Making the audience laugh loudly and frequently should be the principle objective of any comedic work, right? Yet in the decade or so since The (UK) Office we have seen a fundamental change in the nature of sitcoms and how many people judge... Read More »
In previous years many of the results thrown up by the Tumblies have been dismissed as simply the scowling of haters opposed to anything mainstream or... Read More »
Let’s do a little basic math. The average episode length for an Australian comedy series – on the ABC at least – is six episodes. Once or twice a year there’ll be an eight-episode series, but that’s it. So if you were making a television series, you’d want your intentions (and the level of quality)... Read More »
Right from its first episode, The Librarians (ABC1, Wednesdays, 8.30pm) has been surprisingly divisive, in that it was neither obvious rubbish or amazingly hysterical. More insightful critics than us might want to discuss whether being able to provide support for shows that aren’t either pandering crap or clear genius is a sign of maturity for... Read More »
There’s nothing we like more than taking potshots at critics who (unlike us) are actually being paid to waffle on about topics they barely understand. But today’s target – Ben Pobjie, who recently took over The Age’s ‘Couch Life’ column in the Saturday A2 supplement – provides a slightly more difficult target than the usual... Read More »
A preview disc of the first two episodes of the upcoming third season of The Librarians has fallen into our possession, and while a full-length review isn’t yet good to go – short version: it’s funny, you should watch it – we can talk about the first three scenes and what, taken together, they do... Read More »