MovieChat Forums > Summer Heights High (2008) Discussion > australian shows

australian shows

posted 16 years ago by ostrolla
46 replies | jump to latest

im from america and i was wondering if you guys could recommend some good australian shows for me to watch. i already know about Summer Heights High, We Can Be Heroes and Sugar Rush and i love them all. espeshialy Summer Heights High, which is my favorite show now.

[–] tsavuvi 15 years ago

From the mid to late 1990s - Frontline and Seachange. Both should be available from ABC's web shop (ABC Australia). The Games was also good.
Frontline was a dark satire based on tabloid television. Wickedly funny, no laughter track dubbed in, plays like a documentary, smart and to-the-quick social observations.
Seachange family focused drama about a big-city female lawyer who, when her husband cheats on her, realises she's given her family so little time it's falling apart, so decides to make a 'seachange' in her life, and becomes a judge in a small town down the coast. Although it's centred on her family, what makes the series is the heart in the stories of the additional characters from the town.
If you're willing to go back further Mother and Son from the 70s (or was it 80s) was a particularly good sitcom about an adult son taking care of his dementia-affected mother.
There's a multitude of others but the above ones I think were top-notch quality stories.

[–] somesunnyday 14 years ago

"Very Small Business"....excellent comedy

[–] Tippy_Cup 13 years ago

SMH and the other Chris Lilley shows are by far the best comedy shows we have ever produced.

Our culture is VERY anti intellectual, and anti art. So whilst we have a lot of talented people, most of them don't reach their full potential.

I hate this country sometimes.

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[–] John_Dee_007 13 years ago

Our culture is VERY anti intellectual, and anti art. So whilst we have a lot of talented people, most of them don't reach their full potential.

Somewhat true, depending largely... in fact, massively, on where you live in Australia. But with regard to the context of this thread, we spend more time enjoying Britcoms (and American sitcoms) and relating to the British humour, which we've been familiar with since the 60s/70s, than bothering to take an interest in our own. This is not our fault, though; its the industry's.

The trouble with the Australian film and television industry is that they're so out of touch with the modern cultural perception of urban Australians that the average viewer just can't relate anymore, unless they're poor and live in the western suburbs of Sydney or the outer suburbs of Melbourne, or are old and can remember when Australians used to behave in such a way. The "bogan" angle just doesn't work for modern Australian audiences anymore. The world is a lot smaller these days and Australian shows fail to acknowledge this. Not to mention the Australian media which fails utterly every day and feels the bizarre need to inform us that some random Australian who we don't care about and have never heard of has made it big in Hollywood... again. Nobody cares. We're too busy to care. Our Facebook and Twitter accounts are far more important than some feel-good news article about some random Australian citizen finding success.

The guys who collect my garbage every Monday and Thursday are probably far more intellectual and culturally aware than anyone in the Australian film and television industry. Sad that the very medium that represents us as a nation portrays us 10 years behind who we actually are as a people.

"People should know when they're conquered" - Quintus