Comedy TV

The House Always Wins

Just to cap off a week of Randling posts, let’s pause to note the fact that – unlike, oh, every other Wednesday night ABC comedy show in living memory – Randling is now being repeated on ABC1 Friday nights in prime time (9.30pm to be exact). Wow, who would have thought the demand for a... Read More »

The Future Of Australian Comedy Is Here At Last

We may have been a bit hard on the ABC of late, what with all that pointing out that their current Wednesday night “comedy” line-up is not only a bit shit but currently rating like people have realised it’s actually a bit shit. Don’t worry though, we’ve just been forwarded a press release letting us... Read More »

We’re Bashing Our Heads Against a Brick Wall Over Here

Sometimes it’s good to take on board opinions diametrically opposed to yours to broaden your view on a subject. Other times you find yourself reading something that’s just plain wrong. Guess which is which with regards to The Sunday Age‘s Melinda Houston and her most recent write-up of Randling? Everyone, including the audience at home,... Read More »

Laughing at The Boss’ Jokes

A brief glimmer of hope came when watching Randling last night – before we realised wait, we’re watching Randling – with an increasingly rare appearance of one Anthony Morgan. Hurrah! It’s always far too long between television gigs for this particular funnyman (he moved to Tasmania around a decade ago), which prompted us to wonder... Read More »

Laid 2: Face/Off

When a series such as Laid gets renewed, the conversation around it changes a little. No longer is it sufficient merely to attack it for being a complete and utter waste of time, for clearly by being renewed the ABC have indicated that they want it to be a complete and utter waste of time.... Read More »

In A Word: Rubbish

Is there anything more insufferably cringeworthy than announcing to the world your 'love of words'? Some go one step further, however, and devise entire quiz shows based on their self-congratulatory linguistophilia, of which Randling (which began tonight on ABC1) is the latest in a long and woeful... Read More »

Vale Agony Uncles; or The King Is Dead, Long Live The Queen

Sometimes a show succeeds despite itself. While Agony Uncles may have positioned itself as a source for all that hard-hitting relationship advice men have secretly been crying out for, our straw poll of people who’ve actually watched the thing boiled down to two separate results: every man we spoke to thought it was a crap... Read More »

Randling is a Word Based Game Show. The word is Denton.

If you like comedy and didn’t have reason to dislike the inordinately smug Andrew Denton before now, thanks to a recent interview he gave to Fairfax, now you do: In a perfect world, Denton says, Randling would have been a companion piece to the popular music-trivia show Spicks and Specks. But two weeks after pitching... Read More »

Hamish Blake is Unpopular Fraud, Steals Gold Logie From Deserving Blandoids

Did Hamish Blake deserve to win his Gold Logie? Well, it depends: considering the Gold Logie usually signifies a career about to come to a screeching halt… again, it depends. But you’d expect that kind of snark from us; one place you probably wouldn’t expect it from is the celebrity-worshiping pages of yes, you guessed... Read More »

Vale Woodley

Last weekend Sunday Age TV critic Melinda Houston revealed exactly why Woodley has been a bit of a fizzle ratings-wise: “It’s complex and full of thoughtful detail while still able to be thoroughly enjoyed by a six-year old.” While this is true, the problem is that it’s true of the show as a whole, not... Read More »