If you’ve ever seriously wondered why television critics in this country are respected by no-one – even as television criticism around the English-speaking world enters some kind of magical golden age of relevancy thanks to the irresistible rise of the recap – may we quote Debi Enker on The Weekly: “Through four months on air,... Read More »
It’s easy to forget how charming Mad as Hell is in its refusal to assume it’ll be invited back next year until you hear Charlie Pickering say “Welcome to the final episode of series one of The Weekly“. Series one? Forgive us if we’re wrong, but at the time of writing the ABC hasn’t announced... Read More »
Time was, the idea of having a long-running show was that you’d be able to tweak the format to improve things. Not on the ABC: after last weeks shock discovery that everyone there seems to think that How Not to Behave was a show that reached perfection with episode one, we turned our attention to... Read More »
This was the week where The Weekly finally decided it was time to stop carving out that rut it’s been so proud of and just settle back into it. No more tinkering with the format: everything we saw this week was old news. More importantly, the tone of the show – which is probably the... Read More »
Hey, remember this? Don’t worry if you don’t recall that classic segment from 2013’s This Week Live, as Tom Gleeson kindly brought it back on this week’s episode of The Weekly rebranded as “Hard Chat”. Yep, This Week Live might have been axed due to low ratings and general disinterest, but that doesn’t mean its... Read More »
Week three and the deck chairs are starting to be shuffled around. Gone is Kitty Flanagan’s segment; gone too the interview. In their place we get a UK correspondent fulfilling exactly the same role international comedy correspondents have been filling since satellite links became feasible, and Pickering hitting the road as a roving correspondent himself... Read More »
Do you think they’re regretting those fake news headline jokes in the opening credits? They’re not bad jokes, but they’re not classics either, and seeing them for another 18 weeks is going to take the shine off them so hard we’ll be lucky if there’s even any bare metal left underneath. Man, they really did... Read More »
Well, don’t we look like dickheads. There we were just a few weeks back boldly claiming that it was plain to all and sundry that Charlie Pickering’s The Weekly was going to: …make a much more concerted effort to rip off The Daily Show. You know the drill: wacky opening monologue, slightly more in depth... Read More »
So we now have this to look forward to: If somebody doesn’t put together a sketch where *all* the cast members of Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation are hosting identical news comedy shows, we’ll… well, we’ll continue to throw all our sketch ideas into the bin where they belong. Ok, let’s be realistic here: Shaun MIcallef... Read More »
Mad as Hell is back! And, uh, yeah… ok, it’s taken us a couple of days to get around to mentioning it because we don’t really have all that much new to say. Shaun Micallef and his skilled team have created a finely honed satirical machine and by now they’re capable of hitting any target... Read More »