Latest / The Front / Australia’s top 25 TV shows from Blue Murder to Bluey
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
- 0:11Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. It's been seventy years since Bruce Ginjel
- 0:17Speaker 1: started a revolution.
- 0:19Speaker 2: Good Evening and Welcome to television.
- 0:22Speaker 1: Television up to that point had been a novel, idea,
- 0:25Speaker 1: an experiment. Now, of course it's where we go for entertainment. Lucy,
- 0:32Speaker 1: here's no dragon.
- 0:34Speaker 3: Fire cannot kill the dragon.
- 0:37Speaker 1: To stimulate our minds and then the final strike or
- 0:44Speaker 1: turn them off. Hi, Brenda, how you doing.
- 0:48Speaker 4: I'll tell you how I'm doing.
- 0:49Speaker 1: Not well, bet, But with the streaming explosion, the only
- 0:53Speaker 1: thing outnumbering the shows on our screens are the opinions
- 0:56Speaker 1: about them. Today. I'm joined by Milanderbaut and Biancher fiar
- 1:00Speaker 1: Markets from the Australians Culture Team, and we're here to
- 1:03Speaker 1: look at Australia's top twenty five TV shows live right
- 1:17Speaker 1: now on the Australians Culture section. Is the list that
- 1:20Speaker 1: is going to cause more arguments this weekend than anything else.
- 1:22Speaker 1: It's Australia's top twenty five TV shows of all time.
- 1:25Speaker 1: Joining me is Culture editor Milanda Rout and Content director
- 1:28Speaker 1: Biancher far Marcus. We've got to start with Working Dog Milanda.
- 1:33Speaker 1: We're nineties girls, and this was one of the highlights
- 1:36Speaker 1: of being a kid or a young person in the
- 1:38Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. Was one of my introductions to what television
- 1:41Speaker 1: journalism might be like Frontline.
- 1:43Speaker 5: Same, welcome back.
- 1:46Speaker 6: Well, the vexed issue of euthanasia continues to divide the community.
- 1:50Speaker 6: Few debates have been as emotionally charged, and never have
- 1:53Speaker 6: two sides been further apart. First to you, Ronald, you
- 1:56Speaker 6: believe euthanasia should be legalized.
- 1:59Speaker 5: Absolutely, It's a fundamental right currently denied us.
- 2:02Speaker 3: All well, Vanessa, what do you have to say to that?
- 2:07Speaker 7: I agree, I'm sorry.
- 2:11Speaker 6: The Council of Civil Liberties fully supports euthanasia.
- 2:14Speaker 4: Always have right.
- 2:17Speaker 1: That's it.
- 2:19Speaker 3: I was saying to someone earlier that it actually made
- 2:22Speaker 3: me want to be a journalist, which I don't know
- 2:23Speaker 3: what that says about me, but I loved it and
- 2:25Speaker 3: I still love it and can keep rewatching it.
- 2:29Speaker 1: It was a fictionalized version, basically of a current affair,
- 2:32Speaker 1: wasn't it. And it was so outrageous that it just
- 2:35Speaker 1: had to be true. They were footing the door cowboys
- 2:38Speaker 1: who had all the foibles that you might expect from TV.
- 2:41Speaker 8: Now listen, all I got to do is get him
- 2:43Speaker 8: refusing to speak to us, get a bit of hassling, basil,
- 2:46Speaker 8: jiggle the camera, and then we can just piss off
- 2:48Speaker 8: out of here. Okay, Jase, you're right, okay to start
- 2:52Speaker 8: rolling rolling, let's go.
- 3:00Speaker 2: I'm mister Bowman. It's Martin Destasia here from frontline. Now,
- 3:04Speaker 2: why won't you speak to us about the two hundred
- 3:07Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars that's gone missing from your client's
- 3:10Speaker 2: trust funds? All right, come in, well, come in, No,
- 3:18Speaker 2: I think we've got all we need. Thank you, Thank
- 3:20Speaker 2: you very much, mister Bowman. You've ever asked you any questions? No,
- 3:24Speaker 2: that's fine, there's no need to don't want to hear
- 3:26Speaker 2: my take your hands, don't know what's touch. There's no
- 3:29Speaker 2: need to get physical, there's no need for violence. All right,
- 3:32Speaker 2: just let my sort of get in the car. Guys,
- 3:34Speaker 2: get in the car. Let's go.
