Get Krack!n Up the Duff

Week four of Get Krack!n and the hosts have news: they may (or may not) be pregnant! As you’d expect, they have very different ways of dealing with this and the harsh media spotlight that it brings. Kate McCartney – the one who doesn’t really give a shit – announces it, says she’ll never mention it again and moves on; Kate McLennan – the one who’s way too invested in all this “being on TV stuff” – has absolutely nothing to announce. How’s this going to pan out?

One of the slightly strange things about Get Krack!n is that after a season and a half the characters of the Kates haven’t really developed beyond what was served up in episode one. In fact, at times it’s gone backwards: they’re not good at their job (apart from when they are), they’re not at home on television (unless they’re so comfortable they’re happy to make smart-arse comments live on air), they’re socially concerned and aware (except when they’re not), and they’re women and mothers struggling under the burdens of both roles (at least some of the time).

This isn’t automatically a negative. The Kates’ interests clearly lie more in making fun of the media and society in general, and keeping their characters somewhat loosely-defined definitely helps there. But it does mean that when they do a slightly more character-focused episode like this one, it takes a little while for the audience to get their bearings. So this week McCartney is the one who’s going along with what the show requires and McLennan is fighting against it? Gotcha.

(obviously the flip side is that it’s almost always funnier for McLennan to be the one freaking out, and whatever set-up is the one that gets her freaking out is the best set-up)

Strangely, this slightly ill-defined character situation wasn’t a problem at all with The Katering Show. Thanks to its shorter length and more plausible scenario, the Kates were able to make the same basic characters seem a lot more rounded and realistic.

But with Get Krack!n they don’t seem to have been able to come up with (or aren’t interested in exploring – McCartney’s love of creepy wildlife is a promising vein largely untapped) any consistent character traits to fill the space in half hour episodes, and while both Kates are definitely strong performers who never really feel “out of character”, there’s just not enough consistent character there to develop that particular kind of comedy.

(the kind of character comedy that leads to rants against the patriarchy, on the other hand, is fully supported)

But hey, this episode also featured a totally gratuitous but hilarious Wake in Fright tribute and a reminder that those “oh Mr Hart, what a mess!” commercials really did happen, so once again our nit-picking remains just that. It’s a show that’s all over the place, but so long as one of those places features haunted dolls, we’re still on board.