Review – Offspring
Offspring – Ten – 8:30pm Sunday – AUS
No, Offspring isn’t a dramatization of the life of popular 90’s pop-punk sellouts The Offspring. Instead it’s a dramedy from the folks behind The Secret Life Of Us who haven’t deviated too far from the young people who look for love while using voice-over formula that worked the last time around. They even trot Deborah Mailman out just so the line between the two shows is blurred even further.
Offspring is Channel 10’s attempt to cash in on the Australian family soap opera with minor bursts of comedy genre that has reaped huge rewards for Channel 7 with Packed To The Rafters. While Rafters pitches itself to the broadest possible audience, Offspring has its heart set on the 18 to 40 year old women who were the backbone of Secret Life’s success. Offspring tells the story of Dr. Nina Proudman (Asher Keddie from Underbelly and Hawke) who narrates us through her busy life of delivering babies, looking after the rest of her ramshackle family, coping with her crazy ex-husband and fantasizing about her hot new co-worker.
What starts off as a romantic jaunt with Nina batting her eyes at hot Dr. Chris (Don Hany from East West 101) soon gets sidetracked with her bitchy and dim sister Billie (Kat Stewart from Underbelly, :30 Seconds, Tangle) trying to figure out her real estate career and men problems, before ultimately turning into the story of Cherie (Deborah Mailman), a whom who’s having a baby that unknowingly belongs to Nina’s dad Darcy (John Waters). We also get to meet Nina’s man-whore brother Jimmy who moves in with Darcy’s ex-wife and Nina’s mum Geraldine.
Nina is overworked and under-loved but ultimately she’s a boring lead whose path seems pretty well pre-destined. Will she get back with her crazy ex who loves explosives? Or is she more likely to have an on-again/off-again/on-again fling with Dr. Chris? I think we all know how that will play out. That’s the big problem with Offspring; it doesn’t really deviate too far off the beaten track. 30-somethings with complicated lives just looking for that little piece of happiness while their older parents who should be wiser still haven’t found exactly what they’re looking for either.
There’s a moment early on in the pilot where Billie grows sick of her lusty almost-relationship with a grubby gardener, played by comedian and general all-round prong Eddie Perfect. She needs a grown-up man so she goes on a blind date. Predictably enough the blind date goes horrible but not in any real way, you see the date talks about Star Wars a lot. Star Wars is of course television writer shorthand for ‘massive loser’ and Billie longs for her gardener hunk with his no shoes, scruffy look unshaven chin and pet dog. Unfortunately I found myself wishing I could spend more time with the Star Wars loser than with the complaining dimwits who populate the rest of the show.
Every character comes in different shades of annoying; they range from the extra gratingly annoying Billie, to the annoyingly ridiculous explosive expert ex-husband who blows everything up, right down to the extra dull and annoying too-perfect Dr. Chris. Offspring doesn’t come out the gates flying but then history reminds us that Secret Life’s first episode wasn’t exactly riveting television. Offspring could over time grow into a serviceable comedy drama that reminds us of us, but this first episode doesn’t instil a lot of confidence by offering up a mildly irritating snoozy comedy drama that’s light on the comedy and heavy on whiny soap opera predictability.
Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Bad
Television at its most annoying and predictable. Care factor re the characters- zero. Im already sick of them after two episodes. Please stop them. Think of something original and quit making rehashes of formulas that have been done to death.
Well, after about six episodes – I’m annoyed. Annoyed because I don’t get to see Offspring until the Commonwealth Games end. I love this show! Even though I probably know what’s going to happen – I still love it! They have apparently signed up for a second season – so everyone can’t think it’s so bad! Better then all the reality TV rubbish we have to put up with these days.
Australian TV in general is rubbish, apart from some good american shows
Without doubt, the most annoying show ever made! Nearly every piece of dialogue is stuttered and littered with yes, no, maybe’s. I really want to like it, but i’m afraid if i keep watching, i’m going to destroy my TV out of sheer frustration. Hold on maybe i do like it, no i don’t but maybe i should, yes i do like it now, no, i can’t… arrrrgh!
OH my goodness this show is rubbish I keep watching, hoping something will happen that makes me believe any of the characters has a spine or personality or purpose to the show but I am afraid little Ray is the only one with any chance of keeping me tuned in. In fact he has had more interesting lines than any other character. Please dont let there be another season. Scrap it and please make some thing better…maybe paint drying or grass growing would be a good start
You guys obviously have no idea what a good show is when you see one. This a very good and clever show. It brings in real life dramas and has a great storyline. There are terrific actors who play their role very well, especially Asher Keddie, who i love. But anyway, I feel sorry for you for not watching this brilliant show. It’s cringy at times but all shows are and you’re missing out, BIG TIME!
Actually, I’m pretty sure not all shows are cringy.
