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2010 Critics’ Choice: …and the worst

Aussie TV critics pick their worst for the year and identify some of the key trends of the last 12 months.

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In the second of two feature articles, Aussie TV critics pick their worst for the year: amongst the list are Cops LAC, The X Factor, Warnie, The Matty Johns Show.

They also identify some of the key trends of the last 12 months. What will be 2010’s legacy to television?

DOG OF THE YEAR: Cops: LAC
COLIN VICKERY: In one sense this is the easiest section to answer (so many barkers) but narrowing it down to one is a problem. The public voted with their remote controls and rejected The Bounce, The White Room and Australia Versus amongst others and the public was right – none of those shows had any redeeming features.

JAMES MANNING: The Matty Johns Show.

AMANDA MEADE: The X Factor

GREG HASSALL: Warnie. OK, expectations weren’t high but this was awful. Once you recovered from Shane’s blindingly white teeth there was the least revealing interview ever recorded (James Packer) and an ancient, racist and unfunny 12th Man sketch. And that was just the first 15 minutes of episode one.

HOLLY BYRNES: Cops LAC and Beat The Star; and a dishonorable mention for Warnie’s dentist – those pearly whites were a shocker!

RICHARD CLUNE: From the opening – a foot pursuit along Coogee Beach – there was a pungent smell of the familiar attached to Nine’s woeful Cops: LAC. It got worse, of course, Martin Dingle Wall the main offender, with Kate Richie doing her best with what was a meandering and clichéd script that took Aussie drama back two decades. Audiences proved their desire for intelligent, original drama and quickly turned off.

ANDREW MERCADO: Cops LAC.

NICOLE BRADY: a tie between Iron Chef Aust and Warnie.

MOST OVER-HYPED: The X Factor
COLIN VICKERY: Cops LAC – Kate Ritchie’s return to a starring role on Aussie TV was a huge letdown. Bad scripting made even seasoned actors like Roy Billing and Gary Sweet look ordinary. Other shows in this section would include The X Factor, Top Gear Australia and Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

JAMES MANNING: The Matty Johns Show.

AMANDA MEADE: The X Factor.

GREG HASSALL: The X Factor. It was noisy, unfocused but worst of all featured very little talent. The judging panel showed neither authority nor charisma.

HOLLY BYRNES: The X Factor.

RICHARD CLUNE: Underbelly: The Golden Mile – sure it proved better than Matt Newton’s extended nudie run in A Tale Of Two Cities, but the hype didn’t match the execution. Emma Booth made the rest of the cast seem amateurish – and this was arguably her softest role since filming kids TV in Western Australia. Firass Dirani also deserves a nod. Gratuitous and unnecessary slo-mos had me expecting a guest appearance from David Hasslehoff, while Dougie The Pizza Boy (let’s be honest, no one knows his real name) and Shane from Home and Away were surely written as copper caricatures? Thankfully Toby Shmitz and Claire Van Der Boom step up in one of next year’s films – here’s hoping the writing does too.

ANDREW MERCADO: The X Factor.

NICOLE BRADY: Junior MasterChef.

TRENDS OF 2010: The Year of Multichannels
COLIN VICKERY: The Block showed that there is still plenty of interest in home renovations – something that will please Channel 10 with their big event renovation show next year. The end of Lost and poor figures for The Event spelt the death of brain twisting TV dramas for the forseeable future. The rise of shows like Glee and Beauty and the Geek showed that feel-good TV is still very much what audiences want at the moment.

JAMES MANNING: In terms of audience numbers – small can be beautiful.

GREG HASSALL: The rise of the multichannels and the resulting resurgence of free-to-air TV. Suddenly it looks like a viable business again – as demonstrated by Packer and Murdoch buying into Ten. Long-term challenges remain but for now it’s looking good.

HOLLY BYRNES: Twitter feeds. The audience got active and nowhere better than on Q&A.
Digital channels. Yes there’s the expected clutter of crap but a great platform to build on next year.

RICHARD CLUNE: Multi-channels and the cannibalisation of the main FTA audience as viewers finally embrace “those other channels”… Now the networks need to produce some local content for them.

ANDREW MERCADO: Hopefully the year singing talent contests died in the arse.

NICOLE BRADY: Cop shows waned.

PROGRAMMING TRENDS OF 2010: Rinse and Repeat
COLIN VICKERY: A prominent Channel 9 executive once said ‘a repeat isn’t a repeat unless you’ve seen it’ – hence the endless repeats of Two and a Half Men. This year, Nine applied the same philosophy to Top Gear and still managed excellent ratings. Ten even got in on the act, deciding to do endless repeats of Modern Family – even though it had only screened one season. Madness.

JAMES MANNING: Fascination with real crime came to a screeching halt and there seems to be an audience resurgence for lifestyle so watch for that to come screaming back into primetime in 2011 and/or 2012. The LifeStyle Channel reckon they have ever decent show locked up, but we’ll see!

AMANDA MEADE: Interactive TV, as in watching Q&A and tweeting.

GREG HASSALL: Hopefully we’ve seen the end of the talent show for a while. The failure of The X Factor to take off, Ten’s axing of So You Think You Can Dance Australia and its cancellation of Don’t Stop Believing all point to a genre that is depleted and an audience desperate for a change. Also notable this year was how few new ideas were aired. Most shows were ongoing dramas and franchises or local versions of overseas formats.

