Australian Comedy Royalty Unites for New ABC Series Bad Company
The ABC, Screen Australia and VicScreen are thrilled to announce two of Australia’s most beloved comedians, Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan will join forces for the new 6-part comedy series, Bad Company.
Created by, written and starring AACTA award-winning comedian Anne Edmonds (Have You Been Paying Attention?, Get Krack!n, Edge of the Bush) and produced by Guesswork Television, Bad Company will see Edmonds bring her signature bite to a bold new creation as she stars alongside comedy powerhouse, Kitty Flanagan (Fisk, Utopia, Have You Been Paying Attention?). Both known for their razor-sharp wits and sell-out national tours, these award-winning stars and friends will play fierce rivals who test each other to the limit.
Set within the crumbling walls of The Argyle, a venerable iconic theatre company on the brink of bankruptcy, Bad Company follows Margie (Edmonds), the Argyle’s volatile artistic director, whose unchecked whims have sent the company spiralling, and Julia (Flanagan) a high-flying corporate executive brought in to clean up Margie’s mess.
Creator/writer/star Edmonds says “I’m thrilled to be making an ABC comedy about something so close to my heart – the drama behind the scenes. And getting to make it with Kitty Flanagan? A dream come true.”
ABC Head of Scripted Rachel Okine said “Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan – what a match made in heaven. ABC audiences are going to be delighted to see these two comedic powerhouses going head-to-head in the most unusual of workplace settings.”
Director of Narrative Content at Screen Australia Louise Gough said: “Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan are two of Australia’s iconic comedic talents and I’ve no doubt they are going to raise the curtain, wipe off the greasepaint and cue the spotlight on this biting satire set in the theatre world. Edmonds’ and Flanagan’s hilarious new characters will delight audiences here and around the world.”
VicScreen CEO, Caroline Pitcher said, “We’re delighted to be in ‘good company’ with Anne Edmonds and Kitty Flanagan, two of Australia’s favourite comedians, to make Bad Company in Victoria. The wild global success of Fisk has proven that our distinctive Australian humour can tickle the funny bone of audiences here and overseas. I can’t wait to see the shenanigans when Anne and Kitty do battle backstage in this clever new series.”
Guesswork Managing Director, Kevin Whyte said, “In a surprise to no one who follows Australian comedy, Anne Edmonds has created an hilarious world with a new signature character – Margie Argyle. It has been a long time coming and to have Anne joined by Kitty makes it an even bigger thrill.”
The series will be directed by Tom Peterson (Fisk) and produced by Andrew Walker (Deadloch, Rosehaven) with filming commencing next week in Melbourne.
Bad Company will air on the ABC in 2026.
Good news, it’s a new ABC sitcom that might not suck! Low praise indeed, but hey, we’ve been burnt before.
What this might mean for more Fisk, who knows? More Flanagan is always welcome, and Edmonds is funny in pretty much everything she appears in. File this one under “a safe pair of hands”.
It’s interesting to read the VicScreen CEO specifically mention the global success of Fisk. That’s a rare good news story out of Australian comedy – one of Team Tumbleweeds has seen two separate overseas-based creative types talking it up on social media in the last fortnight alone.
And having the head honcho at Screen Australia talk about amusing audiences “here and around the world”? Yeah, seems that quirky low-key Australian comedy is, once again, bankable to those with their noses firmly stuck in the air – so they can see what’s going on overseas, of course.
Will the industry side of things find a way to screw it up by throwing every spare cent at, say, a Kate Langbroek sitcom? Probably. But if there’s even a little bit more motivation to invest in local comedy by somebody holding the purse strings, we’ll gladly take a string of Fisk knock-offs.
Time to start pitching that sitcom about a socially awkward cop titled Frisk.
Game show Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation was always a bit of a marginal case when it comes to comedy. Being hosted by Shaun Micallef at his most unhinged made the first series a must-see for anyone who liked to laugh… often at (not with) Josh Thomas. The revival on Nine wasn’t exactly bad, but it lacked whatever it was that originally made it classic viewing. And now it’s back again! Yay?
