TV reviews.

A selection of recent TV reviews and analysis

Is Pixar’s first TV series like Rashomon, but for kids?
It’s enjoyable and quite thoughtfully made, in a pleasantly derivative way: easy to watch but nothing to write home about.
February 2025

Why High Potential’s protagonist isn’t a great TV detective
The protagonist of this bouncy “series belongs to a long line of busybodies who are so skilled at seeing all the angles that they simply cannot be ignored by the police.
February 2025

The savage emptiness of American Primeval
To say these types of stories have been well represented throughout motion picture history is something of an understatement.
January 2025

Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action is raucously entertaining
Like the show itself, Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action has a watch-through-the-slits-of-your-fingers appeal.
January 2025

Douglas is Cancelled navigates a minefield of modern sensitivities
This brutally funny series dives into political correctness and other comedy no-fly zones.
December 2024

The fun but exhausting metaness of Interior Chinatown
After yearning for adventure, the protagonist of zany comedy Interior Chinatown finds himself ensnared in kooky plotlines and spiralling realities.
November 2024

Territory review – ‘Succession in the outback’ makes for rollicking TV
A Northern Territory cattle station is the majestic setting for the power jostling and fraught family dynamics of Netflix’s new Australian drama.
October 2024

Thou Shalt Not Steal review – this series has future classic written all over it
Dylan River’s highly addictive show, following a teenager on the run across the outback in the 1980s, has real oomph and chutzpah.
October 2024

Plum review – Brendan Cowell triumphs as a rugby league player off the rails
Based on its star’s novel of the same name, the series about recovery and redemption is affecting, poetic and anything but cheesy.
October 2024

The Office Australia review – an edgeless reboot doomed for the shredder
The key challenge for the Australian version of this much-loved sitcom was to bring something new to the table. Amazingly, no one seems to have tried.
October 2024

Stephen King’s right: Teacup is ‘all killer, no filler’
The new Stephen King-approved horror series Teacup is thoroughly bingeable and moreish, delivering thrills and spills at lightning speed
October 2024

The hilarious English Teacher dives into comedy no-fly zones
One of the year’s funniest TV shows boldly takes on issues most run away from.
October 2024

Twilight of the Gods is an animated feast of Zack Snyderisms
Zack Snyder’s latest production is an animated Netflix series, but it’s still a Snyder production through and through, overdosing on heavy-handed spectacle.
September 2024

Is Bad Monkey the most purely enjoyable crime show of the year?
Vince Vaughn plays a down-and-out former detective in this funny and charmingly lowkey show, which goes down very smoothly – like a milky cocktail.
August 2024

Fake review – Asher Keddie thrills in visceral drama about a romance scammer
The web of deception woven by David Wenham’s shady Joe Burt sets pulses racing in this slow-building TV series inspired by Stephanie Wood’s memoir.
July 2024

Exposure review – Alice Englert shines in this interesting, if flawed mystery series
It takes a while to feel immersed in this Sydney-set drama, following a woman investigating her friend’s death – but there’s a lot to appreciate here.
June 2024

Ladies in Black review – a tepid period drama that feels a bit fusty
Director Gracie Otto tries to inject some sass and energy into a show that ends up playing soft and staid.
June 2024

Austin review – this funny, big-hearted comedy will leave you wanting another season
Love on the Spectrum star Michael Theo is wonderful as an autistic man who tracks down his hapless father and his wife.
June 2024

Benedict Cumberbatch tries valiantly to puppeteer the sensationally flawed Eric
Its biggest asset is Cumberbatch’s performance: this guy is painfully good at portraying broken, drowning people.
May 2024

Dark Matter is a rivetingly personal sci-fi drama that stretches to infinity
It’s the human elements that keep Dark Matter grounded, and create something beautifully contradictory: a deeply personal drama that stretches to infinity.
May 2024

Heartbreak High season two review – busy, blingy but all a bit flaccid
Netflix’s reboot of the 90s classic ramps up the colour and sensationalism. It’s all high and no heart.
April 2024

Netflix’s super stylish Ripley series reinvents a classic sociopath
This show is pretty freakin’ stylish: watching it feels like slipping into an Armani blazer, or some other clothing item you can’t afford.
April 2024

Revisiting USS Callister – one of Black Mirror’s greatest episodes
This feature-length episode is an ingenious piece of sci-fi television and one of the series’ all-timers.
March 2024

High Country review – Leah Purcell is as engaging as ever in a decent, if familiar crime series
There’s murder, mystery and a stink-load of genre elements in this potboiler-ish crime series given a glossy cinematic varnish and a solid lead performance from Leah Purcell.
March 2024

Population 11 review – a foreigner in a small Australian town? Haven’t seen that one before …
This new Stan comedy is a letdown, delaying reveals for mysteries and ambiguities that weren’t particularly interesting to begin with.
March 2024

The supposedly ‘boundary-pushing’ Supersex will only push your patience
I’ve watched all seven episodes and the only thing this so-so, intermittently hammy production pushed was my patience.
March 2024