ANDREW MERCADO: Digital channels proved to be just as unreliable as the main free-to-air channels with last minute program changes, interrupted runs and an overwhelming focus on American and British repeats.

2010 Critics’ Choice: The Best in Aussie TV

31 Responses

  2. So not a lot of love for Cops, who would have thought 😆

    it is amazing how many local flops Nine has had in recent years and each time they called then the next big show on Australian TV. I guess it started with The Alice (which I liked because I grew up in the town and it was not a cop/medical/law show) Then that Melbourne base mystery/drama, which I can’t remember the name of, the Strip and now Cops LAC.

    Wonder what Nine have lined up for 2011?

  4. Cops Lac was without doubt the most embarrassing show on television this year!! It just proves that having a great cast alone will not get viewers in. A show to succeed also needs good scripting which sadly this show lacked. Australian audiences have also tired of cop shows. I am amazed that City Homicide returns next year considering the mixed fortunes this show had this year……..

  8. Worst by far had to be Hey Hey… dismal ratings towards the end and still relying on humor decades old that only those over the age of 50 would find amusing these days… actually, considering that’s the age of everyone on the show sans Lavinia, I guess that is to be expected. I was surprised however that Rhonda Burchmore didn’t pop out of nowhere every week showing off her 10 foot long legs, but as expected old Ricky May got yet another airing on the final episode, again perplexing anyone under the age of 50, so all was not lost. Let’s hope it’s back next year so we can all have something to groan and laugh at, not with.

    X Factor was pretty crap too… when none of the final 4 have any ounce of “X Factor”, it’s always going to be a problem, as shown by Altiyan’s lack of chart success.

  9. i didnt think the matty johns show was the best show in the world, but james manning should take a look at himself on mediaweek before throwing stones at others. His lack of meaningful analysis and inane questions is woeful. bridie and the guests carry the show. who does this guy think he is?

  10. Remember, andrew mercado liked the arias….so he’s clearly an opinion worth regarding….also if Colin vickery cared to even look at the ratings he would see that that the block was a middling sucsess at best…. But singing shows are dead? Sure, keeping saying what you’re supposed to say

  11. Interactive TV? Not a trend. I would think most viewers appreciate the passive nature of television shows.

    There’s a special place in hell for lifestyle infomercials too. Right next to celebrity chefs…

  13. the matty johns show was supposed to be something different to the nrl footy show to me it wasn’t. it was just matty trying to be a try hard comedian like he was on the footy show. his new characters, weren’t new at all. they based exactly way his old characters were

  16. I reckon the trend this year was the re-emergence of the variety show, whether it be a sport variety show or family variety show.

    Next year this trend will continue with several new variety shows (already announced on ABC, SBS and Nine), as well as ones TBA (Micallef and Hamish & Andy).

    The problem with trends is that the tv viewer goes from having one of a certain kind of programme, to a glut of them and then we all get sick of them (talent shows, cop shows, cop reality shows, renovation shows).

    There is room for multiple live variety/talk shows on Australian television, but the channels just need to learn that sometimes it’s better to go for niche programming, rather than trying to please everyone.

  17. Cops LAC is the clearest winner of the lot. The moment Kate Ritchie began making the audience feel smarter than her at being a cop you know the show was on the pong. And the cop who had the milkshake on his shirt all day. This sticks to me like Bingles….

  19. Surely one of the trends we should encourage is the showing of programmes fairly quickly after their broadcast overseas. This will improve FTA ratings as people will be less likely to watch foreign downloads etc. (ABC please note this regarding Spooks which has been available on DVD since the start of this series!!) Closely related must surely be the development of “catch-up” web sites like i-view, which increase the freedom people have to watch their favourite programmes. Technology is giving FTA so much more scope to give good service – what a pity they still don’t understand clocks so that their shows could start on time! (SBS and ABC excluded)

  21. Another big “miss” for 2010 is the frequency of programming where a new and a repeat episode of the same show are played in one block – sometimes coded in the EPG as a single block of programming.

  22. The real downfall for 2010 is the end of main channel and premium content in HD in favour of a distianct third channel showing mostly content not in HD at all. The promise of sport in HD on GEM reversed after much promotion and not being given a chance at all.

  24. So easy to bag X Factor, but in my view it was a better produced show than Idol. In my view Underbelly Golden Mile was the most overrated show of the year. So dissapointing and badly executed after the success of the first 2 series.

  25. Enough cooking shows already, if i see one more damn chef, honestly. Does anyone know people training to be “chefs”..i do, a terrible, degrading, brow beating job where they get abused, work inane hours, if full of highly uneducated people, pay is the worst, drugs are rife..there is no “glamour” and most cant stand it and become garbage works ir tiolet cleaners – as they have no real education apart – nah, no uni degree to be a chef, just years and years of abuse.

    Being a chef is a crap job and the guys that run the places are stressed 24/7 and no doubt reducing their life expectancy.

    Enough of chefs, Enough..junior Msterchef, how low must you set the bar for that to be considered ‘entertainment”.

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