- 3:36Speaker 7: Let's go.
- 3:36Speaker 6: Guy, If you're what, I just don't want to hear.
- 3:40Speaker 2: My start the car.
- 3:42Speaker 1: It was also very charming and lovable. They were beautifully
- 3:44Speaker 1: lovable characters, weren't they? They were, And it was all
- 3:46Speaker 1: the kind of unsung heroes. Mike Moore, who was the host.
- 3:50Speaker 1: He was the stupidest one in the whole room.
- 3:52Speaker 3: And it was the you know, heroic patient producers that
- 3:56Speaker 3: put the whole show together. They were all women, coincidentally,
- 3:58Speaker 3: and they and it was fantastick.
- 4:00Speaker 1: That was produced by Working Dog, which went on to
- 4:03Speaker 1: make Utopia, of course, and the beloved movie The Castle.
- 4:08Speaker 5: What do you call that?
- 4:08Speaker 7: Down?
- 4:10Speaker 4: Sponge cake?
- 4:11Speaker 7: Beautiful?
- 4:12Speaker 5: And watch that stuff on top? I sing sugar, how
- 4:16Speaker 5: is it?
- 4:17Speaker 7: Kids?
- 4:17Speaker 4: Now?
- 4:17Speaker 5: Why would you want to go out to a restaurant
- 4:19Speaker 5: when this kid's coming up night after night?
- 4:23Speaker 1: Even Bianca, who's much younger than us, man's all about those.
- 4:27Speaker 3: And the dish? Yeah, and then have you been paying attention?
- 4:31Speaker 3: And thank god you're here. But I would argue my
- 4:35Speaker 3: favorite Working Dog production is even before Frontline, and that
- 4:38Speaker 3: was the Late Show, which is the precursor by the
- 4:41Speaker 3: djon which I think that's what they were called then.
- 4:44Speaker 3: And it used to be on a Saturday night. And
- 4:46Speaker 3: this may say more about my social life that I
- 4:48Speaker 3: remember literally coming home from parties so we could watch
- 4:50Speaker 3: the Late Show.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Yeah, it was one of many attempts to get late
- 4:54Speaker 1: night television working in Australia. Graham Kennedy had a late
- 4:57Speaker 1: night show for a while, Yeah, Steve Wizard. Of course
- 5:00Speaker 1: we don't have one now though, and that kind of
- 5:02Speaker 1: appointment viewing has ended, hasn't it.
- 5:04Speaker 3: And the problem with that is is that when I
- 5:06Speaker 3: do have the time, I don't know what to watch,
- 5:09Speaker 3: so I actually misappointment viewing, and arguably this generation does
- 5:12Speaker 3: as well, which is why it is such a nostalgic
- 5:14Speaker 3: look back to the nineties.
- 5:16Speaker 1: Biancher, How has the audience responded to these lists? Do
- 5:18Speaker 1: they agree with you guys? Or are they violently opposed?
- 5:21Speaker 7: Now what?
- 5:22Speaker 6: It has possibly been one of our least offensive lists,
- 5:25Speaker 6: maybe because we didn't put it together and it was
- 5:27Speaker 6: all It was curated by our TV critic Graham Blundell,
- 5:30Speaker 6: who is absolutely brilliant and very respected both as an
- 5:33Speaker 6: actor and as a critic. But it's been fantastic to
- 5:37Speaker 6: see how much people actually remember, not only when they
- 5:41Speaker 6: saw these shows, but the history that came out of it.
