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.