Every reviewer of this show turns me off. If I listen to them it is everything I wouldn't enjoy. However the same thing happened with "The Alice", where every review and Nine's own promos made it look like "McLeod's Daughters". It's only through catching a few episodes by accident that I have realised how quirky this show is, and how well it balances comedy and drama (exactly like "The Alice").
Perhaps that's our real problem in Australia: we can make these shows just fine, we have the talent, but if it isn't a cop show or soapie we don't know how to sell it. Perhaps many people who'd enjoy it are being turned off by the advertising and reviews, which are in turn attracting the people who don't like it after all.
It has what I like: well written, well acted stories with original characters. The fact it is technically great (camerawork, sets, lighting etc) is a bonus. The characters are ordinary people without being ordinary clichés, and not everyone looks like a model with a six figure wardrobe.
Sure some of them give me the irrits no end with their stupidity - who agrees to a surrogacy arrangement without thrashing out the details *before* any sperm goes anywhere?! I want to bang their stupid heads together. But people are like that, some are stupid and annoying, and sometimes you're related to them. The show would only be unwatchable if the stupid and annoying were *the* core of it, which thankfully they aren't.
The comedy is varied and at times unexpected, while very intense dramatic moments (such as informing a couple of the death of their child after a car accident) are handled with subtlety while still managing to be confronting and difficult to watch. The fact that these extremes can be found within episodes, and yet it still flows and works, shows how good the writers are.
This is well worth a look, and I would encourage the sceptical who are turned off by the "babies and love" reviews to give it a shot anyway. You might be pleasantly surprised. Then go to a video store and hire "The Alice" and be pleasantly surprised again.
Perhaps that's our real problem in Australia: we can make these shows just fine, we have the talent, but if it isn't a cop show or soapie we don't know how to sell it. Perhaps many people who'd enjoy it are being turned off by the advertising and reviews, which are in turn attracting the people who don't like it after all.
It has what I like: well written, well acted stories with original characters. The fact it is technically great (camerawork, sets, lighting etc) is a bonus. The characters are ordinary people without being ordinary clichés, and not everyone looks like a model with a six figure wardrobe.
Sure some of them give me the irrits no end with their stupidity - who agrees to a surrogacy arrangement without thrashing out the details *before* any sperm goes anywhere?! I want to bang their stupid heads together. But people are like that, some are stupid and annoying, and sometimes you're related to them. The show would only be unwatchable if the stupid and annoying were *the* core of it, which thankfully they aren't.
The comedy is varied and at times unexpected, while very intense dramatic moments (such as informing a couple of the death of their child after a car accident) are handled with subtlety while still managing to be confronting and difficult to watch. The fact that these extremes can be found within episodes, and yet it still flows and works, shows how good the writers are.
This is well worth a look, and I would encourage the sceptical who are turned off by the "babies and love" reviews to give it a shot anyway. You might be pleasantly surprised. Then go to a video store and hire "The Alice" and be pleasantly surprised again.