michelle Brasier (Thank God You’re Here, Aunty Donna), George Zhao (The Family Law, Gold Diggers), and Jackson Tozer (Ricky Stanicky, Deadloch). The series also features guest appearances from Leah Purcell (Wentworth, High Country), Helen Thomson (Elvis, Collin From Accounts) and Peter Rowsthorn (Kath and Kim, Thank God You’re Here).
That’s “haunts, humour and so much heart”, right? You’re sure “haunts” is first? Not going to go with “haunting”? Hey. your call.
Just wondering, but has a local version of any overseas comedy format ever taken off here? Back in the 70s Kingswood Country was a knock-off of All In The Family (itself based on ‘Til Death Do Us Part). We all remember how the Australian version of Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush destroyed the unstoppable rise of the Doug Anthony All-Stars. But otherwise? Are You Being Served Down Under?
Though presumably where all those other previous attempts went wrong is that they hired comedians to do the funny stuff, a trap Ghosts Down Under has largely avoided. Be prepared to be scared!
Crime Night! puts crime under the microscope this November
Hosted by the award-winning Julia Zemiro, ABC’s brand new entertainment show Crime Night! premieres on Wednesday 5 November at 8.30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
The six-part series dives beneath the surface of crime to explore the science and psychology behind it all.
Each week Julia is joined by expert criminologists Professor Danielle Reynald and Dr David Bartlett, alongside a rotating panel of Australia’s sharpest comedians to unpack a different area of crime and criminology. Special guests include Celia Pacquola, Mel Buttle, Claire Hooper, Rhys Nicholson, Susie Youssef, Nick Cody, Ryan Shelton, Lizzy Hoo, Alexei Toliopoulos and Steph Tisdell.
Each episode features a unique Experiment of the Week, where panellists or the studio audience become unwitting accomplices in testing long-held assumptions about criminal behaviour. Adding to the mix is comedy sensation, Lou Wall, who delivers their own analysis on a quirky criminal curiosity tied to the week’s theme.
While the criminologists share insightful analysis and the comedians ask the questions we’re all dying to know, Crime Night! blends real-life criminal cases, witty storytelling and entertaining social experiments to expose the frailties, illusions and delusions of our very human obsession with crime.
What does this have to do with comedy? Check out that line-up of guests! Ryan Shelton: there’s a name we haven’t seen in a while.
Also funny: the way this seems to have backed off a little from the original concept, which was
a comedy true-crime panel show where real-life cases are examined through the lens of criminology and comedy.
Sure, if you squint real hard they’re same show… kinda. But you don’t need to be an expert criminologist to realise that letting comedians anywhere near actual true crime cases is a really, really bad idea.
So now they’re just going to be making jokes about “a different area of crime and criminology” instead of specific grim cases of human suffering and loss. Can’t wait to see what “entertaining social experiments” they come up with. Good thing Cluedo is still under copyright.
Oh yeah, there’s a trailer: Guess they won’t be stabbing a random comedian to death each week after all
The other day, the Sydney Morning Herald published an article called Is the new Mother and Son already better than the original? Our reviewer says yes. It’s a legitimate question to ask about Matt Okine’s remake of the fondly remembered 80s/90s sitcom, although it’s notable that the SMH didn’t ask it when series one dropped two years ago.
We’re guessing the SMH didn’t ask it because the first series of Okine’s remake of Mother and Sonwasn’t that great. Amongst other problems, it spent way too much time trying to be a realistic dramedy, showing the emotional impact of the mental decline of mother Maggie (Denise Scott) on son Arthur (Okine) rather than being a funny show about two people stuck together. Quite a contrast to the original version, written by Geoffrey Atherden, which was 100% going for laughs, even when the jokes about Maggie’s dementia were a bit much for some members of the audience.
Having said that, the second series of Okine’s Mother and Son is funnier than the first. Episode one, in particular, felt like it was within touching distance of being a classic farce, with mother, son and the rest of the family ensnared in a series of escalating lies that almost tore them apart.
But the rest of Mother and Son series two hasn’t managed to maintain that level of quality. So, why is the SMH talking up it? Here are a few excerpts from the article; perhaps you can identify the theme…
Judging from the pained reactions of “is nothing sacred?” that met its announcement, the reboot was bound to face unfair comparisons with a classic that won its stars – Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell – three Gold Logies between them during its original run.
That it revealed itself to be a charming update with its own understated sensibility, fun performances from Okine as apathetic Arthur and Denise Scott as ditsy mum Maggie, and more than enough to say about the Millennial v Boomer culture wars, was probably lost on many who didn’t give it a chance.