The two lead characters in Shōgun make an irresistably great combination
This hugely entertaining adaptation of James Clavell’s classic novel Shōgun, set in 17th century Japan, does a great job evoking a state of dramatic flux,
March 2024

It’s Dior versus Chanel in the suitably stylish The New Look
A riper look might’ve been more engaging: this scaled-back colour scheme felt, to me, a little distancing and self-conscious.
February 2024

American Nightmare and the game-playing of true crime documentaries
The greatest mystery in Netflix’s latest sucking of the true crime teat isn’t what happened in the case it unpacks…it’s what the filmmakers are hiding from us.
January 2024

Expats is another decently made series that could’ve been half as long
Across the series, tension comes and goes—sometimes, at its peak, with an aching and swelling feeling.
January 2024

Death and Other Details is less ‘whodunit’ and more ‘who cares?’
Aesthetically the show lacks oomph, the directors seemingly assuming that audiences will be taken in by the sight of rich people on holiday.
January 2024

Prosper review – Richard Roxburgh leads a sizzling and sharp megachurch thriller
The fictional church in Stan’s addictive new drama could well be inspired by Hillsong, in a pacy show that bolts out of the gates and doesn’t slow down.
January 2024

The Ted TV show is a surprisingly charming coming-of-age series
There’s a thoroughly pleasant domesticity about this small screen spin-off that took me by surprise.
January 2024

Boy Swallows Universe review – Netflix’s Trent Dalton adaptation is one of a kind
This seven-part series based on the bestseller is impressive, following a young boy who must navigate 1980s Brisbane’s criminal world.
January 2024

Australian Epic review – the Chaser’s musical doco series is often fun, sometimes excruciating
Taking on ‘defining’ moments in the nation’s history – from Johnny Depp’s dogs to the Tampa affair – this six-episode show is a mixed bag.
November 2023

All the Light We Cannot See eventually succumbs to melodrama and hamminess
Based on a best-selling book, WWII drama All the Light We Cannot See can’t avoid the most melodramatic impulses of its inspiring plot.
November 2023

Night Bloomers review – creepy Korean Australian horror series will leave you wanting more
Andrew Undi Lee’s hour-long anthology series comprises five short and unsettling stories that explore different aspects of the immigration experience.
October 2023

The Changeling is truly grandiose horror: bold, beautiful, freaky
This handsomely produced and magnificently eerie series packs a hell of a punch, adapting Victor LaValle’s fantasy novel of the same name.
September 2023

The Newsreader season two review – raises the stakes and ups the ante
The plotting is pointier, the performances more lived in, the conversations about media issues more pronounced and integrated in ways that feel totally germane to the drama.
September 2023

One Night review – Jodie Whittaker is a highlight in this lacklustre series
Yael Stone and Nicole da Silva round out an impressive cast in an Australian mystery drama that otherwise feels a little too contrived.
September 2023

Blowing the call centre industry wide open, Telemarketers is unmissably great
One of the core messages is that it’s never too late to do the right thing, no matter how many wrongs have come before.
August 2023

Painkiller’s ‘tell don’t show’ expose has some nasty side effects
The famous screenwriting dictum “show don’t tell” is a drum critics will keep beating until the end of civilized society, or the end of motion pictures. Whichever comes first.
August 2023

Steven Soderbergh’s stylish crime series Full Circle really loves its circle metaphors
Steven Soderbergh’s new TV series has an interestingly circular energy—swinging around, looping back on itself, revealing key details circuitously.
July 2023

Warnie review – Nine’s Shane Warne biopic is a huge swing and a miss
With subpar acting and weird commentary from Warnie beyond the grave, this very bad production feels like it has been hurried out.
June 2023

The Betoota Advocate Presents review – satirical news website’s TV debut is fast and funny
“Australia’s oldest and most trusted newspaper’ is now on Paramount+, taking on familiar topics like Hillsong and Murdoch – but it remains very amusing.
June 2023

Year Of review – Bump spin-off about teens in mourning does too much with too many
We return to Jubilee high for a new series – but with too many characters, and so many stories, it quickly loses focus.
June 2023

The Clearing review – Miranda Otto is a chilling cult leader in eerie mystery drama
Guy Pearce and the excellent Teresa Palmer also star in this show based on a real Australian doomsday cult, but it lacks the atmospheric wow factor of similar series.
May 2023

The Messenger review – surreal adaptation of Markus Zusak novel is a mysteriously good time
It took a couple of episodes, but I relished returning to this ABC show about a young man who is mysteriously tasked with helping strangers.
May 2023

Safe Home review – gripping drama on Australia’s domestic abuse epidemic
The statistics on family abuse are alarming. This SBS series tells the stories behind those numbers, with Aisha Dee giving a nuanced performance as a legal centre worker.
May 2023

Inside Silo’s central setting: another great vertical dystopia
The terrific new sci-fi series Silo, created by Graham Yost, we’re getting one for the ages: an awesome central location brimming with dramatic and aesthetic possibility
May 2023

Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe review – sketch comedy trio scramble for laughs in new show
The premise of running a Melbourne cafe has heaps of potential – but while there’s always joy to be found in the zaniness, this series isn’t Aunty Donna’s best.
April 2023

Totally Completely Fine review – Thomasin McKenzie can’t save us from contrived writing
The actor is compelling as a mouthy twentysomething who talks people off the ledge. But the Stan TV series is neither as funny nor as sharp as it thinks it is.
April 2023

Love Me season two review: very middle class, very Melbourne – and very compelling
You’ll enjoy being in the company of all the characters in this gently crafted show, with Hugo Weaving as good as ever.
April 2023

The savage, sozzled beauty of Rain Dogs – Britain’s new must-see dramedy
Creator Cash Carraway’s new series Rain Dogs flips the bird at stuffy social realist storytelling.
March 2023

Documentary, mockumentary, rockumentary: Daisy Jones & the Six continues the fake-real musician biopic
Large portions of Daisy Jones & The Six are graded with a scaled back, slightly washed out colour scheme, evoking the look of a faded tattoo from a distant summer.
March 2023

Last King of the Cross review – true crime series too polished for its own good
Based on John Ibrahim’s memoir and starring Tim Roth as a crime boss, this drama about Sydney’s ‘mecca of sin’ is full of forgettable machismo.
February 2023

Koala Man review – will this Hugh Jackman and Sarah Snook animation translate outside Australia?
This starry series about a suburban dad trying to be a superhero is often entertaining but doesn’t always hit.
January 2023

Supernatural series The Rig has midnight movie vibes but takes itself very seriously
When a mysterious fog descends on an oil rig in the North Sea, strange things start happening. That’s the premise of The Rig—a so-so supernatural thriller featuring some deliciously Scottish turns of phrase.
January 2023

Black Snow review – Australian murder mystery has a corker of a premise
With twin narratives set in 1994 and 2019, the whodunnit centres on a buried time capsule – but struggles to maintain tension.
January 2023

Irreverent review – a Chicago criminal goes undercover down under
This very funny and bingeable Netflix series sees an American “mafia negotiator” disguise himself as a priest in a small Queensland town.
December 2022

Colin from Accounts review – delightful romcom doesn’t shy from drama or toilet humour
Will-they-won’t-they chemistry between Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall drives this Australian TV series, which has a daggy kind of audacity.
December 2022

Murder, divorce and roadkill sandwiches: Myles Barlow, the critic who reviewed anything
The ABC comedy Review With Myles Barlow – following a critic who reviews life experiences – was one of the darkest, funniest and most peculiar shows on Australian television.
November 2022

Upright season two review – Tim Minchin dramedy has already jumped the shark
Minchin and Milly Alcock are perfectly fine, but don’t share the playfully brittle chemistry that made their original union pop and crackle.
November 2022

Savage River review – small-town mystery is never terrible but never surprises either
This six-part ABC TV series lacks hard-hitting performances and oomph, despite veterans behind and in front of the camera.
September 2022

Seen That? Watch This: Andor and the other Star Wars story about a rascally loner
It only took the Big Mouse a zillion attempts to come up with a refreshingly different take on Star Wars.
September 2022

As a show about female empowerment, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is less progressive than a 1940s movie
Instead of inspiring viewers with a message about female empowerment, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a regressive and risk-averse comedy.
August 2022

The joyful visuality of Man vs Bee – and Mr. Bean reincarnated
In his new, very Mr Bean-ish series Rowan Atkinson reminds us he’s still alive, still kicking, and still capable of wonderful comedy.
July 2022

True Colours review – SBS detective drama plays it too by the book
This drama, starring Rarriwuy Hick as a detective returning to her community, pairs familiar police procedural elements with interesting cultural insights.
July 2022

Mystery Road: Origin review – Jay Swan is back and as great as ever
The outback detective investigates some strange robberies in this satisfying prequel series, which feels more like a six-hour film
July 2022

The couple in The Time Traveler’s Wife spend more time complaining about time travel than falling in love
The second screen adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s innovative novel The Time Traveler’s Wife has arrived, marred by a wobbly tone and too clever by half writing.
May 2022

So-so drama Gaslit stars a radiant Julia Roberts and a chin-dribbling Sean Penn
Presenting a different take on the Watergate scandal, this eight-part series features head-turning performances from Julia Roberts and Sean Penn—who should have featured more prominently.
May 2022

Ten years on, ‘Redfern Now’ is as compelling as ever
A celebration of the history-making, Aboriginal-led drama, which has just landed on Netflix and lost none of its power a decade on.
April 2022

Is Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People stranger than fiction, or weirder than history?
Before he was President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky played the President in a comedy series that pre-empted his political career.
April 2022

Severance is a brilliantly original show about hating the hell out of your day job
Ever wondered what it would feel like to take acid and lock yourself in a boardroom? Look no further than Severance, a stunningly bold workplace thriller and satire.
February 2022

