This week WTFAQ made its debut on the ABC. Not that it felt anything like a debut, as it’s really just the latest version of the kind of lightweight infotainment series the ABC has been flogging since at least Hungry Beast. Every time it returns we tune in to see if this time it’s actually a comedy. Every time we come away disappointed.
In the same week – well, within a seven-day period – we also learnt that Mark Humphries and the backstage dancers that helped put together his satirical segments on 730 were finishing up. We say “finishing up” because in his carefully worded statement Humphries did not go into any detail whatsoever as to why he was finishing up.
After five years, tonight’s sketch will be our last at 7.30. Thank god for that, I hear some of you say. To everyone else, thank you for watching and for supporting both our work and my pivot to a beard. pic.twitter.com/EeugOqYFIK
The smart money is on budget cuts, mostly because it’s always budget cuts.
Thing is, the ABC’s budget is, to a large extent at least, something that is spent on the whim of management. This isn’t a case of “fuck, we have to keep Kyle Sandilands around, the advertisers love him and he brings in 99% of our income”. The ABC gets money from the government to do various ABC things, but as far as programming is concerned management can turn everything after the news into an all-snail watching channel – and who knows? Maybe they have. It’s not like anyone under 60 is watching.
But this means when “budget cuts” are thrown around as the reason why, oh, just for example, the ABC now no longer runs any satire at all-
-that’s right, it’s all gone in the bin in the last year or so. Sammy J? Gone. Mad as Hell? Gone. Mark Humphries? We’re going to assume you didn’t just skip directly to this paragraph. It’s almost as if ABC management really, really really didn’t want to run any comedy (we could stop right there really) that was making fun of the government, but they were too gutless to act while the LNP was in power. But now that Labor is sitting in the big chair and presumably the ABC audience don’t want their heroes being mocked? Fuck you satirical comedy.
Anyway, when the ABC says they’ve cut something due to budget cuts, what they mean is that they decided something else was more important because they’re the ones who decide where the budget is spent. It’s not some harsh judgment imposed on them by forces beyond their control; the federal government isn’t telling them they can only spend 5% of the budget on comedy (70% being reserved for “dramas about a murder in a sleepy small town where things are not what they seem”).
Yes, they can’t afford to be everything to everyone. But even if they had unlimited money, you know they’d be blaming “technical limitations” or “bandwidth constraints” to explain why they weren’t creating the kind of shows they didn’t want to touch.
So when you cast your gaze across the ABC line-up and see a grand total of zero sharp-witted news satires taking deadly aim at our lords and masters – or just whatever it was Mark Humphries was doing – but the return yet again of “let’s answer viewer questions with stunts!” for another six or so weeks, remember: this is how the ABC chooses to spend their limited budget.
They could be paying funny people who can see how the country is being run to make jokes about how we’re being screwed over in pretty much every direction you care to look. Instead, they’re paying people to wonder if tomato sauce is more hygienic in a cupboard or in a fridge.
Is the cost-of-living crisis the result of massive commercial monopolies our governments actively encourage because they’ve been captured whole by big business? Fuck knows, we’re too busy trying to find out if having your baby trapped under a car gives you super-strength.
Then again, if we really want answers maybe WTFAQ could tackle the question “why doesn’t the ABC have any satirical programs in 2023?”
Cameras roll on ABC’s sexy new comedy White Fever.
ABC and Screen Australia are delighted to announce that filming is underway in Melbourne on White Fever, the new Australian comedy from rising star Ra Chapman.
Jane (Ra Chapman) is a cocky Korean-Australian adoptee with a love of hairy white guys – the hairier and whiter the better. When her friends call her out for having “white fever”, she sets out on a journey to try and reprogram her libido but instead instigates the process of finding out who she really is.
From hens’ nights to country weddings, moon crystals, “gotcha” days and a boxing ring, it’s a K-Pop-infused, action-packed, wild ride filled with revelations, surprises and a large helping of Asian pop culture.
