Tim Blair has followed the lead of the Insiders - and that astute judge of comedy, Gerard Henderson - in deciding that Working Dog’s new series - The Hollowmen - is all about Kevin Rudd. Despite, as Grodscorp points out, the denials of its creators. I guess the intention of the author is irrelevant in a postmodern world. No doubt Kevin Donnelly and Keith Windschuttle will point out how this hermeneutical laxness potentially threatens all that is great about Western civilisation.
I think it’s reasonably clear that the proximate inspiration of the series - in development before Rudd was elected - is the Blair government, and more broadly, trends in governance and the media across the Western world over the last couple of decades. But its biggest problem is… it’s a one joke show which isn’t actually all that funny. It’s neither West Wing nor Yes, Prime Minister. I think we need a lot more political satire with a cutting edge - I’m thinking about the glory days of the Gillies Report which tore Bob Hawke apart just as much it did Andrew Peacock and Ian Sinclair. But The Hollowmen ain’t it. Pity.
So Tim Blair likes an ABC show now, does he? I knew he shouldn’t have taken that gig at the Telegraph; he’s become a bloody communist!
Yes, it’s a one joke show, but so was “Yes Minister”, basically. Hopefully, the Hollowmen becomes one of those shows where the destination is never in doubt, but the journey is fun to watch…
It’s not setting out to be satire per se, so there’s no point accusing it of failing to be so. It’s a reasonably neat and simultaneously scary view of the way the government (any government) runs. And, given that the ABC has already ordered a second series, hopefully it works for a few people!
It was pretty lame, it might improve I ‘spose.
As for the Rudd connection, well Blair is right – it’s Rudd. Or rather Rudd as he is currently being portrayed by the Opp. Organ and the OO’s portrayal is just a generic paint-by-numbers spin-city stitch-up applicable to X administrations in X countries, as is The Hollowmen. Timing however is everything.
There was teh ‘cheap shot’ at the end of the episode ie. the flunky or whoever nodding and saying “PM” at the Pineapple (?) walking past from the obesity campaign in the last shot.
But frankly, who needs the thin scenarios of The Hollowmen when you have comedy gold being served up daily from Macquarie Street? It was a bit like the local Under 12’s acting out the State of Origin.
You didn’t have to watch The Panel for longer than 10 minutes to realise the Working Dog crew weren’t that strong on umm. current affairs or even general knowledge. It was often one howler after another on the Panel – they were more than ok - blabbing about celebrity, media, telly shows, sport etc but their combined level of ignorance on general knowledge let alone more substantive issues was a bit eye-opening.
Then again they have done some pretty decent stuff over the years. Maybe not this time, but I’ll give it another look next week.
Do yourself a favour and devour the 2005 bbc4 series “The thick of it”, which has been lovingly preserved on youtube, the whole series.
You’ll piss yourself, then weep at just how hollow Hollowmen is, compared to it and ,as you say, Gillies.
But credit where it’s due, Sitch and co. hit the mark with Frontline, it’s a tough act to follow. Presumably it’s because they had the insiders’ knowledge of the foibles of television’s creatures.
Tell me Kev’s Lachie Harris hasn’t taken notes from ThickOfIt’s Malcolm Tucker’s ( the show’s PM’s communications director, allegedly modelled on alistair campbell) playbook. Life imitating situation comedy, what?
Leaving the political satire question aside, the difference between this show and Frontline, in my view, was that there was very strong character development in the latter. Admittedly, it’s early days but there’s only so far you can go when all the characters are the Hollow Men. Remember Santo Cilauro’s weatherman? Or Jane Kennedy’s Brooke Vandenberg? And the various character actors playing the EP?
Or - in Yes, Minister - we cared about Jim, his wife and Sir Humphrey. And Bernard.