Troppo review: addictive Queensland detective drama – with crocodiles
Steeped in formula, but appealingly written, the dynamic between an unlikely pair of investigators drives this more-ish Top End series.
February 2022

Netflix’s gnarly Squid Game is the world’s latest TV obsession – but does it live up to the hype?
Why has this show suddenly got its tentacles into TV obsessives everywhere? I unpack the sadistic appeal of this overnight Netflix success story.
September 2021

Fires review – gripping six-part drama circling on Australia’s horrific black summer
ABC TV’s new series makes a compelling argument that truly powerful storytelling stems from what happens after the catastrophe.
September 2021

Farewell Rosehaven: the five best low-stakes plotlines of TV’s sweetest show
Over five delightfully pleasant seasons, Rosehaven has become a TV series we will remember. Here are some of its most memorable, if inconsequential, subplots.
September 2021

Strong Female Lead: viscerally powerful film lets the Gillard years speak for themselves
New documentary in the style of 2019’s The Final Quarter examines the sexism faced by Australia’s first female prime minister.
September 2021

Australian Gangster is a frantically entertaining if trashy Aussie crime series
Pasquale Barbaro is the latest Aussie criminal to be the subject of a debaucherous TV series—this one co-directed by Two Hands‘ Gregor Jordan.
September 2021

The juicy Nine Perfect Strangers is like Agatha Christie at a posh wellness retreat
Based on a best-selling novel by Aussie author Liane Moriarty, this hugely entertaining star-studded drama deftly mixes mystery and comedy.
August 2021

The teen delinquents of Reservation Dogs reflect a fresh and funny Indigenous perspective
Set in a Native American reservation in Oklahoma, BINGE‘s new series Reservation Dogs has a strong sense of place—whilst also being flippin’ hilarious.
August 2021

American remakes of Australian TV shows: the good, the bad and the legendarily dire
American remakes of Australian TV shows are of, shall we say, varying quality.
June 2021

Eden review – mediocre mystery at the heart of Stan’s new paradise-gone-wrong drama
This Stan Original series is a mix of high and low art, full of cryptic visions juxtaposed with scenes that look straight out of a beach-set soft-drink commercial.
June 2021

Sweet Tooth is a beautiful apocalyptic fantasy with the worldbuilding spirit of a video game
Netflix’s engrossing apocalyptic series evokes the child in the adult and the adult in the child.
June 2021

Tasmanian terrors: ‘The Tailings’ is a bingeable Aussie neo-noir with secrets in spades
Tegan Stimson and Mabel Li anchor six 10-minute episodes that further Tassie’s screen reputation for darkness and desperation.
May 2021

Phenomena: art meets science in spectacular and profound mini-documentary series
By creating special effects without digital trickery, this new bite-sized ABC series evokes the thrill of watching the ordinary become extraordinary.
May 2021

Wakefield review – superbly made and utterly riveting series based in a psych ward
A far cry from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the ABC’s new drama is a nuanced exploration of the inner and outer worlds of patients and staff.
April 2021

Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire review – a devastating and revelatory series
The ABC’s three-part docuseries about the 1979 Luna Park tragedy is gooseflesh-raising TV.
March 2021

Fisk review – Kitty Flanagan anchors enjoyable but patchy legal comedy
Kitty Flanagan stars as an amusingly contemptuous lawyer struggling to save her career, in a promising series that sadly loses its way
March 2021

Mother and Son: the great Australian sitcom is a masterclass in the art of the squabble
Garry McDonald and Ruth Cracknell are terrifically spiky and shouty in the acclaimed vintage comedy that’s still so funny, all these years later
March 2021

The End review – spiky, witty drama on death that sometimes shifts into the absurd
A mordant humour is never far from the surface in this series that pivots boldly but not insensitively on the issue of assisted dying.
February 2021

HBO’s Tiger Woods documentary uses one of the oldest and greatest story templates
HBO’s new Tiger Woods documentary is wall-to-wall with armchair shrinks, just as happy to compliment the star as they are to turn the knife.
January 2021

The twisted genius of Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun
These sketch comedians are drawn to simple features for their vaudevillian possibilities: a doorbell for instance can summon any number of zany characters.
November 2020

P-Valley is a compelling drama with a hot, stylish intensity
Based in and around a Mississippi strip club, this engrossing series an turn intensely stylized moments off and on like a tap.
August 2020

All hail the return of Rosehaven: a soothing balm for anxious times
Rosehaven’s crowning achievement is to put you in a certain mood, a certain space, that provides a sense of reprieve from the confusion and chaos of daily life.
July 2020

Operation Buffalo review – Maralinga nuclear testing rendered as part-drama, part-farce
Drawn from a dark period of Australia’s cold war-era history, ABC TV’s new series never quite finds the balance between light and shade.
June 2020