- 5:44Speaker 6: And it was possibly one of the most fun things
- 5:46Speaker 6: with this show seeing what was reinvented, what was, you know,
- 5:50Speaker 6: considered fantastic, what was considered absolutely tragic and hopeless, but
- 5:53Speaker 6: we loved it anyway, and what defined our cultural identity
- 5:57Speaker 6: during those periods.
- 5:58Speaker 1: One of the shows that Graham and you guys have
- 6:00Speaker 1: chosen is Blue Murder, which was the fictionalized story of
- 6:05Speaker 1: real life crooks and crims and cops in New South
- 6:08Speaker 1: Wales Roger Rogerson, Neddie Smith. I was covering the exploits
- 6:12Speaker 1: of those people as a young reporter when this was
- 6:15Speaker 1: published and then banned for several years while trials took place.
- 6:20Speaker 5: Come on, come on, please just give you anything you want.
- 6:23Speaker 5: Ned come on there, you tell them now, come on.
- 6:27Speaker 6: You talk too much.
- 6:29Speaker 2: It's away in trouble.
- 6:30Speaker 3: You're a dog.
- 6:31Speaker 7: You're talking to the Royal Commission.
- 6:34Speaker 3: I didn't meet it, you, I didn't meet it.
- 6:38Speaker 1: It was incredibly violent, it was horrifying, but it was
- 6:41Speaker 1: also a launching pad for some people who are superstars now.
- 6:45Speaker 1: Richard Roxborough played Roger Rogerson in a very chilling way.
- 6:49Speaker 1: And that theme of gritty crime dramas that interact with
- 6:54Speaker 1: real life has kept going throughout the history of Australian TV,
- 6:57Speaker 1: hasn't it?
- 6:58Speaker 3: Absolutely and you and I there are similar experience again.
- 7:01Speaker 3: I had that with Underbelly, which was about the Gangline
- 7:03Speaker 3: wars in Melbourne from nineteen ninety four to two thousand
- 7:06Speaker 3: and four. I was reporting the game linkmitters at the time,
- 7:10Speaker 3: and then of course the TV show Underbelly was based
- 7:13Speaker 3: on the books of Andrew Ruhle and John Silvester, who
- 7:17Speaker 3: were crime reporters for the Age at the time and
- 7:19Speaker 3: covered that, so the television show spurned from that, and
- 7:23Speaker 3: then I also covered the hearing, which they tried to
- 7:25Speaker 3: suppress it and they won. But we actually got bootleg copies.
- 7:29Speaker 3: We were watching it in the office and there was
- 7:31Speaker 3: no sound. There was sound, but there was no background music.
- 7:34Speaker 3: I don't even know where we got them from. Wasn't
- 7:36Speaker 3: from court, but it was so exciting. Yeah, back of
- 7:39Speaker 3: a truck, but it was so exciting to watch these
- 7:42Speaker 3: things that were suppressed but then were also reflecting what
- 7:44Speaker 3: I was doing in my job. And when we looked
- 7:48Speaker 3: at this list and looked at the great dramas, there
- 7:51Speaker 3: hasn't been a drama like that for quite a while.
- 7:54Speaker 1: Australia's done some really bad television and showers. Some of
- 8:00Speaker 1: it's been sort of set in suburbia, and I would
- 8:02Speaker 1: argue that Neighbors and Home and Away are both pretty bad,
- 8:04Speaker 1: and I'm prepared to be shot down on that, but
- 8:06Speaker 1: Bianca is something that I hear even you know, serious
- 8:09Speaker 1: TV critics talk about admiringly. Is Heartbreak High.
- 8:12Speaker 4: I've never watched it.
- 8:13Speaker 1: Maybe I'm a bit traumatized by Neighbors and Home and
- 8:15Speaker 1: Away and I've kind of thought it might be a
- 8:17Speaker 1: bit like those. What is Heartbreak High actually like? And
- 8:20Speaker 1: why is it on the list?
- 8:21Speaker 6: So Heartbreak High is the reboot of the nineties show
- 8:24Speaker 6: and it brought it into a modern era, but it
- 8:26Speaker 6: didn't skimp on the fact that it was very Australian,
- 8:29Speaker 6: so it kind of amplified these attitudes of Australian teenagers.
