Why can’t anyone but the ABC make an Aussie sitcom work?
Every decade or so, an Australian commercial TV network decides to completely throw out the rule book and attempt something absolutely crazy, an insane experience on their viewers that finds them wildly wading into the vast unknown. They commission an Australian sitcom.
This decade, it’s Ten’s turn, and instead of going with a completely unproven concept, they’ve sensibly opted to adapt the hugely popular BBC comedy, Ghosts, which wrapped its five-season run last Christmas with a finale that was the most-watched British comedy show of the year, pulling over 6 million Brits. It has also been successfully adapted for the US by CBS, with German and French versions also in production.
The US version of Ghosts aired in Australia on both Paramount+ and Ten, which helped them quantify the commissioning of a local version. Daniel Monaghan, Paramount ANZ’s senior vice president of content and programming, told Mumbrella last week after announcing the new show that “we’ve had the benefit of seeing how well the US series has done on Paramount Plus and how well it’s done on 10 – and it just felt like it was right – the Australian version was the right thing to do”.
The Brits simply know how to be bold and inventive with their SitComs. The classic stuff like Allo Allo, Black Adder, Faulty Towers, Red Dwarf and Yes Minister were all very unique concept driven shows.
Even the more modern post 2000s UK shows like Peep Show, The IT Crowd, Extras, The Inbetweeners and Toast of London don’t hold back and allow the writers to be inventive and push the boundaries. The Office was this when it first launched. Now it’s just become the norm, with most modern sitcoms aping it’s style. Some brilliantly like the US made 30 Rock, Parks and Rec and of course the US Office and others not so well.
The best Aussie sitcom at the moment is Utopia and you could almost not even call that satirical comedy, because it’s so close to the reality of working for public service. Once again though, Utopia is a concept series and it’s also the spiritual follow up to one of Australia’s best, Frontline.
There was also Fam Time which was buried on 7Plus
While I agree, sitcoms on commercial networks have been few and far between this century, there are a couple that came quickly to mind for me, and I reckon there’d be at least a couple more.
Here Come the Habibs had two seasons on Channel Nine in 2016-17.
Peter Helliar’s How to Stay Married had three seasons on Channel Ten between 2018-2021.
While that one is a spin off from an ABC production, it’s still a credit to Ten that they gave it three seasons. How quickly we forget!
Strictly speaking rom-com is drama. It must resolve, therefore, conclude, bringing hoped-for and audience-satisfying transformation, usually for the male of the couple. This kind of fun for audiences is best suited to a movie or a very short series. An extended series like Colin From Accounts has already evolved into sit-com. It is almost too late to compete the rom-com cycle, which according to the conventions must end with a final scene known in the trade as Wedding Bells – and even with a contemporary take on relationship manners such as The 40 Year Old Virgin, they couldn’t avoid the conventions with their wacky/cynical take on Wedding Bells. Same goes for The Silver Linings Playbook – a rom-com between a couple under psychiatric treatment, whose loving family and friends arrange the Wedding Bells.