The compelling but frustrating Dispatches From Elsewhere will keep you thinking
There’s much to like about Dispatches From Elsewhere, though this self-consciously zany series from creator/writer Jason Segel (who also co-stars) is existentially off-balance.
May 2020

Little Fires Everywhere is a well-produced drama that smoulders rather than burns
Going about its motions and locked into the daily grind of its characters, the show feels more like prestige soap opera than prestige drama.
May 2020

Netflix’s sci-fi series Into the Night is like Lost meets The Langoliers
The mood is awfully serious, which wouldn’t have been a problem had the show maintained a sense of urgency and intrigue, or presented something different or interesting.
May 2020

The Last Dance proves Michael Jordan is a god, but does it live up to its reviews?
 It is moreish and rollickingly paced, constructed with a fastidious largesse that attracts one to labels such as “exposé” and “procedural.”
April 2020

Why Money Heist is a hugely addictive Netflix crime show
The filmmakers show great flair for narrative economy, keeping the series moving on all levels: visually, narratively, thematically.
April 2020

Mystery Road season two review – a new riddle for Aaron Pedersen’s troubled detective
Jay Swan grapples with a headless corpse and a compromised archaeological dig in this new instalment of the award-winning Australian crime drama
April 2020

Freud is a cokehead in Netflix’s preposterous drama about the famous psychologist
Sigmund Freud is a hypnotist, a cokehead and God knows what else in Netflix’s ridiculous new series.
April 2020

Avenue 5 just became TV’s most weirdly relevant comedy series
Armando Iannucci’s latest comedy follows a community of socially isolated people who can only re-enter the outside world at an undetermined later date. Sound familiar?
March 2020

What to expect from Devs, Alex Garland’s mind-blowing sci-fi series
Garland’s new TV series fleshes out a mind-boggling premise, involving a highly secretive tech company.
March 2020

Your guide to Bloodride, Netflix’s totally bingeable new anthology horror series
There’s nothing remotely original about where each episode of Bloodride goes – but they are tight, taut and entertaining.
March 2020

Stateless review – thrilling, surprising drama interrogates painful Australian truths
The Cate Blanchett-led ABC series, just picked up by Netflix, offers a psychologically charged and nail-biting depiction of immigration detention.
February 2020

Everything’s Gonna Be Okay review – Josh Thomas’s Please Like Me follow-up misses its marks 
Based on the first two episodes, the comedian’s US-made show suffers from disjointed direction and soap opera shots – but there are hints it will get better
January 2029

Upright review – Tim Minchin’s road-trip series is clever, scenic and addictively good
With a light touch and electric performances, the series marries melancholy with comedy to deliver an odd-couple narrative that goes beyond the norm.
December 2019

For All Mankind and the appeal of alternate history dramas
It arrives at a point in time in which the “what if…?” approach to history – the idea of asking what might have eventuated had human society gone a different way – particularly resonates.
November 2019

Total Control review – Mailman is superb, but real #Auspol has more drama
With such a commanding screen presence, it’s hard to believe this Canberra-set series is Deborah Mailman’s first leading role
October 2019

Watchmen is a mind-bending superhero show about a tripped-out alternate America
Watchmen presents a crisis of history, a crisis of perspective, even a crisis of fiction.
October 2019

Undone is an exquisite time travel drama from the creators of BoJack Horseman
You’ve never seen a show quite like this visually ravishing drama about a woman trying to discover the truth about her father’s death.
September 2019

6 reasons why The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a modern masterpiece
Netflix’s strikingly surreal series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance doesn’t just live up to the reputation of its predecessor.
September 2019

Content: ABC’s world-first series made for mobile – from the creators of Bluey
The ‘vertical’ TV show from Australia unfolds entirely from the perspective of a wannabe influencer’s smartphone
August 2019

The Hunting review – an electrically uncomfortable sexual minefield navigated with nuance
SBS’s new drama about teenagers circulating nude photos skilfully traverses an ethical tightrope.
August 2019

Lambs of God review – audacious fable of blood-swilling nuns vs church politics
Plays out like a religious-themed Misery, with a hapless male protagonist rather, shall we say, overcome by hosts of a place that wouldn’t get a great rating on AirBnB
July 2019

Watching Too Old to Die Young is like swimming through stylish sewerage
Is making it through the entirety of director Nicolas Winding Refn’s 13-part series Too Old to Die Young the equivalent of a hideous, hitherto unimaginable endurance test – like doing laps of freestyle in a swimming pool pumped full of sewerage?
July 2019

The sickening greatness of Chernobyl
This riveting series evokes an incredible sense of dread and repurposes history at just the right time.
June 2019

The amazing cynicism of Rocko’s Modern Life
Rewatching the first two seasons of Rocko’s Modern Life, I rediscovered an amazingly cynical show: weird, wild, bawdy and coarse.
May 2019

Chris Lilley’s Lunatics review: unfunny, boring and utterly unrelenting
Lunatics is a disaster: not just unfunny and problematic, but boring and utterly unrelenting: a parade of annoying characters doing meaningless and gratuitous things. 
April 2019