Creator, writer and star of White Fever Ra Chapman says “I’m so excited for audiences to meet Jane, and experience the unceremonious roller-coaster journey she goes on. I hope this fun and cheeky comedy not only makes you laugh but also makes you see yourself and the people you love, and lust after, in a totally new light!”
Starring alongside Ra is a terrific line-up of Australian comedic talent, including Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians, Joy Ride), Roz Hammond (Shaun Micallef’sMad as Hell, Bay of Fires), Greg Stone (Jack Irish, Miss Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries), Katie Robertson (Rosehaven, Five Bedrooms), Cassandra Sorrell (North Shore), Harvey Zielinski (Deadloch) and Jillian Nguyen (One Night, Barons).
ABC Head of Comedy Todd Abbott says “Everyone loves a romcom, but this one, from the phenomenal talent that is Ra Chapman, is so much more than just that. It’s sharp, smart, funny, fresh and plunges us deep into a unique world. Hearing this sensational cast read the scripts around the table made us laugh, cry and rethink so much of what we take for granted. I can’t wait to see it burst into life on screen and share it with audiences.”
CEO of Screen Australia Graeme Mason says “White Fever is a refreshing and authentic take on the everyday romcom. With its clever script, candid insights, exceptional cast and creative team — this bold and hilarious series provides a meaningful exploration of identity and relationships. Without a doubt, Ra Chapman and White Fever will strike a chord with Australian audiences, leaving them wanting more.”
Developed by Ra Chapman and Katherine Fry. Written by Ra Chapman, Michele Lee, Harvey Zielinski, Clare Atkins and directed by Aidee Walker, White Fever will film in and around Melbourne over the next five weeks and will air on ABC TV and ABC iview in 2024.
White Fever also appears to be partly based on ideas in creator/writer/star Ra Chapman’s 2022 play K-BOX, about a Korean-Australian adoptee. Reviewing a performance at Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre, The Guardian described K-BOX as flitting between “between rapid-fire humour and tense family drama”. The play later won the Patrick White Playwrights Award.
But whether the sort of humour typical of the theatre will translate to a TV comedy is another matter. David Williamson’s Dog’s Head Bay, once described as “the worst piece of television in the history of Australia”, suggests not.
Either way, White Fever seems to be giving off vague Colin From Accounts vibes. Sitting firmly in the recent Australian tradition of making shows that look like sitcoms but turn out to be mildly depressing dramas. Can it buck the trend and make us laugh a lot? We hope so.
The launch last week of the new podcast From The Hideout was a nice surprise. Featuring Tony Martin (The Late Show, Get This, Sizzletown), legendary Channel 9 voiceover man Pete Smith, and Djovan Caro (Lessons with Luis, The Backside of Television), From The Hideout is a loose chat between three men who share a similar set of interests.
But clocking in it at just 37 minutes, this isn’t one of those “three mates around a mic talking about their hobbies” podcasts, which rambles on and on. Smith, Martin, and Caro are experienced broadcasters and storytellers and know how to keep things interesting and succinct. And when they don’t, the show’s producers, Caro and Alex Amster employ a few judicious edits to break things up… Which allows you to enjoy a sting of the show’s chilled-out, jazz club-esque theme music, written by Mitch McTaggart (The Backside of Television).
It’s the kind of discipline and care and attention we wish more podcasters had. You don’t need to keep everything you recorded in. You really don’t. But if there are three people who know that very well, it’s Smith, Martin, and Caro. They may be from completely different generations but they’re all film and TV nerds, and they understand that editing is important.
All three also had boyhood ambitions to get into broadcasting, and in this first episode, they talk about how they each started out.
Back in the late 50s, Smith wanted to get into radio and television and shared this ambition with schoolfriend and fellow Channel 9 alumnus Philip Brady. This led to the pair kind of inventing the podcast as teenagers when they recorded themselves at home presenting a show called Brodie’s Hideout. Their method of distributing the show, there being no Apple Podcasts or Spotify at the time, involved them posting each episode to friends and broadcasting live via doorbell wire to neighbours.
