Strife

I thoroughly enjoyed this! I'm not normally a massive fan of Australian productions. Although I've definitely been wonderfully surprised in recent years. We've turned out some great stuff and it's a really exciting time for Aussie shows.

But what drew me to this was the premise being somewhat inspired by Mia Freedman. I remember Mamamia when it was just Mia, and I loved it.

Anyway, I can't really fault this show in any way.

The characters, the story line, the issues being tackled. It all felt very authentic whilst also being entertaining. I binged this over 2 days and I really hope we got another season.

Can someone please apologise to Asher Keddie and Tina Bursill? That would be great thanks.

If this is what post Brian Walsh can look like at Foxtel/Binge I dread whats coming next.

I just could not get into this and watched it over the course of a few days because there is no way this should've been made into a show.

Can we please stop greenlighting peoples memoirs please because after the failure that was Warnie this year you think Binge/Foxtel would've served up something just a little bit better.

Don't get me wrong Asher is a national treasure but I feel like someone just handed her the script and went "read it now"... Do yourself a favour, skip this.

A caveat: I'm not a fan of Mia Freedman or her ouevre, but I tried to be as objective as possible.

I really wanted to like this. Asher Keddie is a goddamn national treasure. Her work in Love This Way and Offspring was great TV. But Strife is not worthy of her considerable skills. The writing is clumsy and, unusually, the main character is the least compelling in the whole cast. Evelyn Jones is simultaneously self-aggrandising, condescending and hypocritical, not to mention exceedingly unlikeable.

Tina Bursill, Emma Lung and Matt Day are all great, and it's refreshing to see young unknown actors get a shot, but this could have been so much better.

Asher Keddie is one of Australia's best actresses and I have always enjoyed her work. Bit even she can't save this form being awkward to watch. Her character is supposed to be a flawed modern woman. But her character is more unlikeable than simply flawed. How did this woman build a media empire when she can't do the most simplest task without screwing it up and then constantly lying and gaslighting the people around her. I feel like the one angle they had was taken too far and made the show unlikable overall. And this is coming from a fan of Mia Freedman and Mumamia, who the story is based on. I wanted this to be a good watch, but I can't find anything I liked about it.

Asher Keddie remains in my top 3 favourite actors of all time & her performance in Strife doesn't disappoint! I wasn't sure I'd get to see her play a character more endearing & awkwardly hilarious than Nina in Offspring again. I'm still up at 2am binging the entirety of season 1!

I loved seeing her portray Evelyn; a feisty, funny yet vulnerable & authentic feminist based on MamaMia & Mia Freedman's book. (Another absolutely fab Aussie woman!)

It was also really nice to see lesser known actors that haven't been "recycled" in heaps of other Australian TV shows. Really hoping for a season 2! Well done to all cast, writers & crew. <3.