- 8:32Speaker 6: And at the time it came out, which was right
- 8:35Speaker 6: at the start of Lockdown, it was firstly distinguished by
- 8:39Speaker 6: the fact that it was put on Netflix. It was
- 8:41Speaker 6: exposed to the world. So it focused on the kids
- 8:45Speaker 6: of Hartley High.
- 8:46Speaker 7: Well, the following students please meet at Classroom five, d
- 8:52Speaker 7: Amerie Wadia, Papa McLain, Anthony Bourne. So it was like
- 8:59Speaker 7: a dicko to Darren Rever, damn it Quin Gelage John what.
- 9:06Speaker 6: Kind of a more sanitized version of euphoria in the
- 9:09Speaker 6: sense that it doesn't shy away from talking about drugs
- 9:12Speaker 6: or sex and all these you know, teenage habits, which
- 9:14Speaker 6: was definitely not my experience in high school. But they
- 9:17Speaker 6: were much cooler, and I think it was such an
- 9:20Speaker 6: incredible formula for bringing very quintessentially Australian things and not
- 9:26Speaker 6: shying away from keeping them as such. I do feel
- 9:29Speaker 6: like sometimes we try to appeal too much to global audiences.
- 9:33Speaker 6: I would like to take this opportunity to fight you
- 9:35Speaker 6: on Home and Away and thank you very much, because
- 9:38Speaker 6: one thing I will not stand for that this country
- 9:40Speaker 6: loves to do is bash soap operas. Australian soap operas
- 9:44Speaker 6: are leaders in the world in terms of exporting talent
- 9:47Speaker 6: like you look at American soaps. I've watched about two
- 9:50Speaker 6: hundred and fifty thousand episodes of Bold and the Beautiful.
- 9:53Speaker 6: I could not tell you a single one of the
- 9:55Speaker 6: names of the people in it.
- 9:57Speaker 3: They stay there, they stay on it, they stay.
- 9:59Speaker 6: There, they get plastic surgery, and then they die on
- 10:01Speaker 6: that show and then they come back. Whereas Home and
- 10:05Speaker 6: Away neighbors, who have we got, We've got the Hem's works,
- 10:08Speaker 6: We've got Margaret Robbie, Guy Pierce, Kylie Minogue. I'm sorry, Yes,
- 10:13Speaker 6: they're terrible.
- 10:14Speaker 3: Even Delta goodroom.
- 10:16Speaker 1: These are people who go on to win Oscars and Emmys,
- 10:19Speaker 1: but not not for these Australian productions, but they made them.
- 10:23Speaker 6: It's like working at McDonald's when you're a teenager. It
- 10:26Speaker 6: makes you an incredible CEO won day.
- 10:28Speaker 1: It really is like a boot camp. I mean the
- 10:30Speaker 1: discipline of working on a show like that Home and
- 10:32Speaker 1: Away is in an amazing production machine. From scripting to
- 10:35Speaker 1: a finished production is often just days. That is amazing
- 10:39Speaker 1: and it gives these people the talent, of course, and
- 10:41Speaker 1: the skills. But they're embarrassing. They aren't that Why am
- 10:45Speaker 1: I embarrassed by you can psychoanalyst me now, Bianca? Why
- 10:48Speaker 1: am I embarrassed by those shows? When I don't think
- 10:51Speaker 1: English people are embarrassed by Coronation Street.
- 10:53Speaker 6: I think it's conditioning to the accent. I think a
- 10:56Speaker 6: lot of people do sit down to watch and immediately
- 10:58Speaker 6: they hear an Australian accent and then just must assume
- 11:01Speaker 6: it's subpar or that less money's gone into it, it
- 11:04Speaker 6: doesn't have the right people backing it, which is decades
- 11:08Speaker 6: of conditioning. And we have waves across the small screen
- 11:11Speaker 6: and the silver screen where we have our moment and
- 11:13Speaker 6: then it lapses and we forget that this country is
- 11:16Speaker 6: actually extremely talented and punches well above its way considering
- 11:19Speaker 6: the amount of barriers we have do get those audiences.