Other formative experiences the trio discuss include a radio play produced as a school project by Martin, and Caro’s teenage attempts to remake the Matrix films using home video recording equipment.
If you’re in any way a film or TV nerd, like messing around with recording equipment or just enjoy a real-life story well told by funny people, give From The Hideout a go.
There’s a certain kind of cheap thrill you get when something you had low expectations for somehow manages to be even worse. Good news: being a hater sometimes pays off. And while nobody was expecting the Mother and Son reboot to be anything more than exactly what the words “Mother and Son reboot” promise, the first episode somehow managed to deliver so much less than that.
Just to be clear, it’s perfectly possible to imagine somebody coming away from this episode thinking “that wasn’t too bad”. They would be wrong, and you’ve just wasted five seconds imaging some pointless nightmare creature that never should have existed. But, just for the sake of balance, we’ll admit that Denise Scott fans were well served. Visually it looked like an inoffensive lightweight drama. If you like Matt Okine’s work, seek professional help.
For everyone else, this was a pointless insult at best and 27 minutes of absolutely nothing at worst. It was an attempt to bring a sitcom created at a time when comedy was 110% about being funny into an era where actually trying to make an audience laugh is little more than an optional extra. We came to see a mother and son go at each other hammer and tongs: what we got was two people who occasionally found themselves in the same room.
Maybe the words “executive produced by Matt Okine” should have been warning enough. Okine – who also stars, because Australia no longer has sitcom writers, only performers who think they can write – plays Arthur as his typical stunted manchild character. You might think that would work here. It does not.
It doesn’t work because… well, there are a lot of reasons really. But okay: let’s accept that Okine was always going to play Arthur, and that Okine’s well-established limitations as a writer and performer aren’t automatically fatal – basically, that there could be a good version of Mother and Son featuring Okine as Arthur. Then this this version of the show is still shithouse, because there’s no stakes.
The tone of the first episode makes it clear that if Arthur’s mum would get off his back, he’d happily live with her. There’s no sense that he’s trapped, nothing to suggest he even wants other options aside from an ex he half-heartedly tries to win back. This version of Arthur is just an aimless drifter with dreams of a successful website; he also has a roomate who just happens to be his mum.
Maggie is slightly more interesting, both as a character and because Scott is actually funny. But again, aside from a kitchen fire (that we don’t see), there’s not a lot here to suggest she really needs Arthur around. And without the central idea that we have two people stuck with each other – people who in many ways make each other worse but can’t survive without each other – there’s no comedy.
Oh sure, there’s a bit of banter. Maggie pulls a few stunts here and there. But without audiences bringing some preconceived idea of what “Mother and Son” is about to proceedings, this is just an oddly aimless lightweight drama. It’s a show about trying to put mum in a nursing home so the kids can sell the house before deciding “nah, we can make even more money if we wait until the guy next door dies”.
The only way this approach makes any sense is as an attempt to bring one of Australia’s best sitcoms into the era of stuff like… well, stuff that Matt Okine makes for starters. Inner city hangout shows where bland characters exchange “realistic” dialogue. The goal isn’t so much laughter as keeping you just engaged enough that you don’t change the channel. These aren’t shows you watch, they’re shows you have on in the background.
The original Mother and Son was made by people who knew that for the premise of the show to work, there had to be an edge to it. Desperation and need; they’re not always essential to comedy, but they don’t hurt either. The original often had people asking if Maggie had dementia, which was a little dark even then and today is the kind of area the ABC isn’t going anywhere near. Suffice to say, that’s not a question you’ll come away asking here.
Though you might have cause to wonder about your own mental health if you come back next week.
Gold Diggers is over, and its anti-heroines Gertrude and Marigold Brewer have got somewhat towards their goal of marrying rich and living the easy life. But was it worth telling us their story of trying to find wealthy husbands over eight episodes? Given that the show’s schtick of talking like it’s 2023 even though it’s 1853 was getting boring in episode one, maybe not.