Australia in Colour review – Hugo Weaving narrates a thrilling revitalisation of history
At the core of SBS’s new documentary series is the idea that Australia is only just beginning to come to terms with its past
March 2018

The Cry is a brilliant, gobsmacking drama – and a must-watch
A terrific drama that empowers the audience by taking away the liberation of perspective, balancing our natural response to emotionally feel the tragedy by forcing us to rationalise it.
February 2018

Tidelands review – Netflix’s first Australian original is pretty but vacuous
In prioritising mystery and beach bods over genuine feeling, the waterlogged show feels shallow.
December 2018

Pine Gap review – lots of yakkety yak and occasional scenes of bonking
First ABC TV/Netflix co-production is less a spy drama than an attempt to cure insomnia.
October 2018

The Netflix series Maniac is one of the most exciting TV shows of the year
Without giving much away, the show’s fabulously playful structure changes according to the kind of dream the characters are involved in.
September 2018

Bite Club review: it’s bad, not ‘so bad it’s good’
The acting in this shark-based serial killer thriller is bad, but the script is worse. How did the efforts of so many talented people result in such a dud?
August 2018

Nanette review: Hannah Gadsby’s brilliant Netflix special is going to set fire to the internet
Nanette oozes emotion, like a raw and weeping wound, but has the strength of a great mind and a canny comedian behind it. Perhaps our feelings toward Gadsby after watching this brilliant show can be summarised in a word: bravo.
June 2018

Mystery Road review: acclaimed films make a strong transition to the small screen
The director and her producers, David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin, address the question: how can you possibly match the ground-rattling impact of Pederson’s performance? And the answer is: you fly in Judy Davis.
June 2018

Rostered On review – tasteless comedy on retail hell is … hellish
You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who’d consider the sleazy posturing of this Netflix relaunch good comedy
April 2018

Sando review – an outrageously good performance in a hit and miss new ABC comedy
Sacha Horler stars as ‘the package deal queen’ in ABC’s newest show – but the second and third episodes don’t have the punch and pluck of the first.
March 2018

Safe Harbour review – tense, compelling asylum seeker drama offers no easy answers
The question of who is right or wrong is less important than how people behave under pressure, and what their decisions say about them. And nothing is more important than their humanity.
March 2018

Harrow review: brilliant, Holmes-like forensic pathologist in new ABC drama 
Is ABC TV’s new, 10 part drama Harrow intelligent in a bad kind of way, i.e. smug and contrived, or idiotic in a good kind of way – like a guilty pleasure?
February 2018

Riot review: ABC TV’s Mardi Gras drama
Like Ali’s Wedding, moments in Riot are refreshing, purely because they are oriented around voices rarely given narrative priority in mainstream entertainment.
February 2018

Declaring my love for Tom Gleeson and Hard Quiz
Gleeson’s type of shtick is rare here. Rarer, still, to be performed without the protective shield of an alter ego.
February 2018

Picnic At Hanging Rock first look – full-throttle reboot of an Australian classic
Gone are the pan flutes and soft hues. This series, starring Game of Thrones’ Natalie Dormer, is crazier, glossier, zeitgeisty.
February 2018

Hawke: The Larrikin and the Leader TV review: a formulaic, misty-eyed love-in
The political documentary’s equivalent of dripping cheese.
February 2018

Underbelly Files: Chopper – gratuitous crime drama butchers logic and style
Nine’s attempt to carve a sympathetic likeness of the notorious Melbourne gangster is a crime against good taste
February 2018

You might not care about House Husbands but axing it doesn’t bode well for Australian TV
Why would Nine dump a successful show? And what does it say about Australian drama’s future?
February 2018

Squinters review – Tim Minchin and Jacki Weaver take the low road in glib commuter comedy
ABC TV delivers a healthy dose of laughs alongside frivolous word salads in this patchy and meandering gabfest.
February 2018

Wolf Creek season two: John Jarratt’s great, shit-eating villain returns
A send-up of the bush derro, for city folk to ogle at – gratified by knowledge they are worlds apart from these atavistic philistines in every way, including location and ideology.
December 2017

Black Mirror season 4: the future is murder in the bleakest Black mirror yet
Even when it comes across as contrived or one-note, Black Mirror’s anthology structure lends it a high stakes, skin-crawling, touch-and-go menace.
December 2017

Friday On My Mind review: Easybeats biopic plays like a concert you don’t want to end
Celebration of seminal Australian band who met in a migrant hostel and came to produce one of the country’s greatest songs.
November 2017

No Activity season two – Will Ferrell and Bob Odenkirk join US reboot of Aussie cop comedy
K Simmons, Amy Sedaris and Jason Mantzoukas bring new energy to a winning format: Waiting for Godot in a cop car.
November 2017

Struggle Street season two: ‘poverty porn’ is back – and more problematic than ever
By distilling the complexity of their lives into black and white messages, then having the gall to lecture viewers about moral rectitude, the filmmakers do a disservice to everybody.
November 2017

