★★★★★ 0/5

Spirited

Claudia Karvan plays a meek dentist empowered after walking out on her marriage, until she lands an unexpected housemate in the form of a ghost.

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Pay TV prides itself on being an alternative to Free to Air.

With shows such as Love My Way, Satisfaction, Tangle and 30 Seconds it isn’t afraid of moving slightly left of centre in order to create a point of diference.

As a high-concept drama, Spirited is another such show.

Claudia Karvan (Love My Way, The Secret Life of Us, Saved) stars as Suzy Darling, a successful dentist who talks to a photograph of her father staring down at her in her surgery. She isn’t quite living up to his expectations, and worse, she is trapped in an unsuccessful marriage to Steve (Rodger Corser). But Suzy takes control of her life by buying a Harbour-view apartment, grabbing the kids and moving in, much to the shock of hubby, family and friends.

Thrust into her new life -and apartment- is a bohemian ghost in the form of the swearing rock dog Henry Mallet (Matt King), who has no idea where he is nor how he got there.

The premise of the show is that only Suzy can see Henry, which results in socially awkward situations of her seemingly talking to herself. On the back of her marital breakdown, those around her presume she is having a mental one as well.

When it was first floated in early newspaper articles, Spirited was touted as a modern take on The Ghost and Mrs Muir -it is a slight analogy at best. Writer Jacquelin Perske has since likened it to Bewitched meets The Office -but early episodes are nothing like Ricky Gervais’ mockumentary either.

The show is a character piece that lands between heightened reality and fantasy, easily personified by its two central characters. Karvan plays a meek wife and mother who becomes self-empowered by her mid-life detour, while King’s British rocker is an irreverent and spontaneous force, trying to come to grips with the world around him. How did he get here? What does he want? And why has he ‘chosen’ her? At the moment he’s a phantom rebel without a cause.

While Karvan’s performance is largely for truth, King provides the colour. Somewhere in the middle the two attempt to connect.

Desperate for her to return to her life is husband Steve, the villain of the tale. Steve has the looks but is too selfish for an enlightened Suzy. Despite this there are other women (including Suzy’s sister played by Belinda Bromilow) that are ready to pounce on the reluctant bachelor.

Suzy’s inner-city block is also home to supporting characters including 3 gay men who share an uncoventional lifestyle and an elderly couple (including a return to screen by the rather wonderful John Bluthal).

The first episode, with a script which won an AWGIE award last week, spends much of the time setting up the premise and the rules of the world. It asks the audience to suspend disbelief for an hour of fantasy, which is a pretty rare commodity in Australian drama. The end result may take some getting used to. As drama it is light and askew, as comedy it is whimsical without shooting for laughs.

It also feels like it may have been a tighter product at 30 minutes rather than an hour, but no doubt this will become clearer once the establishing episode is out of the way.

Both Karvan and Perske have stepped up as Producers for this project, under guidance from John Edwards. Their labour of love certainly shows they have plenty to offer.

Spirited is more a flight of fancy for its central characters than its creative forces, who ask the audience to come along for the ride.

Spirited premieres 7:30pm Wednesday on W.

31 Responses

  3. Has anyone noticed that show features a rock n roll pirate? Could this be a preposterous load of old tosh where Claudia Karvan goes back to playing her old role of … well Claudia.

    It seems that Claudia always plays a vaguely annoying narcissistic who gets involved with a series of equally pointless and annoying partners (eg; Ben Mendhelson’s character from LMW).

    I often wonder how these shows are construed as good drama and why people like them. I could think of no less likeable people to meet than any character from Love My Way. The kid probably died just to get away from such a pack of ***holes.

  4. Whilst I don’t agree with Jas, he/she is correct in claiming that SLOU wasn’t a huge ratings success(1st Season at least)
    australiantelevision.net/secretlife/articles/successof.html

  6. High ratings does not equate to great drama IMO. Series 2 & 3 of Underbelly were not great, and I just don’t get the appeal of Rafters at all (please no avalanche of abuse – I realise I’m on my own here). There is no way any actor is over exposed or over used if they are appearing on a PayTV drama series – the audience is just too small.

  7. Sorry, just don’t buy the “doesn’t kill it in the ratings so it must be crap” argument. IMO sometimes the opposite is true – that very high rating programs are that way because they are aiming to appeal to the widest possible audience, be completely innocuous, family friendly and uncontroversial, have happy endings, etc. Also, I’m pretty sure Love My Way did extremely well in DVD sales, which may not count for first run TV ratings, but would have to be considered as part of its overall profitability and appeal?

  10. Jas you clearly have no idea and your argument is not based on fact. SLOU rated very well for seasons 1 and 2. Most certainly wasn’t strictly for drama credits. I still dont think a series has pulled 1.3mil strictly from 16-49 demo.

  11. @ David Secret Life always had mediocre ratings throughout its run and was only kept by TEN for the drama points, the same goes for Rush now, Offspring doesn’t appeal to a wide audience having one of the lowest premieres for a new drama since I can remember and will drop below the magic million in a couple of weeks and as for Love My Way most people don’t have access to it and wouldn’t even know what it is. Also Police Rescue would never have had high viewing figures especially back then because of the stigma associated with being on the ABC.

    I stand by the fact this guy has never made a good drama.

  12. some of the regular characters in this are newer or unfamilier faces, but established actors need jobs to, plus this is Claudia Karvans first tv series sense “Love My Way finished in 2007”

  13. Exactly ! New talent , fresh faces or faces that have not appeared in any of the last dozen productions . and the familiar faces can be guest stars.

  14. I’m just happy to see new drama on Australian TV that’s making an effort to break the mould somewhat and venture further into unknown territory. It certainly won’t appeal to everyone but the writing is very clever and like all very good dramas, it gradually develops real heart and pathos. And @Alfonso, agree completely – Rodger Corser looks like he’s having a ball. As he mentioned when asked on TAYG the other week who is character on the series was, he smiled and said, a w@nker.

  15. Im all for new cast however sometimes multiple show deals need to be done to keep actors for multiple series, ie returnable. Anyone who knows 1/10th about the business will know this is key hence at times certain cast will be looked after. Hey, it’s not as bad as the Opera! 🙂

    I have to say (having had the opportunity to watch a fair bit of this), Rodger is great in Spirited. I think he had a lot of fun playing this idiot. So far removed from most of his other roles.

  18. By using the same actors over and over again this guy obviously hasn’t heard of typecasting. That’s just one reason of many why his dramas don’t rate.

    1. Jas easy to generalise. Are you suggesting Secret Life didn’t rate for its 4 seasons? Police Rescue for 5? Love my Way is still Foxtel’s local drama pinnacle. Rush and Offspring doing well for TEN.

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