The new version on Ten isn’t out there trying to reinvent the format. There’s three teams, representing the eternal values of “old fart” “smartarse” and “easily distracted young person”. They answer a bunch of mostly pop-culture and history questions while the host occasionally gets annoyed. It sort of worked then, it kind of works now.
What nobody really wants to admit is that a big part of what made this work in the first place was the personalities involved. Shaun Micallef is, well, Shaun Micallef. His first run at host was probably the last time he really let his freak flag fly on national television. Since then he’s worked hard to show he can be trusted to host, well, pretty much everything. Nobody would have guessed the host who gave us a competition to see who could best shovel ectoplasm into a toilet would be fronting a travel series a decade later.
Amanda Keller did a decent if unremarkable job as Baby Boomer team captain, but it was Charlie Pickering as head of Gen X and Josh Thomas as Gen Y boss that made the whole thing work. Yes, they were kinda crap – a trait they have both stuck with to this day. It was Pickering’s blatant grovelling and Thomas’ empty-headed spaciness that made them good foils for Micallef, and gave their teams personality beyond “he’s young” and “he’s slightly less young”.
So far the current version (known as Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Gen) has shown none of that. It’s only the first episode, but as the revival on Nine didn’t have it either despite bringing back a still fairly manic Micallef, we’re not holding out a lot of hope. At least Hughesy seems to understand the brief, though being a demented old rattletrap might be his actual act these days.
Otherwise, the only other plus is host Anne Edmonds. She’s funny in the kind of self-aware way that can almost sell some of the dodgier jokes. She also seems to get that the show only works if the dynamic between her and the teams largely involves her being annoyed. The captains, on the other hand, are yet to reveal an ability to do their share of the heavy lifting.
The show is too long and the set is way too big and the games are wacky without being wacky enough. All of which is to say that this is a game show first and a comedy second. Which is fine, but don’t expect us to tune in each week unless things rapidly spiral out of control. And even then, it’s still going to be a game show for the whole family, so… nope.
The real problem here as far as we’re concerned is anoldone. Game shows are always game shows first, no matter how funny they want to be. The format almost always finds a way to block the comedy. Every second that’s spent explaining the rules of a game is a second we’re not laughing. Unless it involves Tom Gleisner in a stupid hat and even then it’s iffy.
As a silly game show, Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Gen is fine. As comedy, it’s not there yet. And that “yet” is pretty optimistic.
Isn’t it lovely when all the nice characters end up happy at the end of a TV series? And the bad characters get what they deserve? That was the heartwarming vibe the final episode of the second series of Austin was going for.
So, instead of blethering on about why Austin isn’t funny again, in this blog, we’re going to pose one simple question with reference to Austin: shouldn’t Australian funding bodies – and Austin was funded by Screen Australia, Screen Canberra and Screen New South Wales – fund a mostly Australian show?
Sure, Austin was mainly set in Canberra and employed mostly Australian actors and crew. But with three out of four of the creators and most of the writers being British (including Kevin Cecil and Andy Reilly, who wrote for British comedies like Black Books and Little Britain), plus the top-billed stars being British comedians Ben Miller and Sally Phillips, whatever happened to this being a vehicle for Love on the Spectrum’s Michael Theo?
Seriously, Michael, call your agent, because those Brits in charge gave you less airtime than you should be getting in a sitcom named for the character you played!
Much of the time, it felt like the main theme of Austin wasn’t about a guy finding out who his real father is, or discovering he’s a talented writer, or getting the confidence to leave the home he grew up in, or even about him being autistic in the world. The main theme of Austin was a bickering British couple trying to make a children’s TV series despite one of them being cancelled for accidentally sharing far-right content on social media.
That’s what got most of the screen time, anyway. Those scenes where Austin got a girlfriend or Austin’s mum hooked up with a government minister were all pretty perfunctory and had very little depth, even for a show of this type. Were they worth the investment from three Australian funding bodies?