- 11:23Speaker 6: But I also think what's intrinsic to most viewing experiences
- 11:27Speaker 6: is you want to escape. And for us, it's a
- 11:30Speaker 6: lot easier to watch an American show that has nothing
- 11:32Speaker 6: to do with our lives and get that kind of escapism.
- 11:35Speaker 6: Whereas you see something toothless Bill down the street in Paramatta,
- 11:40Speaker 6: like I know him, I don't really know if I
- 11:42Speaker 6: want to watch him all evening.
- 11:44Speaker 3: So I think also too, I was not allowed to
- 11:45Speaker 3: watch Neighbors Home and Away as a child. My mum
- 11:48Speaker 3: did not allow me.
- 11:49Speaker 1: But you have turned out to be very less like andisicated.
- 11:52Speaker 3: So but I did watch it in my twenties as
- 11:54Speaker 3: a rebellion, so I was like it was properly like
- 11:58Speaker 3: an example of you know, how to watch that. So
- 12:00Speaker 3: as an adult in my sharehouse, I would watch it and.
- 12:03Speaker 1: Other people were smoking joints, living on the wild side
- 12:11Speaker 1: in between all the covering the Ganglin murders.
- 12:13Speaker 3: I just think it's kind of those op operas are
- 12:16Speaker 3: kind of boring. They just and also to again. It's
- 12:18Speaker 3: the you know, that's all that was on TV. You
- 12:22Speaker 3: had four channels. You came home, you either watched the
- 12:24Speaker 3: news or you watched home in a wait.
- 12:32Speaker 4: Coming up more of my chat with Bianca and Milanda.
- 12:59Speaker 1: The most globally successful show on this list is Bluey.
- 13:02Speaker 1: I was speaking to a colleague and dear friend of ours,
- 13:05Speaker 1: Jasper Leek, who has never watched an episode of blue
- 13:07Speaker 1: and I said to him yesterday, I'm so jealous. You're
- 13:10Speaker 1: so lucky you get to start at the beginning. Bluey
- 13:13Speaker 1: is the most magical and beautiful television show and it's
- 13:16Speaker 1: lovely to see it being recognized internationally, isn't it.
- 13:19Speaker 3: Yeah, And back to be Anker's points, it sells Australia,
- 13:22Speaker 3: and it sells Brisbane unashamably, you know, the Queensland, and
- 13:26Speaker 3: now everyone knows what it is around the world. I
- 13:28Speaker 3: think the key to good kids stuff for me anyway,
- 13:31Speaker 3: personally with my children is it's bearable to the adults
- 13:34Speaker 3: and it speaks to the adults. And so the thing
- 13:36Speaker 3: about blue is it's not like Pepper Pig where you
- 13:39Speaker 3: kind of just want to hit your head against the
- 13:40Speaker 3: wall after watching the multiple times because that's what happens
- 13:43Speaker 3: with children. You watch them multiple times. But it's just beautiful.
- 13:47Speaker 3: It's just really nice.
- 13:48Speaker 1: It has shaped I think the way generation parents too.
- 13:52Speaker 1: You can't watch an episode of Bluey and not feel
- 13:54Speaker 1: more playful.
- 13:55Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, fad.
- 14:01Speaker 7: What do you hear?
- 14:02Speaker 1: Billies want?
- 14:03Speaker 6: We want to pet? What pets end up taken over
- 14:06Speaker 6: the place?
- 14:07Speaker 5: I've already got you two animals for that.
- 14:09Speaker 6: I can train it animals.
- 14:11Speaker 2: Listen to me.
- 14:13Speaker 3: Please? Can we have a pet?
- 14:15Speaker 7: But you've already got one.
