Awards and renewals

The nominees for this year’s Logies have been announced and it’s not all bad for comedy. Okay, it’s not a complete disaster for comedy. Yes, the Most Popular categories are all Adam Hills, The Project, Hamish & Andy and shows made by Zapruder’s (don’t worry, there’s no nomination for Randling), but the Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program category at least has the decency to include Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell and The Hamster Wheel.

Mad As Hell and The Hamster Wheel both fared well in the 2012 Australian Tumbleweed Awards, with Mad As Hell winning both Best New Comedy and Best Comedy. But whether the industry jury which decides the Most Outstanding Logies agrees with the Tumblies voters or plumps for The X Factor remains to be seen.

Incidentally, have you ever wondered who’s actually on the Logies jury? So have we. A quick Google reveals…well…not very much. Although we did find this on The Border Mail:

Eleven of the awards are “most outstanding” peer-voted awards; that is, they are voted by juries of television industry peers such as actors, writers and producers.

We also found the LinkedIn profiles of a producer and a director, who either were or had been on the Logies jury. Both of these individuals have enjoyed long careers in Australian television but neither seemed to have worked in comedy or entertainment, so exactly who will be judging the Most Outstanding Light Entertainment Program Logie remains a mystery. But fingers crossed they’re Micallef fans, obviously.

One show not receiving a Logies nomination, but apparently getting a second series and being pitched in the US is A Moody Christmas. It’s hard to imagine where this show can go if it follows the same format of six consecutive Christmases, but according to TV Tonight:

Jungleboys are planning to shoot another series later this year, following its success with audiences late last year.

That’s presumably success with audiences who don’t care too much about whether a show’s funny or interesting, because even if you judge A Moody Christmas as a “light family drama” you’re going to be disappointed.

Anyway, to get back to our original point, we hate to do our old gear on you but this bit from our original review of A Moody Christmas seems relevant as to why we don’t think a second series would be a good idea:

…the premise – we check back in with the Moody’s every Christmas – doesn’t give us a lot of hope there. It’s a good premise, but it really needs much stronger characters to work if it’s going to keep approaching things realistically. Christmas gatherings are a time when people fall into a rut, playing a role within their family, and from the first episode none of the one-note characters (the sister: I’m pregnant! Next week: we have to have sex so I can get pregnant!) or the roles they play are going to sustain six weeks of comedy unless they seriously go off the rails.

But hey, in a world where Laid might be coming back for a third outing it would probably be more surprising if A Moody Christmas didn’t than if it did!