0/5

Does Gogglebox overlook Aussie drama?

5 Reality shows in one week, but no local drama, notes TV historian.

Gogglebox Australia-3

Gogglebox does a great job at highlighting little known shows, and even making us rethink some shows we thought we knew. It’s fun to hear what we’re thinking, and sometimes profound.

But does it have a predilection for Reality shows at the expense of other genres?

With two episodes this year it has featured Reno Rumble, My Kitchen Rules, Married at First Sight, Long Lost Family, plus Territory Cops, Keeping Australia Alive and international shows American Idol, I Am Cait, The Secret Life of 6 Year Olds and The Story of God. But no Aussie drama.

TV historian Andrew Mercado told TV Tonight, “The most recent episode of Gogglebox looked at five reality shows – but ignored Neighbours’ ‘Biggest Ever Week’ which almost doubled its ratings with a special one hour episode. Surely this was worth a look at the expense of one of those reality shows?

“Aussie drama is constantly being overlooked on Gogglebox – there has been no mention of Janet King on ABC this year and I’m pretty sure they have never covered Home & Away.

Last season the show did feature Foxtel’s own A Place to Call Home, TEN’s Mary: The Making of a Princess and Nine’s House Husbands. 

But local drama does seem to be pretty low on the priority list compared to overt Reality.

“On Gogglebox UK, they always follow the hottest British drama of the week. It was their constant weekly updates on the twists and turns of the BBC’s Doctor Foster that alerted me to the fact that it was clearly one of the most griping dramas of 2015 – and it was!” said Mercado.

36 Responses

  1. Completely agree re their reactions to Dr Who although I wonder if the reviewed shows get any say in which episode they supply? I would have thought the ABC in that instance would have said “wait a week guys” – it was about the worse episode of the whole season as a standalone.

  2. Always bemused by people saying they’ve never watched a show and never will but feel the need to comment. Your opinion is irrelevant as it’s baseless.

    As for Gogglebox not featuring Australian drama, there’s very little Australian drama in the schedule at this point in time besides soapies and Janet King. When they have viewed drama eg Downton Abbey, Dr Who they were bored to death. Game of Thrones featured during the first season but again, the commentary wasn’t that interesting.

  3. Yep, as I wrote in these forums yesterday, our library and Netflix, drama, comedy, scifi, superatural, fantasy etc protects us from the reality swill on Aus TV

  4. I am surprised at the comments from people who do not watch the show, if anything this is real reality tv, real people, real comments, yes edited however not softly scripted.

  5. I recall when they watched Dr Who and Downton Abbey. The reaction from many of the goggleboxers was sheer boredom. Does not make for great TV. So maybe the producers have learnt their lesson and are steering away from such shows.

  6. Andrew Mercado, TV historian is quite apt, as he seems a bit out of touch these days sadly. While criticism is a good thing, Gogglebox gets the mix right. No point forcing something for the sake of it. Also, the format doesn’t lend itself generally to commenting on TV dramas.

    1. Recent dramas all featured in UK Gogglebox: Call the Midwife, The Night Manager, Eastenders, Line of Duty, Happy Valley, Dickensian, Luther, Jekyll and Hyde, Downton Abbey, Doctor Foster, Game of Thrones, Poldark, etc. It has 7 seasons of commenting on Drama.

      1. Drama though is very much at the centre of the UK schedules though and amongst the top rating shows of the week, with it generally agreed it’s in the best state it’s been for years.

        Meanwhile in Australia it’s been pushed to the periphery of the schedules and there haven’t really been any breakout hits in recent years. Gogglebox is surely just reflecting this.

  7. I like gogglebox but my main issue with it is that it is staged .. Here watch this . Rather than capturing people’s real reactione to shows they would actually watch

    1. You need each family reviewing the same show, otherwise it would be a mish mash of comments across possibly a never ending assortment of titles.

    2. Watching the same programs is a necessity. If they’re all watching whatever they want 3/4 of the show would be the narrator setting the scene for each program. Focusing on 5-6 shows throughout the episode means the narrator can set the scene and the focus is on the goggleboxers comments – the purpose of the show.

    1. Yet you use your valuable time to comment on the show? Don’t knock it until you try it. A large proportion of the audience stumbled across the show and have become loyal viewers.

        1. Well to be fair ‘mistaken’ did say a large proportion of the audience (of Gogglebox) stumbled across it, not that it’s a large p[proportion of the total population watching tv.

  8. Isn’t there anything really better than this to potentially air? If you want to see viewer’s reactions to TV shows then Youtube has got hundreds and thousands of them.
    I saw a bit of this show last week are they were still droning on about ‘Paleo Pete’. Whats entertaining about watching a bunch of armchair warriors who struggle to find a life outside of the lounge room?

  9. Agree completely that Neighbours could have been shown this or last week. Current viewers would know Josh Willis, and the older viewers would remember Doug Willis from his 1990-1994 stint, so their deaths would have been perfect for Gogglebox, especially considering how emotional they made Josh’s last moments. Considering TEN are a co-producer of GB, then why did they not push for Neighbours? From the UK version, I have been made aware of a number of popular UK drama, from Happy Valley, Doctor Foster, Line of Duty (current season) to name a few.

  10. I’m not sure it’s really up to Gogglebox to do the advertising for Australian dramas. It’s just a lighthearted look at the past week. I’m also not sure that I would call H&A and Neighbours dramas.

    1. I have been a neighbours fan for more than 20 years, and it’s firmly in the soap opera genre, in the same way that eastenders in the UK isn’t a drama, and the bold and the beautiful in the US isn’t a drama. These are soap operas, with daily episodes, which is a different thing entirely.

    1. I want that silly show off the air.Never watched it,never will. Just watching the ads for it, make me nauseous. No wonder TEN is losing its ratings with garbage like this.

      1. It’s produced by Foxtel actually and is first on LIfestyle Channel where it sees decent ratings.

        As pointed out, it gets high ratings as well and in the UK the show has been running for 7 years so a lot of people over there like it too, obviously.

        I’d like gogglebox to look at Wentworth on foxtel when it returns in May.

        We have never seen gogglebox look at streaming services and it would be great to see them review Wolf Creek on Stan (another aussie drama).

      2. If you haven’t watched it how do you know how good or bad it is, the ads tell little, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, it rates well and is enjoyable, at least try it and you might just like it, remember you don’t know what you don’t try ?

  11. It’s harder to sit down and watch 1 episode of a drama that is halfway through it season then a reality at the same point in its run especially for an ongoing multiple episode storyline like Janet King.

    1. I think to do drama they would probably need to do the first episode of a season. The only time they probably could get away with something mid season if its a procedural drama where there’s a new case every week.

      I wouldn’t mind if seeing a gogglebox reaction to an episode of greys anatomy, ncis or madam secretary. The final episodes of the good wife or downton abbey would be good too. I’m pretty sure they’ve done downton.

      1. They have done Downton before as Keith was wondering how Lee could watch something so boring. It definitely would have to be carefully considered as I remember them having to watch a Doctor Who ep which was the second of a 2 parter and hardly anyone knew what was happening.

Leave a Reply