Barracuda

Being a swimmer myself (in the good ol' days) I was immediately attracted to this series' narrative. Swimming is one of the most competitive sports you can compete in, and one of the most gruelling to dedicate your life to. And all I can say is, I loved it!

I simply devoured this series. It is story telling genius in how it moves and what is beneath it but at the same time it is brutal and honest and. It just is. This follow up to The Slap, which could easily be called The Splash, in that it is about swimming, is an epic journey of a kid called Danny Kelly who gets inserted into a fancy college due to his incredible talents in the pond. But despite his excellent coach and natural talent for winning, Danny rubs up against his more entitled peers which soon awakens a raw anger in him that may or may not lead to a sort of destruction, at the height of his reign. This story is about winning, about class, about anger, and about Australia. An Australia that hinges it's identity on glory above all, but who has no real connection to life beneath its surface.

I am left sat on this sofa, remembering my old swimming days, what it felt like to dive into that blue, chlorinated volume. What it felt like to race. What it felt like to win.

It's new year's eve right now and I might have had a few beers, but so what. This series has prescribed me 'hope'.

See you at the Olympics guys!

I do not know the book. But I admire the great acting and the fair construction of a parable about life and its fundamental meanings. It is not a swimming story. Or one about succes. It represents only a precise portrait of an age, a family, few clashes, succes and apparent fall as necessary wake up. A serie about the reality . Impressive for nuanced work of actors, for cultural references, for the courage and inspiration to give a honest image of ambition, triumph and the death of the hill in the most decent terms. Sure, for me, Elias Anton, Matt Nable and Victoria Haralabidou are the authentical stars. But each scene gives more than you expect in fair and powerful and clear manner becomind, in some measure, a mirror reflection or a precious lesson about life purpose.

Totally unlikable characters apparently toned down from the book. Crap.

What a Greek classic this is. As with others here I'm so glad to catch this series currently on ABC iView after dodging it previously. Maybe I was ready for it now because it's relevant and revelatory of what happens to young men finding their feet in a tough world. In this case, the world of elite sports. Admit I rushed to find out who this Matt Nable is and what else he's done. Totally surprised to find he's an Aussie and not Hungarian! How convincing he is, along with all the others in the cast. Barracuda's an attentive study in clashes and polarities, how you can make choices: to be aggressive, hungry, angry vs entitled, confident, moneyed and weak, and any combination of those. The structure is very much classical Greek theatre with Emma (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) in the role of commentator (Greek chorus) to Danny (and us) of her family.

Good treatment of the press mediating life into trash (especially if you watched Frontline TV series). Everything counted for something - even Torma's house. Great script and characterisations. Loved Theo and loved the motor bike guy ("I'm not a spastic!!"). Thought Rachel Griffiths good in the part of not being able to say much while her life spins away from her dreams. And Helen Morse the tiny, aged controller watching all of them vying for power and favour. In support of the focus on beautiful masculinity, an article somewhere described Elias Anton's dedication to building his physique for the role, so I hope people don't assume it's about beauty for voyeurism. Athletes are the gods of Olympus basically, physically and in the dramas they play out among themselves, beyond the rest of us. My heart goes out to reviewer Jacob James Stapleton from London who knows what it's like to live this life like a comet – a gift with a sting in its tail.

Some reviews here seem to miss the biggest thing in the frame – it's easy when it's so big we can't see it. The Pool, the arena. It's a beast, and as one said, what's going on above it, in it and below it. Frank Torma the water whisperer, kindly shares with us his wisdom and knowledge of this beast. And, much like Cassandra really, the key figures seem deaf to his warnings.

On the strength of the first two episodes of Barracuda, Christos Tsiolkas has failed dismally to recreate the elements that made The Slap the kind of drama that had everybody talking. There is no equivalent social issue. There are no similarly recognisable suburban archetypes. And the plotting falls well short of compelling. The first episode barely lifts itself above the level of Neighbours or Home & Away. Indeed, they've both done similar stories, and done them just as well. Much of the dialogue is also risible ("I've always admired the working class" says Helen Morse, as Tsiolkos's idea of a haughty society matron.) And while the director delivers pretty pictures of athletic bodies and swimming races, the performances he gets from his cast are mostly sub-standard. Rachel Griffiths struggles to make anything of a fatally under-written character. And our would-be hero is played by an actor with eyebrows that recall the Thunderbirds marionettes, except that they don't move - which leaves him with precisely two expressions: wet and dry. The stars are mostly for the actors' abs.