This week Australia greeted the arrival of two new game shows featuring comedians: Shaun Micallef’s Parents Evening and Class Clowns. Regular readers will know that comedy games shows – even the good ones – aren’t really our thing. Looking for praise for Taskmaster? Can’t get enough of Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee? Tell your... Read More »
Press release time! Australia’s Funniest Are Reporting For Duty. A telemovie? In 2026? On Australian television? A comedy telemovie? You’re going to have to give us a second here. Okay, sure, a hefty percentage of that line-up presumably filmed their appearances in a room all by themselves. Bad news for fans hoping for a Martin/Molloy... Read More »
We’ve never been huge fans of Colin from Accounts. Prioritising romance and cute dog chaos over straight-up laughs isn’t the way to keep anyone who wants comedy to be funny interested. But there was almost enough good stuff going on in series three for us not to totally hate it. Also, this will clearly be... Read More »
Three episodes into the second series of Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey, and we realised that we’d rather watch this than most of the new Australian sitcoms aired this year. And indeed, most of the new Australian sitcoms aired in the last decade. Yes, TV comedy really has sunk to the point where we’re kinda recommending... Read More »
As you may have noticed, Australian comedy – on television at least – is keeping its head down. Over on Ten, they’ve got things sorted. Having two long running panel-slash-clip shows that have been basically unchanged for the last five years is great. It’s also a bit of a holding pattern. Still no word on... Read More »
It’s the third and final series of Colin From Accounts and the dog still isn’t dead. Don’t look so relieved: the iron law of Australian dramedies is that there’s either a funeral or a wedding in the final episode. Last season ended with Gordon (Patrick Brammall) proposing and being knocked back. Hope you’ve got a... Read More »
Cup Fever! has been turning up on our screens in various forms* for well over a decade now. It’s not hard to see why. Two or three hosts behind a desk, maybe a guest, and a bunch of sports footage? They could have called it The Cheaper Cheap Seats. It’s biggest advantage is also the... Read More »
Look, we really wanted to like Ground Up. And often, we did! Just not quite often enough. Which makes it a rare example of a recent comedy that we’re not here to bury or praise. Much like the dead hand of sport across every aspect of Australian life, it’s just there. So what happened? The... Read More »
Over the years, we’ve not exactly expressed huge enthusiasm for Guy Montgomery’s Guy-Mont Spelling Bee. Its fundamental flaw, we’ve repeatedly argued, is that it’ll never be as funny as you’d like a show like that to be, because the main point of the show – spelling words – cannot be made funny. Yet, somehow, in... Read More »
The first thing you notice about Ground Up is that it’s not written by the lead actor. A first for an Australian sitcom in 2026! And probably a lot longer, it’s too depressing to check. A sitcom written (or co-written) by its lead doesn’t have to suck. May we direct your attention towards The Games,... Read More »