We get that funding bodies and the for-profit production companies that take their cash (Northern Pictures and ITV Studios, in the case of Austin) want to be able to sell their shows to other countries, and having two British comedians front and centre would presumably help with that. But, again, should Australian funding bodies be stumping up most of the cash to make shows which aren’t really telling Australian stories?
Britain has a television industry which makes high-quality shows famous throughout the world, including comedies. And they’re not funding shows about Australia; they’re funding shows about Britain. Featuring British characters, doing things in Britain. And while British television, like Australian television, seems to make fewer sitcoms these days, it’s not up to Australian television to give unemployed British comedians work. Although we seem to have done thata lot recently.
Australian funding bodies should focus on giving unemployed Australian comedians work on the comedies they fund. Australian comedians could make something at least as good as Austin without British help, and if it’s a good show, it might even sell overseas (hello Fisk). It’s time Australian funding bodies got better at funding local talent, and not funding further series of Austin would be a good start.
ABC, Screen Australia and VicScreen are thrilled to announce filming has commenced in Melbourne on Dog Park, a heart-warming new six-part comedy series starring Leon Ford (The Last Anniversary,Elvis) and the award-winning Celia Pacquola (Rosehaven, Love Me).
Produced by Matchbox Pictures, which is part of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group, Dog Park was co-created by Leon Ford and Amanda Higgs (Bad Behaviour, Mustangs FC). The series is directed by Matthew Saville (Please Like Me, Upright) and Nina Buxton (Heartbreak High, Summer Love), and is written by Leon Ford, Penelope Chai (Troppo, Turn Up The Volume), Nick Coyle (Bump) and Chloe Wong (Turn Up The Volume).
In the grip of a mid-life crisis, Roland (Leon Ford) meets the eternal optimist Samantha (Celia Pacquola) and her mismatched, life-loving group of dog-parkers. As Roland begrudgingly keeps returning to the park, he comes to realise he actually really needs a community to belong to.
At a time when it’s needed most, Dog Park is a feel-good story of love, loyalty and licking – and doing good for the sake of it.
ABC Head of Scripted, Rachel Okine says: “We can’t wait to share this incredibly funny and furry show with ABC audiences. This very talented team have infused their story with heart and humour, and we’re delighted to bring you a show you can watch with the whole family, including your pet!”
Executive Producer for Matchbox Pictures and Co-Creator Amanda Higgs says: “We couldn’t be more thrilled to be joining with the ABC to bring some much-needed joy to the world right now, through the transformative power of dogs and the love of their human companions. We hope audiences will enjoy our series as much as we have delighted in making it. With huge thanks to our key investors in Screen Australia and VicScreen and our loyal team at Matchbox Pictures.”
Screen Australia Director of Narrative Content Louise Gough said, “Even cat people will adore Dog Park. As one of our cherished places of community and connection, the local dog park is the perfect backdrop for this latest funny-sad series from Leon Ford and accomplished producer Amanda Higgs. With its universal theme of belonging through the relatable world of dog park communities, this joyful series will capture hearts around the world – human and dogs alike!”
VicScreen CEO Caroline Pitcher said: “We’re paws-itively delighted to support Leon Ford and Amanda Higgs and the Matchbox Pictures team to make this joyful new series in Victoria. We can’t wait to see all the fun and games when Roland, Samantha and their four-legged friends’ rendezvous in Dog Park.”
Dog Park will premiere on ABC TV and ABC iview in 2026.
Has anyone ever, in the history of comedy, laughed at something described as a “feel good story”? How about “heart warming”? Or “doing good for the sake of it”? C’mon, that’s obviously a sure-fire recipe for comedy. Just think of all those hilarious kind-hearted sitcom characters over the years, like… uh… you know… yeah.
Oh wait, it’s “funny-sad”. Forget we said anything. About this being funny at least.