The basic joke of Gold Diggers – and a major problem with the show was that there pretty much was only one basic joke – was that Gertie and Goldie speak like a couple of TikTokers who think they’re intelligent feminists but are actually pretty clueless. Once you get past that, it’s a low-stakes Netflix-esque drama with the occasional sight gag, odd character, or funny line. If you’re seeking big laughs, maybe catch up on Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café, which does high-concept sitcoms featuring big courtroom scenes way better, albeit with an emphasis on “anything can happen” rather than an attempt to comment on contemporary culture, as Gold Diggers kind of tries to.
Which brings us to why this show was set in the 1850s when the target is now, where social media influencers telling women to put all their energy into bagging rich husbands have supposedly been blowing up recently. There’s presumably a bit more to it than that the title, Gold Diggers, is quite a good pun for a show set during the Gold Rush, but we’re not entirely convinced. Is there anything in the show which was funnier because it was set in the 1850s? Or would setting it in the present day be too reminiscent of recent-ish ABC comedies which make similar commentary on social media influencers, like 2019’s Content.
Another issue is that the Brewer sisters spend way too long in a town which doesn’t have a pool of rich potential husbands. Apart from the one guy, who’s already married to an old frenemy of theirs from the big smoke. So, they must hope that either one of the miners will strike it rich or some cashed-up dude will roll into town. Which kind of doesn’t happen.
What does happen, romantically, to the sisters is the opposite of their original intent – they fall in love with non-rich people. This is a nice twist if you’re invested in the plot and find the whole marrying-for-money thing a bit sad or distasteful. But not great if you were hoping that their hooking up with rich folk would result in big laughs.
Overall, Gold Diggers failed as a comedy. The historical setting didn’t generate a lot of laughs, their gold-digging and romantic adventures didn’t generate a lot of laughs and making them both obnoxious social media influencer types didn’t generate a lot laughs. So, what was the point? And why on earth did it need to be eight episodes long?
A few people today have noticed something we picked up on yesterday: Channel Ten’s pulled the plug on tonight’s comedy line-up. No Thank God You’re Here, no The Inspired Unemployed. And why? The sudden realisation that Australian comedy is in a death spiral and they were only prolonging the agony? Worse: they don’t want it to interfere with the sport.
BUMPED
We’re talking, of course, of the big World Cup (is that right)… match? Between Australia and… England? Not the UK? Look, we barely give a fuck about sport at the best of times. When we’re told it’s our patriotic duty to watch a ball get kicked around? Open up a cell door because we’re turning traitor.
But we also can’t deny that the last game was a massive ratings smash. We didn’t think there were four million television sets left in the country, let alone four million free-to-air viewers. So it’s hardly surprising that the other commercial networks (Nine has also pulled tonight’s episode of The Block) are getting the hell out of its way. No point sending your best troops over the top directly into enemy machine gun fire and all that.
What is slightly interesting about this is that the ABC is standing firm. Good news for fans of Hard Quiz, Gruen and Gold Diggers! God knows they deserve some, what with their crap taste in television.
There’s a couple of possible reasons for this:
A): The ABC hate sport and Australia. Bloody typical.
B): The ABC want to give television audiences some real choice. It’d be nice to believe this, but having seen the rest of the ABC’s line-up across the year it doesn’t seem like “choice” is something they’re all that keen on delivering.
C): The ABC think it doesn’t really matter, because their main audience now is all on iView and will get caught up on tonight’s programming later if they’re too busy watching the Matildas live. And sure, this is definitely possible, though the idea of actually going out of your way to log onto iView to watch Hard Quiz is pretty depressing.
D): The ABC think it doesn’t really matter, because they know that their viewers ain’t going nowhere. In their minds the ABC audience is so firmly rusted-on that not only do they barely acknowledge the existence of commercial television, they don’t really care what they watch so long as that little ABC logo is in the bottom right hand corner of the screen.
The reason why none of these possible reasons makes complete sense is because Wednesday night is meant to be the one night when the ABC really does compete with the commercial networks on their own terms. It’s comedy night! And while the days when the ABC would actually win the ratings thanks to a bunch of legitimately popular and crowd-pleasing programs are long gone, the stench of their blatant audience-chasing remains.