What Danny says. It’s a bit exasperating to see so many Yes Minister comparisons for a show that has clearly copped its premise from The Thick of It (which I’m reasonably sure the ABC has never showed). Mark inadvertently describes The Thick of It perfectly when he talks of a show whose “proximate inspiration … is the Blair government, and more broadly, trends in governance and the media across the Western world over the last couple of decades”. It is immeasurably funnier than The Hollowmen, which I didn’t actually mind. I might even be heretical enough to suggest that it’s funnier than Yes Minister.
Too early to tell. With a character and plot driven comedy series set in a world that’s arcane for most viewers, you need a few episodes to build up the really serious jokes.
However I like how they’ve already set one running gag in motion. Which is that a mob of the most powerful men in Australia are constantly borrowing pens off the women…and not returning them.
“…are constantly borrowing pens off the women”
Which apparently was a notorious Keating trait.
FWIW I thought the show was piss weak. I can’t stand the pomposity of Rob Sitch and he’s a horrible actor. If you want smart humour I’d suggest waiting for SBS to bring Newstopia back. In the meantime I did get a few laughs out of Q&A tonight, you showed ‘em Bolta!
Newstopia was a gem: clever, sharp (in fact scalpel sharp). And to be so sharp in so few words, the writers had to know their politics/current affairs. Micallef, he’s a damn fine comedian.
Sitch can be a pain, but it could improve. “Phaic Tan” and their other guide book were good. They keep on producing novel ideas. Agree with Mark on “Frontline”. Santo Cilauro was terrific, and Jane.
“Yes, it’s a one joke show, but so was “Yes Minister”, basically.” Not really DP.
Yes Minister was one beautifully crafted line after another, sharp and witty. The dialogue was every bit as good as the startling conceptual premise, that went to places no other television comedy had gone before.
By contrast, The Hollowmen had a couple of good lines in its first epidode, but the rest was mostly stage setting. Perhaps it will improve, but on past form, the comedy will mostly be in the daily office conflicts and Rob Sitch’s silly expressions.
The Right Wing media machine would have you believe The Hollowmen is based on the “Left Wing” Blair Government (or even more lamely, the Rudd Government), to steer you away from seeing it as a take-off on the Howard Government’s promotion of unelected and unaccountable political advisers and lobbyists to replace the public service over the past decade. Extremely damaging to our body politic, and hopefully under gradual repair with the advent of the Rudd Government.
Given the situational premise, I would like to see The Hollowmen episode that analogises “Children Overboard” or the “Greenhouse Mafia” or “AWB” but I am not holding my breathe. Working Dog ain’t that politically edgy.
I was disappointed. I’m a huge Frontline fan, but would have preferred a new series of that instead of Wednesday night’s first episode. I’ll persist though.
My main problem is Sitch (a fave of mine during the Late Show days) was essentially playing a less self-centred version of Mike Moore. Didn’t see enough of the pollster character to make any comparison to Geoffrey Salter.
Does anyone remember that ABC political satire from a couple of years ago that followed two new federal MPs, one Labor and one Liberal, and was actually filmed around Parliament house, and featured heaps of MPs in cameos as themselves? I can’t remember for the life of me what it was called, but my recollection of it was that it was a better political satire than Hollowmen is so far.
That’s not to say it wont improve - it’s early days - but I thought most of the shots they took in the first episodes were pretty easy ones. I’m interested to see where they take it.
It was clinically accurate in the small things. Chairs, job titles, books, language and buzzwords, etcetera. Points for detail.
The problem was character development, as Mark said; but also the lack of the one critical thing that draws people into the world they’re portraying: politics. Grassroots was infinitely superior to Hollow Men as a satire of politics because it lovingly, knowingly, took cricket bats to the cultures of the Liberal and Labor Parties and the hopeless compromised self-esteem of the Independent. You could tell that the characters inhabited a political world, and the humour came from there. I’ve often heard the catchphrases from it: “mate, you’ve gotta have a Plan B”.