…
The show again mines relatable laughs from the generational divide. Maggie doesn’t get Arthur’s “job” as a content creator; Arthur has to explain to Maggie how streaming works, and that cash is not a thing anyone uses any more, and to not trust 5G conspiracy theories she reads on Facebook, and to not give out her account information to random callers posing as “the bank”.
Is this a sitcom or a documentary of my life? Okine, the show’s main writer, understands that the central Millennial experience is worrying about your Boomer parents getting scammed online, in phone calls, in real life. They are such a vulnerable bunch.
As a depiction of the “intergenerational bastardry” that defines Australian life in the 2020s, this show couldn’t be more precise. Like every situation between home-owning Boomers and have-nothing Millennials, money is the show’s underlying obsession: every episode involves Arthur and his sister Robbie (Angela Nica Sullen) scheming to get their hands on their mum’s nest egg, or to stop others from getting to it.
The first episode sees Maggie finding a paramour during a family resort holiday; Arthur and Robbie are instantly sceptical about what this guy is trying to steal from their mum. It’s sad this is what parent-child relationships have come to, but blame capitalism. Or the housing crisis. Or the cowardly political class who won’t do the obvious things to fix it.
For a show with death and ageing at its core (and there are more than a few clues that Maggie is succumbing to dementia), it still keeps things sitcom light. There’s a playful warmth between Okine and Scott’s endless bickering that’s just fun to sit with.
Yeah, we get it, the reviewer prefers Okine’s version because it’s relatable to them. They also fail to say much about Atherden’s original, which, we’re guessing, means they haven’t seen much of it, let alone engaged with the idea that it was resonant with audiences at the time.
One thing we do know about comedy about Boomers and Millennials, though, is that Matt Okine’s Mother and Son is hardly on its own for tackling the topic. Australian comedies that have covered Boomers and Millennials, the housing crisis and how capitalism is screwing younger generations over the past decade include, but are not limited to, Tonightly, At Home Alone Together, various episodes of Fresh Blood, a number of Mark Humphries’ sketches for 7.30, some of the better guest segments on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering and, to an extent, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Gen. In fact, it’s hard to think of topics that have inspired more Australian comedy in the past decade. Apart from maybe that period when Sydney comedians were obsessed with bin chickens.
So, that article on the SMH is bunk, basically. There possibly is an argument to be made that Matt Okine’s Mother and Son is better than the original, but it isn’t “I’m a Millennial and I understand this”. Things might be funny because you can relate to them, but not everything that’s relatable is funny.
It’s no surprise that the new season of Mother and Son is an improvement over the first. Okay, yes, it is a bit of a surprise, because how often do Australian comedy series improve with time? We’re so used to duds that turn fully half-arsed in their second go-round that it’s easy to forget that with practice humans – usually – get better at things.
The most obvious reason that this second visit with the 21st Century version of Maggie and Arthur is a step up is Denise Scott. She was easily the best thing in the first season: she was also (it’s no secret) unwell at the time. Now on the mend, she’s back in full force and the series is a lot better for it.
The writers also seem to have realised that if you have someone of the caliber of Denise Scott on your show, it’s not a bad idea to write to her strengths. So Maggie is now a bit more of a freewheeling nutbag and slightly less of a sinister nutbag manipulating her son to keep him under her thumb. It makes her funnier to watch, and while technically it damages the central concept of the show a little, at this stage who cares?
Speaking of the central concept, the first season had no idea what to do with it. Scott could handle her side of things, sure. But “re-imaginer” and co-lead Matt Okine didn’t seem interested in playing a character who wasn’t yet another video-game playing man-child looking for a partner he could sponge off. That undercut the psychological underpinnings of the series in a big way. This Arthur wasn’t neurotic and under his mother’s thumb psychologically. He just wanted someone – anyone – to clean up after him.
So this season has, somewhat sensibly, decided that the mother / son relationship here is more akin to a couple of flatmates. He can’t afford to move out, she needs someone to set up her internet, his sister is not a great comedy foil but hey, bring on the gags. It’s a lot more disposable, but given the choice between failing at being great and succeeding at being just okay, this particular team have chosen… wisely.
Mother and Son is much more surface level this time around. Pretty much every episode sounds like there could be some solid characterisation going on – 2/3rds of them seem to involve some new character coming between Maggie and Arthur, while the rest involve some situation that dials up their co-dependent relationship up to 11.
And yet, each time the actual episode is really just another story about rich oldies hogging the houses, the cash and the remote. Which is fine (and accurate), but probably the stuff of a sitcom that, you know, has a well-thought out position on things. At least we get a bunch of okay jokes and a guest performer hamming it up to some (usually excessive) degree. Jean Kittson is back! Yeah, that’s a win.
