Why do the majority of Australian panel shows resemble Trivia Tuesdays at the local? The Brits have nailed the light entertainment panel show format. Why do we have so much trouble with it?
Okay, so it's probably a lot harder than it looks. However, here it looks as difficult as rounding up a few mates around the coffee table to watch a match on Fox Sports while the girlfriends distract themselves over a laptop on the dining table (best place for a Pinterest board update sesh).
Back in the late '90s The Panel seemed to have cracked it. Then came the panel/game show/sketch hybrids - RocKwiz, Spicks & Specks, Thank God You're Here, Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation.
Which leaves us where we are now. As networks struggle to rebuild buckling reality tentpoles we are left with a foam party's worth of cheap local soap dressed up as family drama. Even Nine's event-screening of Squizzy Taylor looked like it was filmed using Satisfaction's old brothel sets and filmed through Instagram filters. Seven's A Place To Call Home looks so cheap, they probably made Noni Hazlehurst recycle her old Sullivans wardrobe (it's surprising they didn't find a use for some of her old Play Shcool props as well).
Surely, a panel show is the only thing cheaper to produce than Winners & Losers (Foxtel seem to have bigger budget for one Next Top Model ad than Seven have for an entire year of this).
Tommy Little and Dave Thornton looking to front the new Aus Idol
Last week Ten rushed This Week Live to air. And, well, it looked rushed. And half of its panel looked nervous - verrrrrrrry nervous. [You're not in Channel 31 anymore, Toto, you're in colour now.] Kicking off with a duologue from Dave Thornton and Tommy Little, it had all the spark of an old Rove monologue. The other half of the team stepped up though. Tom Gleeson launching into a royal baby takedown that still landed zingers in a week where royal baby jokes had become an industry. And, Meshel Laurie was so at home it was like Ten'd never replaced her with Chrissie Swan as Can Of Worms host.
Last Wednesday's opening show continued to be uneven though. It uncomfortably slipped in Daily Show-style faux news reporting (why not just headhunt The Roast team, they've been doing this schtick unwatched for 79 eps now) and involved respected Australian character actor Damon Herriman (recently in the Elmore Leonard-based US cable drama Justified) in an awkward 'Celebrity Twitpics' segments (presented by the female team member, of course) as well as being dragged into the show's attempt to send their shoe/thong hybrid idea viral. And at the end of the hour, Thornton had barely uttered another word.
Unlike many British panel shows, where the talent and formats often have the advantage of being nurtured and refined on radio beforehand, Australian panellists go in cold. It could take weeks to get this balance right but these days networks don't allow weeks - just ask Ben Elton (who followed his axing here by creating a new BBC sit-com that was also promptly mauled and dumped).
This Week Live nods to the wrong kind of radio. Skits, segments, interviews, guest commentators, stand-up bits and a Hugh Jackman cameo left This Week Live's debut just one prank call and a Rihanna track away from commercial breakfast radio.
Lawrence Mooney just can't escape those c-words
On ABC2, their latest foray into panelling with Dirty Laundry Live battled to make headlines even after host Lawrence Mooney referred to Nigella Lawson's ex as a "cunt". There was some tut-tutting from talk radio and some social media chatter but most people that heard about it were just shocked to discover that the ABC had spawned a sequel.
ABC's iView also lists new ABC1 sketch show Wednesday Night Fever in its panel category - well, comedians do sit around a desk conducting humourous discourse about current affairs, it's just that it's done in character. The show, hosted by stand-up Sammy J (best known as the human-half of the Sammy J & Randy comedy team), has been target for some vicious reviews. And, after last week's Malcolm Turnbull-on-Tony Abbott routine you can bet it won't be renewed if there's a Liberal election win this year.
Without Spicks & Specks and the Gruen franchise, ABC seem happy to fill its schedule with all 122 episodes of QI on auto-replay. Dave O'Neil's Tractor Monkeys quiz is set to return soon while Spicks & Specks Reloaded is set to bow in 2014. But are things as dire as we are led to believe or do the current shows just pale in comparison to their UK peers? Really, scheduling Dirty Laundry Live directly after Mock The Week - not fair.
Last week's edition was definitely not one of its better weeks. Using a trivia quiz pretence to launch its pop culture stabs, its regulars are an odd mix. Brooke Satchwell? Not really equipped for swapping off-the-cuff witticisms with comedy pro panel-mates Zoe Coombs Marr and Marty Sheargold. But they do simple things well, like picking on Sheargold (he was born with the face of a fall guy) and re-cutting the Packed To The Rafters finale so it ended with more of a bang.
If only it was as easy as it was back in the noughties when Kim Cattrall uttered "cunt" on Sex And The City and single-mouthedly caused enough ruckus to pull the show out of a ratings slump. If it was, Mooney and Satchwell could now be planning a trip to Dubai to film Dirty Laundry Live movie spin-offs.
