Prosper

Incredible performances - Richard Roxburgh is truly one of the best actors around today. Great writing, stunning cinematography, complex character studies, nuanced, intelligent music, editing and stylised direction. The twists and turns are incredibly compelling. There are still lots of unresolved stories so would love season 2 asap! We binged it all in one day. Stylistically it's part Succession, part Fall of the House of Usher, and its own style of mystery and drama. Prosper is a brilliant achievement - a stunning exploration of hubris, family, love, desire, hypocrisy, deception, influence and the fall of man. Wow! Very excited for season 2!

Enjoyable, all to poignant depiction of an evangelical church. So much glitz and glamour, with Rebecca Gibney once more displaying excellence in her character portrayal of the family Matriach.

Richard Roxborough managed to convince me that he indeed thinks God speaks to him and he has deep seated beliefs that he is making the world a better place despite being so flawed.

I can see links to Hillsong, Sheila and the oOrange people to name two.

Great music, written by great local musicians.

Characters are so extremely and wonderfully flawed

Everyone has their own agendas and foibles.

I certainly hope there will be a season two.

Accurate and powerful, the exposes people who who they are and portrays man's follies. The church is bigger than the people who run it, however is it? The people who run become the focus and is this spiritual or real greed? The Bentleys, private jets and helicopters, the Sydney Harbour cliff top views, the clothes and cash- is this what God would want, or is this man tricking mass people. As a Christian watching this I found it uncomfortable and accurate in sections and is so well written and acted. Brilliant Aussie drama at its best, I do have trouble not seeing Roger Rogerston and Mrs Ratter, however what talents they are ! Loved this show.

Right off the bat I will say this is one of the slickest looking Australian shows I have seen. It looks expensive and I suspect it probably is.

Five minutes in it was clear the writers and producers are big fans of Succession as the family dynamics are very similar, though in this show the setting is a Sydney mega church. Most Australians will appreciate the direct associations with the Hillsong church right down to the fictional Bieber-esque pop star. There's also a bit of Jim Baker in the Roxburgh character, who is something of a cliche when it comes to the US megachurch culture.

For these reasons I felt I have seen the story before. But the pacing is fast and the performances are very good so it's a positive review from me all up, even if I wanted more originality.

Prosper is blessed with an outstanding cast of respected Australian actors and is based on a timely and relevant premise given the unsettling influence megachurches and pentecostal Christianity more broadly claim to wield in many secular societies, despite their overall insignificant numbers.

However as an ex-Pentecostal with an all too familiar understanding of the whys and wherefores of that strange world, I feel Prosper's writers and actors would have benefited from developing a deeper knowledge and understanding of the language, cultures and idiosyncrasies of both the on-stage performances of celebrity preachers and the jargon and deluded self-assurance that those people employ in their everyday lives.

There are definitely moments in Prosper where Richard Roxburgh's talents as an actor are allowed to truly shine, particularly during some of Cal's darker moments. But when Cal is "in character" as a celebrity man of god in front of his congregation or praying on his own, his portrayal becomes more wooden and inauthentic. Rebecca Gibney is in fully Lady Macbeth mode for much of the series which I think is also a missed opportunity given the public role of the typical Pastor's wife in this world is to be a happy, shiny accessory. More juxtaposition between the persona and the person would have made her character richer and given Gibney a wider repertoire to work with.

My other reservation with this show is the number of subplots going on in each episode. Some end up feeling undercooked as a result. I would have preferred to see a slower build and more nuance and more tension around fewer threads of the story.

Hopefully if a second series is made, the will be opportunity to bring on writers or consultants who really, truly know how the murky world of pentecostalism works and thereby add a sorely needed layer of authentic credibility to this show which will reduce some of the cringe.