★★★★★ 0/5

Twitter loves The Straits

Judging by the majority of tweets on Thursday night, ABC is onto a winner with its new drama.

14
Leave a comment

ABC1’s The Straits was trending on Twitter last night as viewers reacted to the first two episodes.

And judging by the majority of the tweets, ABC is onto a winner with new 10 part series from Matchbox Pictures.

OEGarnett: Death by box jellyfish. Ouch.

TheCairnsAgent: “@TheCairnsAgent: Cairns never has looked so good on #thestraits. Probably better for FNQ tourism than Oprah”

jessica_alice: Award for Creative Deaths in a Pilot goes to #theStraits

StrawMunkee: Caught #thestraits half way through. After it was finished, went straight to iView and watched from the start. Ace.

olivewhippet: Murder by jellyfish, one of tv’s more disturbing moments #thestraits

BrendaAnne4u: #TheStraits Gripping TV. Well done @ABCTV.

CriticalClassrm: I do like that it is filmed outside of Sydney or Melbourne. Great to see more of the country in Australian drama. #thestraits

simoncrerar: Sex, death, smuggling, bikies, PNG gangsters, stunning beauty and killer jellyfish: the Montebello mafiosi + #TheStraits rocked: spectacular

jewelrainbow: @lyndenbarber Agree re #TheStraits, Harry Montebello miscast; soundtrack lame; script too whitey. Good performances.

kingpodge: ok i’m digging #TheStraits so far, sex, guns and footage of lil’ ole Cairns

iTheRickKris: #TheStraits was intense. Great storyline, great performance, great show! Can’t wait for next week. @ABCTV

AsFittingAsMcQ: I’m sorry but as much as I love this Aussie story I can’t help but be distracted by the bad camera and cinematography 🙁 #thestraits

owentheoctopus: i thought #thestraits was gonna be like a tame #underbelly, you know, cos it’s on #ABC… but it’s not.

Rach_ael1: @ABCTV oooooh can’t wait for the next episode. Oh my god moments right to the end #TheStraits

CorShan33: #thestraits it’s like underbelly meets the FNQ….lol. Like death by jellyfish!

JimBarlas: Looks like quite a few people watched #thestraits. Glad I recorded it.

abcmarkscott: I think ABC Shops could run to a nice line of dog stairs. #thestraits

For the record, I think the series actually gets better with upcoming episodes.

14 Responses

  2. Sheesh, some people are never happy … if producers come up with legal/medical/cop dramas they’re slammed for being unimaginative and derivative. Yet if they broaden the scope to something like The Straits they’re criticised for being too out there or not knowing their genre? I for one think the series is fantastic. Some of my favourite series have combined serious drama and black humour to great effect (Six Feet Under is one which springs immediately to mind). This series is worth investing time in … a total of 10 hours of your life if you want to watch the entire thing!

    @thecreativeblackhole, if you’re not Jeremy Sims then he’d probably love to hear from you. You’re clearly a fan, of his nether regions at least.

  3. Was the last tweet from Mark Scott, the ABC managing director who has the username “abcmarkscott”? If he wrote it then obviously he enjoyed the premiere too.

  4. @the creative black hole ,yes you may very well have one but at least someone in this country is having a go and apart from the series which are being played on subscription TV, free to air has not had any(for a while at least) that have shown me any sense of escapism or adventure.
    This is obviously not as polished as some of its overseas contemporaries but neither am I.
    I think this was a pretty good start.

  5. It’s a black Comedy people. Nice to see more Aussie shows being a bit different and taking a risk like this. Shame the promos didn’t do it any real justice. I had no real interest in watching this until I saw a longer M rated Trailer for it on youtube.

    Good on you ABC for putting this on air. Just need the other channels to stop making brain dead budget reality TV.

  6. Here we go – cue the naysayers to lament the ‘sad state of Australian drama’ with broad sweeping generalizations such as those from @Creative Black Hole. I didn’t love the show either but such smug and gleeful negativity is neither fair nor constructive. (And no, I didn’t work on the show and have no affiliation with it whatsoever.)

  7. I didn’t mind it at all. It was great to see (a) a show set outside suburban Sydney or Melbourne, and (b) a show that doesn’t adhere to the White Australia policy

  8. To think that the majority of viewers think this show is brilliant is embarrassing. Wow, oh my, I am living in an artistic and creative black hole – Australia (should I be surprised) I may have been confused however, I didn’t think this series was a soap. Soap it surely is. It could rival Chances, just add guns and drugs and Cairns, although Chances had better cinematography and directing (and Jeremy Sims’ bum) Actually that’s what it needs! Jeremy Sims’ bum! Then it truly would be world class drama, it’s missing a bum, because that’s all it is, a show without a bum.

  9. The Sir Lankan boat person was ridiculos and reminded me of the Peter Sellers role in “The Party”. The sound quaility was poor with much mumbeling. The arrow through the face and knife through the foot and subsequent easy survival of both was cartoon like! The demise by jellyfish of the bike was excellent. The northern scenery is great but I think kthe writing leave much to be desired as it doesn’t seem to know wether it is a drama or a comdey. The cast is supberb but the show will have to nail its genre before it can claim me…

  10. Loved it. The cinematography alone is brilliant. Cairns and the top end never looked so exotic. Brian Cox is in great form. Tony Soprano never had a big scene about having dog stairs made for him. Very brazen show and maybe it has gratuitous sex (as in it has a quite mild sex scene) and gratuitous violence (did anyone mention jellyfish?) but darn it that is what the kids want and that by god is what they will get, plus Brian Cox and some finely crafted dog stairs. Looking forward to more.

  12. I hope it gets better because I was disappointed. Could Harry Montebello string together more east end tough guy cliches? Gratuitous sex, violence and profanity. Hard to like a bunch of drug and gun running gangsters. Why are we supposed to care about the power handover? I know I’m probably alone in this but they threw everything at it and therefore it’s all over the shop. Shakespeare it ain’t. Agreed – its beautifully directed and shot but it doesn’t have the psychological depth or intelligence or restraint of the Sopranos. Where is the Head of Drama to help the team distill the disparate ideas into a cohesive whole? It may improve – but we know there’s a bloodbath up ahead and I’m not sure I’ll commit to that.

Leave a Reply