But Also John Clarke is a worthy tribute to one of Australasia’s great comedy figures. It’s a touching look at a much-loved husband and father, an insightful examination of the forces that shaped him and an always welcome retrospective covering some of the funniest material of the last 40 years. Frankly unmissable – five stars.
And with that out of the way, onto the actual discussion.
All of the above is 100% accurate, by the way. If you have any interest in the work of John Clarke – and if you don’t, please show yourself to the nearest exit – then it’s a must-see, both for the extensive clips and narration featuring the man himself, and also for the sensitive and compelling fashion in which director Lorin Clarke has put it all together. It’s an interesting documentary about an interesting person, which is a pretty rare thing at the best of times.
But for comedy nerds, the questions are slightly different. Backstory and tributes can only get you so far: where’s the obscure clips we’ve come to see? In Clarke’s case, so much of his career was firmly in the spotlight right from the start that “obscure” means something slightly different.
Usually it means “stuff that’s fallen off the radar” – Bob Franklin’s numerous works for pay TV in the 90s, for example. Here it largely means “stuff that isn’t all that important in the scheme of things”. This is a look back at a very popular comedian: if you’re a fan, you’ve probably seen a lot of this before, and can think of a lot of other things they didn’t have time to include.
It’s also, as you’d expect from a film with a lot of NZ funding, very much focused on Fred Dagg – it’s at least a quarter of the film, and possibly close to a third. Australian comedy fans might be a bit less interested, but it’s also the part of the film where Clarke’s career has some real shape to it. He came from nowhere, became a star / made enemies, and the whole thing got so big he had to leave town and start again elsewhere.
Because this is basically a salute / retrospective with some family insights scattered throughout, it hits pretty much all the high points without having much room for the quirkier corners. Clarke was turning up in every local sitcom for a while there, from Welcher & Welcher to Kath & Kim, but his supporting roles in other people’s efforts – aside from his star turn in Death in Brunswick – are largely left out. Fans of his work playing the same character he always did – only now he’s evil – in Crackerjack, bad news… though there is a photo of Mick Molloy here at one stage so keep your chin up.
There’s also not a whole lot about his work on The Gillies Report, which is a bit of a shame. Farnarkling does get a decent look, but there’s a bit of a feeling overall that The Gillies Report was something of a dead end – it’s not like Clarke did that kind of thing again, and here Gerry Connelly gets as much air time as Max Gillies, which is definitely a statement of some kind.
The political interviews Clarke & Dawe did for close to three decades obviously get their fair share of love, with appearances from various ABC staffers (and Jana Wendt) to provide a bit of behind-the-scenes colour. Their bumping from the actual (then) 7.30 Report to a stand alone slot, or their dumping from A Current Affair suggest not everyone behind the scenes were big fans; we don’t expect this kind of doco to name names, but now that Clarke & Dawe are safely in the rear view mirror it certainly seems like the bumps have been smoothed out in the official history.
As a bunch of cranks, we’d love someone to take a closer look at his legacy – not just in New Zealand (which this does to some extent), but in Australia, where you’d have to say the picture is far less rosy. Do we need to point out once again that the ABC axed *all* their satirical content after the election of the Albanese government? Probably not, but we just can’t help ourselves.
So plenty of food for thought here. Clarke was clearly a unique talent – and a wonderful human being besides, unless you were an authority figure – and this is a worthy tribute to his life and works. Run, don’t walk to check it out on the big screen; just don’t complain to us that they didn’t show that clip from BackBerner where he played Peter Reith.
So this has been stirring up a bit of chat around the traps:
“We could feel the writing was on the wall with network comedy in Australia,” says Kelly. “There are two that do it – 10 and ABC2 – but it’s Lord-of-the-Rings-style odyssey shit to get commissioned. Our experience is that when we were given the green light to either go make a pilot or a proof of concept, it needed to be everything to everyone, and we’d receive heavy rounds of notes.”
Which, you know, isn’t exactly news, but it’s still nice to hear someone – in this case, Aunty Donna’s Broden Kelly – say it out loud.
