The Hollowmen

Giving a rating out of 10 seems silly, as I've only seen the first episode, but this show does look promising.

The style of The Hollowmen is very similar to Frontline, being shot in a candid documentary style. Also like Frontline, it is satire covering important issues. basically the theme is: A government only cares about how they are perceived, rather than caring about any real issue itself.

A nice guitar rift breaks up the action, and a great opening credit sequence brought me right in to the action. As far as the cast, it seems first rate. Never seeing the Primeminister is something that has been done before, but it does add a certain realism to the show, by saving The Hollowmen from using a fictional person as our leader. I've never really found Merrick Watts all that funny, but I guess time will tell on his character.

Rob Sitch's character is hilarious, constantly writing down and repeating buzz-worded nothings and talking a lot of hot air, whilst Lachy Hume's character, though possibly as spineless as Sitch's, does seem to have things to say. I'm sure a strong and interesting dynamic will develop.

I look forward to future episodes.

As someone working in the Australian government policy environment, it was very good start and a scarily accurate portrayal of dealing with political advisers. The one negative is the Prime Minister and Cabinet guys are totally wrong, at least for ones so senior. However, they do seem to have a resemble a few junior staff in PM&C that I've dealt with.

Everything else is so close to the mark, it could almost be a documentary! The use of the market research team by the advisers is a real frustration for those of us who try to develop "frank and fearless" advice to our beloved ministers.

I've watched this series so many times and it still makes me laugh. Another fly on the wall faux documentary from the Working Dog team. Almost a scary look at Australian politics and how it's more about appearance than actually serving the Australian public. This should be more worrying to the viewer, but it is too spot on to not laugh. My favourite characters have to be Philip and Warren, who are totally blind to populist opinion and almost derail every headline grabbing idea the Policy Unit come up with. It's almost a Mr Burns/Smithers style relationship. There's been much criticism of the casting of Merrick Watts, but I find him to fit nicely into his role. Lachie Hulme is the much needed straight man in the picture. Seemingly the only person in the whole department with an ounce of common sense. Mel, the PM's PR queen, is always having her leash tugged, desperate to leak info to the press at any given opportunity. The real star, not surprisingly is Rob Sitch as Tony, the link between the policy unit and the PM's office. As much slapstick as he is intelligent humour, he is the central character that all others revolve around. The PM is unseen, which I think is a great move, as you can imagine him as the real thing, and it's also symbolic of the fact that none of these ideas supposedly coming from the PM are really coming from the PM.

Similar in many ways to Utopia (2014), The Hollowmen is a satire about the inefficiency of bureacracy. This time, up closer to the politicians themselves and dealing with all kinds of lobby groups and different parts of government.

The impossible task is to please everyone and the end result is always the same - a compromise which sounds good but achieves nothing.

Phillip and Warren are probably the funniest regular characters who always get in the way of the protagonists despite their best intentions. Their incentives are obviously the opposite of the Prime Minister's. The PM wants to go hard on terrorism, create some new military thing. What do Phillip and Warren come up with? Downsizing the military - it's inefficient and has too many parts. The last thing on the mind of Murph and Tony (the main characters).

Merrick Watts brings a lot of sarcasm to the show, often missed by other characters at first. I think he shows how I would react in such absurd situations.

Many political topics are covered and it's clear that the politicians care far more about looking good and getting votes than actually changing anything. Other characters who suggest things that might actually work are treated as nuisances getting in the way.

I get the impression many of the episodes are based on real events but it's hard to tell 13 years later. The amount of waste and reasons for it are completely believable but also kind of depressing.

In addition to the cutting satire, there are many nice comedic touches throughout with great, natural performances from the whole cast. Like Sitch's other shows, I may need to rewatch it sometime just to enjoy it again but also to keep up with all the little jokes, priceless reactions and bureaucratic details.

Although reminiscent of Frontline, and The Games, this series, after two episodes seems to be missing a main ingredient the other two series offered. Likable characters. It's well written, topical, and seems to be off to a good start.

Obviously after two episodes it's too early to reach a conclusion. Unfortuneatly our North American TV usually cans a series if it's not a hit overnight. That's why we see so much Deck on the network channels, and the migration of viewers to the more independent channels, like HBO, the Comedy Channel etc. If anybody's ever seen the classic Yes Minister British series they can see a perfect example of this type of format. It's amazingly well written, bitingly funny, and as watchable now as it was when first aired.

For Australia The Games will remain a classic and could play every four years ad infinitum, for as long as we have the Olympics. Frontline was great too, leaving the viewer wishing there'd been more to come.

If this series remembers it's important to have somebody to root for, and manages to balance its cleverness with the personal touch, it could be a great addition as well.