The Hollowmen

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.

Rob Sitch knows how to deliver a comedy and The Hollowmen was a hidden gem. If you loved Utopia you will love The Hollowmen.

I found the show again after it stopped airing on ABC iview a few years ago and did not know where to watch it and when Stan announced that it had the show on the platform I immediately logged in to watch both seasons, over and over.

While sometimes it hit a little close to home and even now being scarily accurate all theses years on it holds up really well.

The banter between Murph and Tony always make me laugh and Mel being quite funny as well.

The show works so well, wish it had more then two seasons.

This is a well written, researched, filmed and acted comedy series. It is a cross between Frontline and Yes Prime Minister with an interesting twist. As seen from a Political Advisers point of view in trying to appease and negotiate around shallow minded, short term, popularity seeking politicians. In short, the Prime Minister.

Directed and staring Rob Stich who is as great as he was in Frontline. Also Santo Calaudo as the Market researcher is as naturally funny as his Geoff Saunters character in Frontline. Brilliant production, it could have gone so far if it weren't for the mistake of Casting's, Jane Kennedy (who is usually so good in this department) of fronting the show with the two political advisers as Merrick Watts and Lachy Hulme. Lachy Hulme is a fantastic actor, but too intense and serious to be casted in this role. It should have been given to someone more in the genera of Martin Stastisto's character from Frontline. If they just tweak and readjust his character and make him just more of a regular guy (which by the end of the first series we have seen they have) then he suits the show well. On the other hand, Merrick Watts is a classless entity, who is popular in Australia for his toilet humor. Being fair he might have crossed the medium to Working Dog's sharp, high quality, politically satirical productions as some have in the past, but sadly no. He portrays the same docile, humorless persona that he does in his Merrick & Rosso act. In simple, he's not likable. A smart choice instead of this fellow would have been an actor like Daniel Wyllie. Australian, smart and quick but without the puerile precociousness.

Apart from this, it is a very intelligent and witty watch. The rest of the cast are well picked and are of A1 quality. Phillip & Warren (David James & Stephen Hall) are brilliantly fantastic as the two senior public servants. They in their own quirky but interesting way are very reminiscence of the Frasier/Niles style of comic paring. Excellent.

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.

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.