And he’s one of the few people who actually can say it. The whole point of this particular article is the Aunty Donna team talking about how, after being screwed around by various networks, Aunty Donna are going solo for the forseeable future.
The way they present it, it’s the only logical move. Looking at the current state of Australian television comedy, you wouldn’t want to argue with them.
What is kind of puzzling is that more people aren’t speaking out. Sure, if you’re Working Dog or Charlie Pickering, everything’s coming up roses. But for everyone else, it’s more like fertiliser. And yet the fact that Australian television (with limited exceptions) is basically out of the comedy business is treated as a bigger secret than an AFL players homosexuality.
The Australian media loves to paint a picture where young up-and-comers are all excited about the possibilities in comedy. Then the second your star fades you can shut the fuck up and fuck the fuck off. If you are someone who is funny but can’t get a show up, that’s your fault. Nobody likes a loser.
In 2025, this is obvious bullshit. Loads of funny people who should be on our screens are nowhere to be found. Tons of skilled professionals are thrown on the scrapheap ahead of time. The entire cast of Mad as Hell: where are they now?
Sure, if you’re a stand-up-slash-raconteur who can get laughs on a panel or game show, you can appear on a panel or game show and because they’re the only people who can get work the only shows we get are panel or game shows. Or is it the other way around?
Having someone who is clearly funny and also part of a clearly funny team come out and say “television isn’t interested in us” is important. Because it’s true, and because it’s something that needs to be dragged out into the open.
Audiences still have a vague idea that Australian television comedy is just going through a quiet patch – largely, it’s suggested, the fault of everyone in the country not being funny enough. Don’t worry, we’ll be back to culture-defining comedy like the good old days* before long. This simply isn’t the case.
Structural forces are firmly in place to prevent any decent scripted comedy from being made in this country. Unless something big changes, the genre is dead. We might still get the occasional revamp of an overseas format or much-loved classic, but fresh new scripted comedy? The ABC can’t even announce a new series of Fisk, and it just won every Logie on the bench.
Oh wait, that’s right:
“With the Oscars, if you win best director or best picture, you can have a career because there’s an industry there to support it,” says Bonanno. “What frustrates me about the Logies, the Awgies and Aactas is we give these awards out, but then what? There’s no room to grow. I won an Awgie for sitcom writing, and it did less for my career than before I had one.”
Though to be fair, the Awgies can be a bit crap.
.
*Usually defined as “when Fast Forward was on”, “when The Late Show was on”, “when Kath & Kim was on” or “when Summer Heights High was on”
It’s the halfway point of Austin series 2, and what have we learned? Not to watch Austin for starters. When an episode begins with Austin (Michael Theo) being told by his publicist that if he wants to sell books to the kids he has to say his favourite singer is Taylor Swift… what the fuck is this?
A hundred taxpayer-funded episodes ago this was a sweet story of a young man trying to connect with his morally flexible father. Now it’s somehow developed into not one but two pissweak media satires. You remember media satire – that’s when the scriptwriters vanish up their own arse. Is there anything audiences care less about than the comedy that arises from a book tour? How about the comedy that arises from putting together a television show?
We joke, of course – there’s no comedy to be found here, just references to Euphoria. And let’s just linger at the scene of this car crash for a moment. Why does Austin – who loves Frank Sinatra, The Goodies and Doctor Who – have the taste of a 55-year-old man? He’s in his late 20s, and the joke is just that he’s an out-of-touch nerd. So why isn’t he a fan of, say, the MCU? We hear that’s daggy now.
But of course, the real point of this scene is to tell the audience of 55-year-olds that they – like Austin – have good taste. All this modern muck? Rubbish. In Austin, either you are a 50-year-old or you think like one. The ABC sure does know its audience.
Which is presumably why this season seems to be turning into a fictionalised version of Love on the Spectrum. You know, the much-loved show that gave Theo his big break. Once, his real-life search for romance won the nation’s heart. Now he’s back looking for love, only this time… it’s scripted. So yeah, a lot less charming.