- 14:16Speaker 1: Sean Richard Rockbrow was chilling as Detective Roger Rogerson in
- 14:25Speaker 1: Blue Murder, and he was charming and deeply flawed as
- 14:29Speaker 1: Barrister Cleaver Green in Rake The Wretched Politics to drive
- 14:34Speaker 1: me knots.
- 14:35Speaker 6: It's supposed to be a happy event.
- 14:37Speaker 1: Correct, that is absolutely correct?
- 14:39Speaker 5: What excuse me? I've noticed you say the word correct
- 14:45Speaker 5: a lot.
- 14:45Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, I hadn't noticed.
- 14:48Speaker 5: Yes, when somebody says something that you agree with, you
- 14:51Speaker 5: don't say yes or uh huh, you say correct. It's
- 14:57Speaker 5: but like a school teacher talking to it ten year old.
- 15:00Speaker 5: You know you're not actually agreeing, you're approving. It's as
- 15:05Speaker 5: if the statement is invalid until you deem itself.
- 15:10Speaker 1: Why is rakeso appealing when it does have the Australian
- 15:13Speaker 1: accent and the kind of Australian setting that we in
- 15:16Speaker 1: other context might find cringe.
- 15:18Speaker 6: I'm a Rake die hard. I'd say it's the first
- 15:21Speaker 6: show that I truly watched it as an adult when
- 15:23Speaker 6: I was developing some sense of taste for all its flaws,
- 15:26Speaker 6: for all its insanity, and for all its craziness. As
- 15:29Speaker 6: a King's Cross local and a die hard defender of
- 15:33Speaker 6: the Coca Cola strip, it made me truly proud to
- 15:35Speaker 6: be an Australian. That show, which is I don't know
- 15:38Speaker 6: how you'll interpret that. That show did something so important
- 15:42Speaker 6: for the area that has been gentrified and pillaged over
- 15:45Speaker 6: recent years. There have been several cafe owners that bought
- 15:48Speaker 6: establishments that were featured in Rake and made sure that
- 15:52Speaker 6: they were preserved and protected from becoming, you know, another
- 15:54Speaker 6: boutique hotel of something that no one can afford to
- 15:57Speaker 6: go to, and kept all the interior architecture just so
- 16:00Speaker 6: that people could fans of the show, fans of the
- 16:02Speaker 6: area could still enjoy it. And that to me, I
- 16:05Speaker 6: was like, this is this is what television does when
- 16:08Speaker 6: this country champions it. It really does remind us that
- 16:12Speaker 6: it's actually absolutely awesome to be Australian and we have
- 16:15Speaker 6: so many compelling stories to tell of them are absolutely batshit.
- 16:21Speaker 3: The other thing too, was that sea change did the
- 16:23Speaker 3: same thing, which is, you know, it started a sea change,
- 16:26Speaker 3: and it completely gentrified bow and Heads and all the
- 16:30Speaker 3: Bellerine peninsula and no one would get pasted along before
- 16:34Speaker 3: dive down, and now everyone went. They changed the whole
- 16:39Speaker 3: coast of Victoria. It's set up tourism down there and
- 16:42Speaker 3: it started a proper sea change and countless had lines
- 16:46Speaker 3: about sea changes and tree changes ever since. So I
- 16:48Speaker 3: think it's fascinating where history and television and fiction and
- 16:51Speaker 3: culture and life all intermixed and then produce these things
- 16:54Speaker 3: which are really timely and obviously contribute to when they land.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Well that's what the culture sections all of. I can't
- 17:00Speaker 1: wait to read it in full. Thank you very much,
- 17:02Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Melander Raut is editor and Bianca
- 17:10Speaker 1: far Markers is Content Director of Culture at The Australian.
- 17:14Speaker 1: Check out their work now at the Australian dot com
- 17:16Speaker 1: dot au slash culture. This episode of the Front was
- 17:20Speaker 1: hosted by me Claire Harvey and produced by Jasper League.
- 17:24Speaker 1: My team also includes Kristin Amiot, Leat Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimac,
- 17:28Speaker 1: and Joshua Burton