Utopia has come to an end, as we knew it would. But is this goodbye, or merely “I’ll be back”? Yeah, an 80s movie reference feels pretty on brand for Utopia. Despite being stocked with young comedic talent, this last season has been a firm reminder that the oldies haven’t retired yet and if this... Read More »
Five years ago War on Waste was yet another of the ABC’s attempts to make consumer affairs television entertaining. Now it’s back, and it’s not even trying to be funny. So why are we mentioning it? We’re all used to the ABC’s endless efforts to cash in on nostalgia for things we didn’t even realise... Read More »
Hey look, The Back Side of Television is back, and it’s so good we actually watched every episode before coming here to tell you about it. Yeah yeah, we’ll get around to watching those other episodes of Gold Diggers later – it’s just nice to be watching an Australian comedy where you come away thinking... Read More »
Every week in Utopia there’s a culture war subplot, and the side the show picks makes for uncomfortable... Read More »
The Betoota Advocate Presents and Deadloch were mostly serious shows made by funny people. What does this tell us about comedy in... Read More »
Okay, so our expectations weren’t all that high for Gold Diggers. Australia’s proud history of proud historical sitcoms doesn’t quite begin and end with Bligh, but good luck topping the “big tits, small dicks” scene from The Olden Days. And both those examples are old enough to be historical comedies in their own right. Why... Read More »
Gambling ads have been in the news recently, what with an exciting new proposal to ban them because they’re pure fucking evil. “Gambling advertising and simulated gambling through video games is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour,” she said. “The torrent of advertising is inescapable. It is manipulating an impressionable... Read More »
For comedy to be funny it needs to be believable and it’s hard to find anything much believable or funny in the new locally made Catherine Tate comedy Queen of... Read More »
You know what they say – you cannot kill what does not live. And so trying to shovel some dirt over The Weekly once again proves to be utterly pointless, because across 19 episodes the whole thing showed about as much life as your average Dodo and yet it’ll somehow be back again next year... Read More »
Once again we return to what seems to be increasingly familiar territory: new Australian series that you’d think would be comedies, but are not. And not in the “because they’re not funny, geddit?” sense either. The Betoota Advocate Presents is a perfectly well made and successful program that just… isn’t really trying to be all... Read More »