This romance subplot also features Natalie Abbott, AKA the star of Aftertaste. Does her two-for-two appearance in two of the ABC’s most aimlessly pissweak sitcoms of recent years make her a name you can trust when it comes to comedies you can’t? Seems harsh, but you can’t argue with facts.
As for the other plot thread – which, we should point out, in no real way overlaps with Austin’s search for love and pop cultural relevance – it’s about the dramas of casting a children’s television show. Oh great. This plot somehow manages to be both totally unrealistic and deathly familiar. It’s the kind of thing sitcom writers come up with when their only point of reference is other sitcoms.
It’s not that the wacky comedic premise isn’t a wacky comedy premise. Sure, it’s totally possible* that a TV production company would buy the rights to a series of illustrated kids books, then decide to film them as a live action series with a man in a bear suit, then hire a high profile actor to play the bear and be fine with him cutting a hole in the front of the bear suit so his face would be visible. Possible… just not funny.
Maybe it would get laughs if the comedy was “oh no, we accidentally sold our property to a bunch of complete fuckwits who are totally going to ruin it”. Instead, we’re supposed to treat them as serious professionals, and Julian (Ben Miller), the book’s author, as a meddling chump who’s ruined everything. Which he has, obviously. Just not in a way that’s funny or much of anything beyond a bunch of stale sitcom gestures.
It’s not a new insight to point out that Austin feels very much like a show where the audience is not an active consideration. But increasingly it feels like a show where reality hardly gets a look in either. Why are we getting jokes about book tours and television production when neither feels even remotely authentic or interesting?
Making shit up is fine if it’s funny shit. But Austin exists in a half-baked fantasy world where even situations the audience will never experience – book tours, television sets – don’t feel plausible. And we all know what funny shit without the funny is.
Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction may not be a game-changing chat show, but it’s different enough to be interesting. Many chat shows try to get guests to make startling confessions or to cry over dead relatives, and there’s a bit of that here, but the bigger focus is on relatable, interesting stories. So far, so conventional.
But Eve of Destruction is also what happens when you get a renowned sketch comedian and his writers to make a chat show. Sure, there’s a lot of chat, but there’s also more sketch-style comedy than you might expect. An innovation in this series is that Micallef opens the show pretending to play a tiny keyboard on a concertina stand that keeps collapsing. Hilarity ensues. There are also weird, funny cutaways to single gags, and some amusingly violent ways to undertake the “destruction” part of the show. Andrew Denton never did that.
The point of Eve of Destruction, lest we forget, is that each guest brings on two items they’d save as their home is destroyed (by a war, say, or an act of God), with the potential to sacrifice one of the two things should things get really bad in that whole disaster scenario. This high-concept framing device opens up the personal stories from the guests, but also tells us a bit about who they are deep down in a novel way.
So, if you’re tuning into Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction expecting a conventional chat show, you might be disappointed, but if you’re tuning in expecting a lot of Shaun Micallef comedy, then there’s less than you might be hoping for. Everyone loses!
But that’s how it goes with Micallef these days; his appearances on Dancing with the Stars were a mix of the ‘Shaun Micallef comedy persona’ dancing and, “Hey, he’s actually quite good!” And, also, no one makes either proper chat shows or sketch comedy anymore. Better get down to the Salvos and hope they’ve got some Micallef P(r)ogram(me) or Parkinson DVDs on the shelf if you’re after those kinds of things.
Having said that, someone down at Eve of Destruction clearly thought it would be a better show if more of the guests were comedians. So in news, you, the reader of this blog about comedy, may appreciate, we see Frank Woodley, John Safran, Celeste Barber, Tony Martin and Rhys Nicholson across this series (plus a surprise appearance from a much-loved comic in the first episode) alongside more traditional guests from the worlds of entertainment, the arts, sport and the media. Micallef also tries to get laughs out of the non-comedian guests, such as the fun competition in episode two, where Micallef and Lisa McCune showcase their Shakespearean death scene skills.