Frontline was so good because it was all about the media’s hypocrisy and introversion, which the WD crew saw as the vital thing about media life. Hollow Men could have been so much better a series if they’d actually watched Grassroots or Rats In The Ranks and added that vital ingredient to politics: hatred of the other side.
Corridors of Power, Doctor Faustus.
My overwhelming reaction was to thank whatever looks after me that I no longer have to do that stuff every day. Might be Rudd’s office, could be Howards but it was certainly any number of the offices that I have had experience of over a number of years.
Thanks, knew it was something like that.
Add Andrew Bolt on the list of those who believe that The Hollowmen is about Rudd. He said that last night on Q&A.
Ruddster spin, Howard spin, Bracks spin, Carpenter spin, Bob Carr spin, Jeff Kennett spin, Tony Blair spin; what’s the common feature? Why it’s - gosh - spin! So if the comedy is only about spin and its elbowing aside of solid policy work, the particular Govt it may be based on, matters little.
Bring back “Grassroots”!! That was brilliant.
“Might be Rudd’s office, could be Howards but it was certainly any number of the offices that I have had experience of over a number of years.”
Spot on. The behaviour of staffers has very little to do with their party affiliations.
I thought the show wasn’t too bad.
Mark wrote:
CHOKE!
That is Bruno friggin’ Lawrence you’re not talking about there. Jazz drummer, hippy, actor and bona fide Kiwi legend.
Come lets dance all around the world: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3xm33 (couldn’t get that to link to the text .. don’t know why)
To continue the NZ theme, the most excellent theme song to The Hollowmen is North by North by The Bats.
I just rewatched the first series of Frontline, and while it’s fantastic, there is very little character development. Santo’s character makes the same joke in every show, and Sitch is the same simpleton selling his values for profile each week. What made it work was the rich pickings of 6:30 current affairs shows, the inside knowledge, and the turnaround. If I remember correctly, their episode on the gunman holding his kids hostage (based on Mike Willesie? interviewing a real gunman live on tv) went to air only around 2 weeks after the real thing. Talk about topical.
Otherwise, I missed the first episode of the Hollowmen - anyone know if I can watch it online somewhere?
On the NZ theme, I assumed that it took partial inspiration from “The Hollow Men: A Study in the Politics of Deception“, a book which destroyed the career of the NZ National Party leader Don Brash.
For veterans out there: even Yes Minister was pre-dated (by about 8 years, not to mention a few Classical Greek plays for instance) by an ABC produced series that Billy McMahon’s attorney-general spuriously pulled out of production in the last 6 months of his government: “Our Man in Canberra”. The titular character was even named Humphrey.
Everyone at the ABC believed it was political interference, except the Commissioners who considered it “possible that Our Man In Canberra, if transmitted, might leave the Commission and members of the cast open to a charge of contempt of Parliament”.
So they thinly rewrote the series as “Our Man in The Company”: The writer said “Very odd company, this one. It has repatriation schemes for its old soldier employees, problems with censorship, an old-age pension scheme which nobody thinks is enough, and battles with women who believe the company constitution infringes their rights. What other strange things does this company have on its plate? Oh yes, it’s been experiencing a rural crisis lately! We had difficulty adapting three of the original scripts on Aboriginal land rights, the Russian presence in the Indian Ocean and the U.S. takeover of our resources. But we have made the programme legal now.” The TV Week editorial said: “So at last we get a good idea of what our politicians didn’t want us to see…”.
It went to air 35 years ago this month, so the idea is very not-new. It even had some proto po-mo self-referential conceits, with James Dibble appearing as a television newsreader.
Chapter and verse at Classic Australian Television site
Anyone remember it?
It was okay, pretty gentle satire. O wait with bated breath for a scenario that is clearly not Rudd.(If it ever happens). Then we’ll see what Bolt says.
Yeah, the first episode was disappointing, thoughbut notoriously the first episode of a new program is a poor guide to later quality.