Pranks! They’re the lowest form of comedy and we all know it. They’re the kind of thing your unfunny mate tries to get you to watch during half time at the footy, and you’ve only got yourself to blame because what are you doing at the footy in the first place. But we’ve laughed at fart jokes before: maybe The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical Jokers) won’t be a prank played on us?
We won’t leave you in suspense: the first episode wasn’t shit. It wasn’t classic comedy either, but you know… pranks. The secret sauce here is that the pranks were mostly being played on each other, a la Hamish & Andy when they were actually funny. Mates winding each other up = funny, The Chaser running up behind a politician waving a big prop = not so much. Sorted.
It’s a bit of a weird one to be airing in prime time on Australian television in 2023, in that it’s just a bunch of prank stuff that you’ll probably have forgotten before the end credits. Unless of course you’re the kind of person who hangs around the school yard / office kitchen asking people if they saw this amazing show you watched last night and if they’re silly enough to say no you then proceed to re-enact it (badly) for them. Isn’t this kind of thing why we invented the internet? So we could phase these people out of our lives?
(of course, the internet – mostly Instagram and TikTok – is where The Inspired Unemployed come from. Gotta get the kids back into the habit of watching commercial television somehow)
With four cast members, and with a format that requires each one of them to go through each prank scenario, decent ideas are a must. Spending eight minutes on a dud is the last thing you want. Fortunately, episode one featured a couple of decent comedy set-ups that were flexible enough to provide some variety in how things went. Strong basics: tick.
The four guys are just generic guys, with no real on-air personalities beyond “top blokes”. At this stage there’s no strong “oh shit, the blonde one hates this kind of stuff” side to things. On the other hand, nobody seems like a bastard either: they’re just mates trying to throw each other under a bus. So the character side of things… let’s say neutral for now.
As far as the actual pranks go, as you’d expect we’re talking hit and miss – but with more hits than misses. At worst they’re just kind of there (the balloon blowing-up one) or too over-the-top to be plausible to the regular people present (the “anal gazing” bit). But when they get a good thing going, they’re usually able to build on it to create a decent run of laughs (the phone break-up bit).
This kind of series is a bit hard to judge because while it’s good at what it’s trying to do, what it’s trying to do is be extremely disposable television. Ten is currently going all-in with local comedy – they’re currently showing four Australian comedy series a week, which no network has managed in a very long time (even the ABC’s Wednesday line-up usually tops out at three). While none of them are aiming all that high – it’s all panel shows, quiz shows, and prank shows – they’re all watchable at the very least. Which isn’t something that can be said about all current Australian comedy.
It’ll be interesting to see where (Impractical) Jokers goes from here, as episode one was almost entirely about the guys messing with each other – until the final “punishment” bit, where a wedding had to put up with a mildly offensive speech. It’s a lot harder to get successful laughs out of playing pranks on the unsuspecting public, mostly because 99 times out of a 100 there’s nowhere to go – you do the prank, they react, it’s over.
Remember when Kinne used to go out on the street and do stupid stuff trying to get passers-by to react? There’s a reason why your answer was “nope”.
As probably the only Australian comedy format of the 21st century with any nostalgic value attached to it (can’t wait for the Randling revival), we shouldn’t have been surprised that Thank God You’re Here finally made a comeback. But did the magic return with it?
Well, that depends: was there ever any magic there in the first place? Much as the show was much-loved, it didn’t take long to figure out the main appeal was seeing very funny people put into a situation where they found it extremely difficult to be very funny. A few people made it work; most struggled.
And so it proved to be on the first episode back after 15 or so years. Each of the four solo segments plus the group challenge (the fake ads and sketches they used to throw in between segments were nowhere to be found) had their moments. They also had a lot of awkward and sometimes painful flailing about from people we’ve seen be a lot funnier just about everywhere else.