And while this isn’t necessarily the Micallef comedy fans want, it’s the best Micallef we’re going to get in 2025 that doesn’t involve him waltzing. Which is a good thing?
Mother and Son returns to ABC this September with more laughs and chaos
The ABC is pleased to announce the highly anticipated second season of Mother and Son returns, lighter and brighter with a fresh injection of fun, on Wednesday 24 September at 8:30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.
Comedy favourite Denise Scott returns as the delightfully unpredictable Maggie, joined once again by the sharp and charismatic Matt Okine as her long-suffering son Arthur. With Matt also back at the helm as writer and re-creator, this dynamic duo is set to deliver another season packed with heart, hilarity, and the kind of chaos only the Boye family can bring.
Produced by Wooden Horse and directed by Shaun Wilson, known for his work on ABC favourites Rosehaven and Frayed, the all-new Mother and Son returns with more misadventures as mischievous Maggie continues to derail the life of her neurotic son Arthur, who’s still stuck at home and struggling to grow up.
As Arthur flounders through freelance journalism, dating apps, and spicy snacks, Maggie sets out to make her 70s unforgettable—whether it’s joining a rogue knitting group or chaining herself to a fig tree. Meanwhile, their scheming sister Robbie (Angela Nica Sullen) has big plans for Maggie’s nest egg and the family home.
Joining the Boye family as they stumble through chaos, comedy, and community in this hilariously dysfunctional second season are returning favourites Virginia Gay, Zara Tate and Jean Kittson, along with special guest appearances from Heather Mitchell (Love Me), Mark Lee (Gallipoli),David Collins (The Umbilical Brothers) and many more.
“Highly anticipated” you say. Actually no, what you say is “The ABC is pleased to announce the highly anticipated second season of Mother and Son returns, lighter and brighter with a fresh injection of fun”, which makes less sense the longer you look at it.
Anyway, good thing they injected it with fun this time around and not whatever shit they were shooting up in season one. Here’s a trailer, god help us all:
There’s plenty you can say about the Logies – TV Tonight called it “broken” last week, and they’re not wrong. But it’s so much more than a televised evening of backslapping and blatantly handing awards to stars linked to whoever holds the broadcast rights. It’s a show that, this year at least, got it right as far as comedy goes.
Let’s remind ourselves who won the comedy awards last night…
The award for Best Scripted Comedy Program went toFisk, another clear winner in a field which consisted of Austin, Colin From Accounts, Good Cop/Bad Cop, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (what? All of it?), and Optics.
There were also Silver Logies for Fisk cast members Julia Zemiro, Glenn Butcher, Aaron Chen, and Kitty Flanagan. If Fisk doesn’t come back for a fourth season, there’ll be riots in the streets!
What this shows us is that not only do the members of the public who vote for these things enjoy the better comedy shows on air, but so do those who sit on juries for the “Best” awards. Not that anyone at any network will join the dots and wonder if they should make more shows like the ones that people like, of course.
We should also mention host Sam Pang, who did another good job this year. His opening monologue was strong, playing well at home partly because he made so many in the room squirm with embarrassment.
And then there was the Hall of Fame award, which deservedly went to Magda Szubanski. Szubanski, who didn’t attend the ceremony following her recent diagnosis with stage 4 mantle cell lymphoma, gave a moving and defiant speech, tackling head-on the criticism that she was only receiving the award because of her cancer.
The idea that Szubanski doesn’t deserve this award is crap, obviously. She was a stand-out performer in The D-Generation, Fast Forward, Big Girl’s Blouse, Kath & Kim and more, and has been one of this country’s most loved entertainers for decades. It’s hard to think of anyone more deserving from that generation of comedians, apart from Working Dog, who already received the AACTA’s Longford Lyell Award earlier this year.
So, in a world where there seem to be fewer comedy shows each year, at least the country’s best-known television awards ceremony picked the best ones. That’s one thing the Logies doesn’t need to change. We’ll leave the organisers to have a think about what TV Tonight had to say.