My beef with it is that it was not accurate as to process and the way things work inside a government. Ministers would not be bit players in developing such a program as that portrayed. Even with such control freaks as Howard and Rudd the PM’s office wouldn’t develop the details, though they would certainly vet them. The tensions between the Health and Sports ministers over the issue would be more likely played out first in the IDC to develop the proposals and next in the Cabinet room when the IDC’s submission is considered. And no PM would allow himself to be seen overruling a decision at the party director’s request for party funding reasons - he’d want to keep his fingerprints right off such dirt and so would be more indirect.
To be effective satire must be deadly accurate. IMO the West Wing was more accurate at portraying the real-life toxic mix of genuine idealism (of which, surprisingly, there is often a lot), egomania, grubby political maneouvring, relentless attempts at spin and chronic exhaustion from a massive workload.
Jeez, it was just the first episode, how much character development do you expect in 30 minutes?! The way you guys are falling over yourselves to bag it, methinks Bolt and Blair might be onto something. How can you not draw comparisions with the Rudd government when they do the easy symbolism first, deliver a weak-as-p*ss first budget, and procrastinate over climate change. Where’s the vision, where are the hard first-budget decisions? If you can’t do these things when you’re ahead 60-40 in the polls, when will you? Its all spin and empty rhetoric so far, and the pathetic sight of Peter Garrett putting voluntary energy labels on plasma TVs.
I want a government with courage dammit!
Do you think a Government led by Bob Brown would have courage, Carbon sink? Oh wait, you need to have members of the House of Representatives to make a Government…
On the show; I thought it was interesting, not hard-hitting, but then it was only the first show. I have to agree with Nabakov, love the pen stealing. I’ll certainly be watching next week.
For Kymbos: I believe you can watch it at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/hollowmen/#/watch
Given the timelines (show in development last year) then it is clearly not inspired by Rudd - but there is no doubt that Kevin ‘Process PM’ Rudd has provided plenty of material for Hollowmen to work with. Got a problem to solve? Let’s form a committee to discuss it. Murray Darling anyone?
My wife is not particularly inetersted in politics - but she watched with me, laughed at the show and commented that it must be based on Rudd. Oh well… it’s on the ABC… so not a big audience.
I,m Sorry I just don,t find Australian comedy funny,they had 1 idea and flogged it to death,I will make a few exceptions, but most OZ comedy is not remotely funny.
It’ll happen. Each government has provided seams too rich to ignore.
Being a fan of the Melbourne band of the same name, I presumed the title came from the T.S. Eliot poem, but I could be wrong.
Probably.
PJK had courage. He had a seat in the House of Representatives IIRC.
Fact is, right now we need a government with courage.
I agree that The Hollowmen is a one-joke show, which is why i personally never had much time for Yes Minister, or for that matter, Mother & son or Keeping up Appearances. You always know how it’s gonna end up, where’s the fun in that? But there’s another running flaw with the Hollowman. The character played by Rob Sitch is patently unbelievable as a slick spin doctor. His lines are so obvious and overdone, he actually comes across as a stupid dork, not a suave, machievellian Alistair Campbell type. Way too much front and no subtext. This is all compounded by Sitch’s overacting. Like the show’s theme, he’s a one-trick pony.
I agree that Grassroots was fab, time for it to be resurrected. Take my Council for inspiration, the City of Port Phillip, we paid 8 hundred thou for a New Age consultant!
Dennis Atkins on why Hollowmen could just as easily be about Howard’s government, and on a few clues as to why it’s not directly modelled on Rudd as such:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24007971-5007146,00.html
But as Dennis Atkins says in your link Mark…
“The POPULAR RESPONSE to the Working Dog satire, which had its premiere on the ABC this week, was that the inside look at ministerial advisers was all about the Rudd Government and its sometimes obsessive preoccupation with the news cycle.” (my emphasis)
Yes - it could be about any government…. but it so neatly fits Rudd that the popular view is that it is modelled on his government.
Rudds obsession with news spin and the political process makes Working Dog’s job very easy!