Look, it’s totally possible that what the no doubt massive audience wants to see is funny people taken down a peg or two by being stuck in a situation where they’re on the back foot. Us? When you’ve got a cast like Urzila Carlson, Aaron Chen, Julia Zemiro and Mark Bonanno, why would you do anything that got in the way of them being funny?
While the sketch ideas were well constructed and the support cast (many of whom were back from the original) kept things moving along, it’s still a show built around asking very funny people to instantly come up with the next word in a sentence. It’s difficult and stressful for anyone, especially in front of a huge live audience. For comedians used to scripting their own material? Tough ask.
Ironically, our long-standing issue with TGYH has been that it’s an improv show that doesn’t leave any room for improv. People are fed a set-up for a line, they say something hopefully funny, here comes the next set-up. There are firm barriers in place to prevent the sketch from going off the rails; ironically the funniest moment of the night was when Aaron Chen gave an answer that meant the next set-up didn’t work (or worked too well).
But if you’re going to do an improv show, do an improv show. Let the contestants come up with their own ideas on where things should go, and have sketches that rely on their skills (and allow them to push things in directions where they can be funny). TGYH just asks them to come up with the next word in a sentence; no matter what they say, the support cast will pull things back on script.
You can stuff up and be unfunny with one line, but then the sketch resets and you get another chance. The bad news is, you can only be so funny; the good news is, you can only fail so badly. Once you’ve seen a few episodes, you know what you’re going to get – unless there’s a real off-the-cuff expert on the stage, which going by the original series happens about once every three episodes. Not a great strike rate.
Still, this first show had more than enough polish to come across as a win. Ceclia Pacquola and Glenn Robbins unsurprisingly proved to be very safe pairs of hands. But there’s no escaping the fact that there were a lot of points during the segments where the cast – again, all very funny people – just didn’t come up with funny stuff.
Again, maybe that’s what the audience wants to see. A big part of the show is the “live” atmosphere, and failing is a big part of the risk that gives the whole thing its energy. But there’s a difference between “energy” and “funny”.
And this is a show that too often doesn’t seem focused enough on the funny.
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 is how you plan to run the place once they’re gone then they might just stick around a few decades longer.
Utopia‘s strengths have always been obvious. Strong cast, well crafted scripts, multiple storylines that tie together well, decent jokes. Australian sitcoms don’t set a high bar; Utopia cleared it with ease. So it’s a sign of respect more than anything that we’re not just saying “eh, good enough” and moving on.
(little preview of our upcoming Vale for Gold Diggers there)
This season of Utopia didn’t quite tip over into full Boomer outrage at political correctness gone mad. Thank god (you’re here) for that. But too often it felt like a series where the overriding view was that all this modern focus on diversity and insensitivity and considering other people’s feelings was getting in the way of getting things done. Wait, “felt like”? By the final episode, it was saying that outright.
Which is actually pretty funny for a series about a government department made up of pointless middlemen managers whose sole reason for existing is to sign off on projects conceived by one group and constructed by another. It’s bureaucracy gone mad!
But c’mon, who doesn’t want a sharp satire on how government bureaucracy delays things and makes them more expensive because they have to justify spending taxpayers money and deal with politician’s whims? We do! But too often Utopia wasn’t it.
Utopia was a show about a government department that never found a way to turn the satirical spotlight on itself. The NBA – well, the Tony and Nat part at least – were never wrong, just exasperated. And yet if you bothered to look it wasn’t hard to find numerous points throughout the series where they were, if not completely wrong, then clearly not 100% right.
Example time: remember the episode with the school kids hanging around? They were annoying smartarses that everyone wanted to pass off to someone else because they were… knowledgeable and engaged?
Within the world of the series, the joke worked fine. They were an intrusion getting in the way of our cast doing their jobs; piss those brats right off. Once you stepped outside of the series? Hang on – the kids were just making them do their jobs. Which is funny… if your show is about a bunch of lovable slackers sticking it to the man by slacking off. Utopia is about the last two hardworking, sane people in a public service gone mad; making fun of kids because they also know what they’re talking about feels a bit off.