The shameless nostalgia-mongering of Stranger Things season two 
When you get down to it, there are really only two kinds of movies and TV shows: the ones we watch and the ones we remember.
November 2017

Horror Movie: A Low Budget Nightmare review – surprisingly delightful gore-fest doco
A documentary with heart and sincerity – all the more surprising given the grotesque content of the film it documents the making of.
October 2017

Shaun Micallef’s The Ex-PM review – a deadpan and desperate return
There were worse gags in the first season of Micallef’s political comedy, so the second is progress of a kind.
October 2017

The Letdown review – an affecting portrait of motherhood with spoonfuls of comedy
Alison Bell’s bullish but endearing protagonist navigating life with a newborn baby holds ABC’s new comedy-drama together.
October 2017

Sunshine review – basketball and racial tensions collide in standout Australian drama
Anthony LaPaglia’s school-of-hard-knocks coach brings star power to this superb new series set in outer-west Melbourne.
October 2017

Wake in Fright review – TV remake of classic outback thriller lacks bite
Ten’s contemporary adaptation of Kenneth Cook’s novel substitutes hard drugs for cold beer but loses its sunburnt sting.
October 2017

Get Krack!n review – Katering Show Kates face-plant uproariously into milieu of breakfast TV
Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan walk the line between lighthearted mockery and gallows humour in eye-wateringly funny morning show satire.
August 2017

Top of the Lake: China Girl – Jane Campion’s once-masterful drama jumps the shark
Riddled with plausibility issues, on-the-nose dialogue, heavy-handed messages, spurious characterisations and dubious dream sequences.
August 2017

The Other Guy review – a half-baked comedy not even Matt Okine can save
Flaunts a flavourless and unimaginative script that fails to capitalise on the natural charisma of its talented star.
August 2017

Blue Murder: Killer Cop – Richard Roxburgh shines again in firecracker Aussie crime drama
When Australians make good crime dramas, man, we make really good crime dramas, and this is one of them.
August 2017

Pulse review – ho-hum plots and tin-eared dialogue plague bland medical drama
The ABC’s new medical drama has every reason to be a smash: a beloved format, top-notch crew and a diverse, talented cast. But it falls way short.
July 2017

The Handmaid’s Tale – review richly cinematic must-watch television
The beauty of The Handmaid’s Tale lies in its ability to pair big, chewy ideas with intimate moments of well-directed drama.
June 2017

Cleverman review – Indigenous superhero show returns with political punch
In the expanded universe, the excitement of the original series has waned, but season two maintains the show’s ability to detonate allegorical truth bombs
June 2017

Wanted’s second season has upped the ante. This is must-watch Australian TV
Unconventional (and long overdue) casting choices and smart, pacy writing are the making of Rebecca Gibney’s arse-walloping action thriller.
June 2017

Genius review – Geoffrey Rush impresses as an unexpectedly racy Albert Einstein
National Geographic, in its first scripted TV drama, gives the physicist’s life sassy, whip-smart on-screen treatment.
April 2017

The Warriors review – breezy Aussie Rules drama not afraid of sharp edges
Shades of Bruce Beresford’s classic The Club dapple this ABC series about a rag-tag bunch of footy up-and-comers with more talent than sense.
April 2017

The Young Pope review: Jude Law as a sacrilegiously rock’n’roll pontiff
The character is pitched somewhere between Frank Underwood and High Sparrow, with a touch of Mr Burns.
April 2017

Seven Types of Ambiguity – Hugo Weaving conjures dark magic amid a powerful cast
ABC TV’s adaptation of Elliot Perlman’s novel is full of electric performances, but turns down the heat on some of the story’s most thrilling elements.
April 2017

Hoges review – biopic bombs badly as Josh Lawson parodies Paul Hogan instead of playing him
Josh Lawson’s performance in this vapid two-part miniseries seems more modelled on Mick Dundee, and reminds us what was funny in Hogan’s heyday is not so funny any more.
February 2017

Shaun Micallef’s Stairway to Heaven and the glut of personality-oriented documentaries
Any series about a globetrotting Australian comedian road-testing the world’s religions lives in the shadow of 2004’s magnificent John Safran Vs God, still the Mona Lisa of the genre.
January 2017

Barry review: Australian star is born in Barack Obama biopic
What a breakthrough. Devon Terrell’s speech and cadence is faultless: just like Obama, but not too much like Obama to make it feel gimmicky.
December 2016

Pacific Heat review – unfunny Archer lookalike blighted by sexism and racism
Australian production company Working Dog deliver a dated comedy that manages to offend on multiple levels.
December 2016

Why Liz Jackson is still Australia’s greatest television journalist
For Liz Jackson to use her declined health as opportunity for a self-exposé, illuminating a condition not many of us know much about, goes well beyond being merely inspirational.
November 2016

Black Mirror is back, and social media takes a nosedive
Unequivocally this generation’s The Twilight Zone, the best episodes absolutely comparable to the finest curios that came out of Rod Serling’s imaginarium.
October 2016