Going more cartoony was definitely the right choice, even if it’s not going to save this pre-Christmas turkey. Maybe given another five seasons this could eventually lead to a half-dozen classic episodes: who knew that Matt Okine and Denise Scott were a halfway decent comedy team? Nobody who watched the first season that’s for sure, they hardly seemed to share a scene together.
This reboot remains pointless and vaguely annoying. Seeing Kitson and Scott together just makes you wish they’d been given their own sitcom; meanwhile, Okine’s manchild act is increasingly butting up against some hard limits as he goes from “comedy pathetic” to “just regular pathetic” and we go from “laughing at” to “did our phone just ding better look at it for twenty minutes just in case”.
But compared to the first season’s urine-soaked trainwreck, this is passable viewing if you stumble across it by mistake. Not that the ABC has had a new viewer since 2012, but fingers crossed all those people watching Fisk on Netflix will one day figure out what that weird sideways twisted figure 8 in the end credits stands for
Australian Comedy Royalty Unites for New ABC Series Bad Company
The ABC, Screen Australia and VicScreen are thrilled to announce two of Australia’s most beloved comedians, Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan will join forces for the new 6-part comedy series, Bad Company.
Created by, written and starring AACTA award-winning comedian Anne Edmonds (Have You Been Paying Attention?, Get Krack!n, Edge of the Bush) and produced by Guesswork Television, Bad Company will see Edmonds bring her signature bite to a bold new creation as she stars alongside comedy powerhouse, Kitty Flanagan (Fisk, Utopia, Have You Been Paying Attention?). Both known for their razor-sharp wits and sell-out national tours, these award-winning stars and friends will play fierce rivals who test each other to the limit.
Set within the crumbling walls of The Argyle, a venerable iconic theatre company on the brink of bankruptcy, Bad Company follows Margie (Edmonds), the Argyle’s volatile artistic director, whose unchecked whims have sent the company spiralling, and Julia (Flanagan) a high-flying corporate executive brought in to clean up Margie’s mess.
Creator/writer/star Edmonds says “I’m thrilled to be making an ABC comedy about something so close to my heart – the drama behind the scenes. And getting to make it with Kitty Flanagan? A dream come true.”
ABC Head of Scripted Rachel Okine said “Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan – what a match made in heaven. ABC audiences are going to be delighted to see these two comedic powerhouses going head-to-head in the most unusual of workplace settings.”
Director of Narrative Content at Screen Australia Louise Gough said: “Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan are two of Australia’s iconic comedic talents and I’ve no doubt they are going to raise the curtain, wipe off the greasepaint and cue the spotlight on this biting satire set in the theatre world. Edmonds’ and Flanagan’s hilarious new characters will delight audiences here and around the world.”
VicScreen CEO, Caroline Pitcher said, “We’re delighted to be in ‘good company’ with Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan, two of Australia’s favourite comedians, to make Bad Company in Victoria. The wild global success of Fisk has proven that our distinctive Australian humour can tickle the funny bone of audiences here and overseas. I can’t wait to see the shenanigans when Anne and Kitty do battle backstage in this clever new series.”
Guesswork Managing Director, Kevin Whyte said, “In a surprise to no one who follows Australian comedy, Anne Edmonds has created an hilarious world with a new signature character – Margie Argyle. It has been a long time coming and to have Anne joined by Kitty makes it an even bigger thrill.”
The series will be directed by Tom Peterson (Fisk) and produced by Andrew Walker (Deadloch, Rosehaven) with filming commencing next week in Melbourne.
Bad Company will air on the ABC in 2026.
Good news, it’s a new ABC sitcom that might not suck! Low praise indeed, but hey, we’ve been burnt before.
What this might mean for more Fisk, who knows? More Flanagan is always welcome, and Edmonds is funny in pretty much everything she appears in. File this one under “a safe pair of hands”.
It’s interesting to read the VicScreen CEO specifically mention the global success of Fisk. That’s a rare good news story out of Australian comedy – one of Team Tumbleweeds has seen two separate overseas-based creative types talking it up on social media in the last fortnight alone.
And having the head honcho at Screen Australia talk about amusing audiences “here and around the world”? Yeah, seems that quirky low-key Australian comedy is, once again, bankable to those with their noses firmly stuck in the air – so they can see what’s going on overseas, of course.
Will the industry side of things find a way to screw it up by throwing every spare cent at, say, a Kate Langbroek sitcom? Probably. But if there’s even a little bit more motivation to invest in local comedy by somebody holding the purse strings, we’ll gladly take a string of Fisk knock-offs.
Time to start pitching that sitcom about a socially awkward cop titled Frisk.