In fact, whenever the Utopia team deals with the public they’re a pain in the arse. Talkback callers (and the politicans who listen to them) are constantly demanding the impossible. Protestors don’t know what they’re on about. Modern standards of inclusiveness and integration are silly distractions. People get angry on social media for no reason at all! Okay, maybe the show had a point there.
Usually all this was presented as annoying time wasting crap coming from the NBA’s nominal bosses. But behind them, the public – on social media, on talkback radio, booing Tony on Q&A. And yet, Utopia is a show about government and the public service. Their whole job is based on managing and dealing with public demands. Tony and Nat may not have customers, but they work for the public. Those scenes where they’re told they have to take into account some new rule or attitude and they all but roll their eyes? They’re the ones in the wrong.
Early on the joke with Utopia was “the government keep promising these big schemes that are never going to happen haha high speed rail”. Increasingly the focus shifted to old people being annoyed that things have changed in the workplace and they can’t quite see the point. Which is a strong basis for comedy, only usually the old people are shown as out of touch hangovers from a time best forgotten not the last remaining voice of sanity, insert Principal Skinner “no, it’s the children who are wrong” meme here.
So what is Utopia trying to say? And it’s definitely trying to say something; it’s not Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe. Each week Tony and Nat* are forced to deal with the fact that their co-workers in the public service and their bosses in government are easily distracted, obsessed with irrelevancies, slaves to a fickle public, and not really interested in results. Just let us do our jobs!
Which involve… handling multiple overlapping issues simultaneously, dealing with the often conflicting concerns of a variety of stakeholders, managing public expectations, and working with timelines that in many cases extend well beyond any one political leader or department head. Wait, so Tony and Nat are complaining about what? Having to do their jobs?
Obviously the whole lousy system is broken. Drain the swamp! But you know, not like that. Just get rid of all the red tape and regulations! They’re getting in the way of decent, hard working people doing their real jobs! Sure, the red tape and regulations are often there to stop people being racist or sexist or ableist, but c’mon. We’re building a highway here, you’ve got to let the guys let off some steam.
After all that, there are two possible takeaways from Utopia. A): political correctness has indeed gone mad. B): government bodies are so concerned with side issues they’re no longer able to properly do their jobs. The team at Working Dog seem like decent people, so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. Option number two it is.
So why say that? It’d be nice to think the idea is to present the NBA as a decent, well-run, hard-at-it government body hamstrung by politicans. Sadly, most of the time the problems are presented as internal and intrinsic to a public body that has to respond to the public. So the answer lies in the private sector, where we just hire them to get the job done and leave them to it?
Trouble there is, a decade ago the idea that private industry was superior to the government when it comes to building infrastructure and providing services was just barely plausible. Today? Putting pubic services and infrastructure into private hands just means the government – that is, the public – is forced to pay rent on roads and facilities and utilities for decades while corporations – that is, not the public – cash in.
It’s a shit idea that sucks. In 2023 it makes as much sense as a basis for a comedy series as the wacky antics of a group of bureaucrats determined to cut back on the public health system because private industry can do it so much better. Well, for rich people at least.
The strange thing is, Utopia started out as a series designed to point out that very thing. Early episodes would present some element or other of perceived wisdom – high speed rail is a thing that will happen! Then they’d explain carefully and precisely why there were very good (but largely hidden) reasons why things are exactly why they are, and are unlikely to change.
It’s not hard to imagine an episode where some blokey politician turns up demanding to slash red tape. Let’s remove all the seemingly pointless concerns about office paintings not being inclusive and whatever! And then Tony could carefully point out to him across the course of the episode that every single example he wants removed has been put in place to help and assist people. Just not people the politician was used to considering as part of the workplace.
Maybe they’re holding that one back for next season.
.
*Does anyone else think it’s strange that the two leads are basically identical and almost never interact? Obviously it’s so they can run similar storylines about different things – one gets the big external issues, the other gets the office / internal storylines – but it does leave the series feeling a bit repetitive, especially as everyone else is basically playing the same character, which is “an idiot”.