‘Deep Water’ first look : addictive SBS crime drama inspired by real life
An electrifying watch, with a cracking pace and several stirring performances. The fused contemporary and sort-of historical premise is a very compelling context.
September 2016

Why ABC’s Recognition: Yes or No? proves Andrew Bolt can’t be beaten 
A reasonably interesting if infuriating picture of a person who has their back so completely against the wall their entire public life has become an argument to justify its own existence.
September 2016

The Code season 2: first look review
The Code, now with added LaPaglia.
August 2016

BoJack Horseman season three
A character study by way of a slow-moving train crash.
July 2016

Wolf Creek TV series review
The murderous rampage continues in Stan’s new six-part small screen series which introduces a vengeful American college student.
May 2016

It’s not just about farting corpses: 10 Sydney film festival drawcards
Beyond Swiss Army Man, with Daniel Radcliffe as a flatulent corpse, this year’s festival offers a Polish mermaid musical and homegrown schlocktastic horror.
May 2016

The Katering Show review
They’re like characters from a Christopher Guest film crossed with a kind of reverse Kath and Kim.
April 2016

Horace and Pete: like Cheers crossed with Death of a Salesman
Horace and Pete moves like a filmed play. C.K. has subsequently revealed it is shot week to week, with very short turnaround.
March 2016

11.22.63 review
There are slick production elements all round, a style-takes-backseat-to-story approach and a kind of snazzy old-time appeal.
February 2016

Jack Irish review
ABC’s six-part drama has less bawdy dialogue and more humour than the telemovies, but its long-suffering, crime-chasing protagonist is as appealing as ever.
February 2016

Here Come the Habibs: The outrage machine cranks up again
Basing their opinion entirely on a 42-second promo clip and the show’s official synopsis, one outrage-peddler did nothing shy of declaring airing the show would signal the end of progressive Australia.
February 2016

The Family Law review
Feels a little like fan fiction written by the same person it’s about.
January 2016

A Very Murray Christmas
Murray’s distinct disposition wipes away the smile that might otherwise have been stamped across the host’s face, perhaps even turning the show into a parody.
December 2015

Master of None: Seinfeld with a conscience, and hot damn it’s good
Master of None seems to constantly, quietly contemplate its own identity, never boxing the writing in to a formula.
November 2015

Jessica Jones: Netflix taps into zeitgeist with female-led superhero smackdown
It’s also refreshing to see Netflix continue a strong line-up of diversely cast programs, following on from Sense8, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Orange is the New Black.
November 2015

Ash vs. Evil Dead: a horror movie icon returns and it’s surprisingly good news
There’s a snappy visual energy to Ash vs. Evil Dead; it’s not as peppy or pressure cooked as an Edgar Wright movie but in spirit not dissimilar.
November 2015

No Activity: Stan’s gloriously good cop show about nothing
The first Australian-made commission produced for a commercial streaming service in Australia.
October 2015

The Ex-PM: A comedy master struggles with single voice syndrome
Shaun Micallef can cook up a dozen zingers for breakfast but plot doesn’t come so naturally, and certainly not as stylishly.
October 2015

The Principal (SBS TV) makes Dangerous Minds look like Kindergarten Cop
Reminiscent in the best possible way of the American ‘writers room’ approach, where groups of people spend weeks brainstorming what happens next for high-end shows like Breaking Bad.
October 2015

Scream the TV show has arrived, and it’s a scathing commentary on social media
Intensely bleak commentary on young people and online space, so pointed it is almost polemic.
October 2015

Sammy J and Randy in Ricketts Lane
A bromance between a gangly white man and his hand-operated best pal who looks like a stripped back bargain basement Muppet.
September 2015

Rick and Morty: finally, a TV show worthy of Douglas Adams
Frequently laugh-out-loud funny and sometimes ingenious in the way it applies a postmodern scalpels to familiar story arcs.
September 2015

Is Australia heading towards its own ‘Golden Age’ of TV?
Australia is yet to experience a Golden Age of television: because focus has remained largely on the dial, where programs such as Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud carve up the ratings.
September 2015

Narcos review
The cumulative effect is something that takes on a vibe that’s at best encyclopaedic, at worst a downright gabfest.
September 2015

Game of Thrones: smut has gone mainstream like never before, and political allegory isn’t far behind
How Game of Thrones will escalate its pattern of extremity, one-upping a countless number of one-ups, remains to be seen.
June 2015

Binge watching, TV hype and the ABC’s Glitch experiment
Setting up a mystery from a storytelling perspective is easy but resolving one in a dramatically satisfying way is not.
June 2015

Sense8
Sense8 passes the Bechdel test and then some; in fact it’s hard to imagine a program more diverse in gender, ethnicity, sexuality and geography.
June 2015

The faux outrage around Struggle Street and the controversy that never was
Tthe line determining what is ethical and what is not evidently comes down to whether final cut includes footage of a participant breaking wind.
May