You’re wrong! You have no taste in good shows!
definitely agree. Very realistically and sincerely acted – that between the female lead and her male co-star, and scripted – great dialogue and great characterisation. I’ve lived in Aus for a few years and have never ever gotten hooked on any local shows. In fact i haven’t been hooked on a drama for years. This makes the future of Aus TV look more promising than i thought
might i add – good cinematography, clever use of animation. Sometimes it does get a bit too bridget jonesy with Nina’s fantasies, and if we want to get academic, the tides seem to have turned towards a male voyeurism as Don Hany becomes a source of fantasy for audiences (for females and some males that is lol) – perhaps it could have been more tastefully done. But this show really is a winner – subtlety, all the subtle moments of comedy – timing, and of course the subtlety in acting that can only come from truthful acting. Though i do find the Cherie character – not sure if it is the acting or the caharcterisation a little unconvincing. – might be a subjective thing though. Ah well back to watching it!
and music and timing too!
I could not DISAGREE more with this review. Obviously the person who wrote it has no taste for TV drama, and think about what they are writing before they put it on the internet. Offspring was created with JOHN EDWARDS who is a fantastic producer and has made some very successful Australian TV shows including: Rush, Love My Way and The Secret Life of Us. All of these shows have been a running success. THIS review has been written just judging the very first episode created of the show and you have some how been able to creat a negative 6 paragraph review. My recomendation to you is to wait until the SEASON has finished, and then write a review on the entire season judging what has happened during that time, otherwise you sound like an idiot because you dont know the story line.
Or what I could do, and this maybe makes a little more sense, is watch the first episode of the show, decide whether I like it, and then continue watching it from there. If I then watch a season and my opinion changes I will post a Follow Up.
THIS review was written just judging the very first episode, and I was able to create a negative 6 paragraph review of it because I did not enjoy what I watched.
My recommendation to you is to understand that the world of television is a magical place where different people enjoy different things for different reasons. You seem to enjoy Offspring so much that you watched the entire first season, I did not enjoy it enough to make it past the first episode. I don’t begrudge you your opinion but asking me to review every season of every show before casting my judgement is ridiculous. When there are so many shows that I actually enjoy it would just be weird of me to sit through season after season of shows I didn’t think much of to begin with. I watch the first episode and see if there is anything going on that indicates this would be a worthwhile program to continue watching.
Actually, this is a practice used by most television viewers. They will sit down to watch a show, if they do not like that show they will stop watching, if they do like it they will keep watching. Sometimes they will hear a recommendation that a show they may have originally dismissed turns into something much better later on and return to that program. Isn’t that just the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Shouldn’t all of those people have continued watching a show they didn’t enjoy just to adhere to some arbitrary rule made up by some guy named John on the internet?
So, John, I could not DISAGREE more with your suggestion.
Also, I’m pretty sure Rush isn’t a “running success”, as you describe it. There’s a difference between being ‘still on television’ and a ‘running success’. Averaging 700,000 viewers is actually pretty poor.
I do understand the method that you are using to judge Offspring or any other TV show, and I also agree with the method. And to tell you the truth the first episode was confusing for me too, so I might not have continued watching it, although I waited a 2 more episodes before I cast my full judgment of the show. You cant just watch one episode, and then, on the same night that the first episode aired, write this review.
I do not agree with ‘Every character comes in different shades of annoying; they range from the extra gratingly annoying Billie’ as you cannot start judging the characters on the first episode because you still would not have been able to see their full side, and see what they are about, as in later episode, they could develop characteristics much like those of your self.
I do believe that Rush is a running success as your 700,000 views ranges all the way up to 1,000,000 viewers, plus all of the sales of the seasons once they are out on DVD.
‘Every character comes in different shades of annoying; they range from the extra gratingly annoying Billie’
Saying this, and judging a character on the very first episode is like judging a person when you meet them for the first time, you don’t meet someone once, and then say that you never want to see them again until they change the way that they are.
Actually I can just watch one episode and write a review of that episode on the same night. In fact, not only can I do that, but I did do that.
I didn’t see enough in Offspring for me to want to watch another two episodes of it just to get a better grasp on things.
What do you mean ‘you cannot start judging characters on the first episode’? When can you start judging them other than when you first meet them? I whole heartedly agree that characters change and develop as a series progresses, but this was a review of the first episode.
It’s not the same as judging a person the first time you meet them, in fact, it’s more like judging a television character the first time you meet them.
I understand completely what you mean when you say that a show and it’s characters change and deepen over time, but you also have to accept that in order for someone to want to stick around the show has to give you something to latch onto. Watching Offspring I was annoyed by the characters. Why would I want to know more about these people if the first time I met them they annoyed me? There is always a chance they will become more interesting but there is just as easily a chance that they will stay annoying.
As for Rush, I wouldn’t call 1 million viewers a success either. Enough to get it renewed, sure, but not a success.
Before I discuss the wonderful Offspring again, if 1 million viewers for Rush isn’t enough to call it a success, then according to you, what TV show is a success, because from what I have heard, every TV drama averages out to 1 million viewers.
You may not have enjoyed enough of the first episode to want to hold on, like other viewers did, but judging the entire show and its characters on just the first episode isn’t right, you said that every character shows a shade of annoying, but, that is their personality, that is TYPICAL Australian people, all over the place, and loud, this TV drama covers every aspect of who we are, and the producers of Offspring have done a wonderful job showing that.
On just the first episode, the producers and the writers just try to show the audience what the characters are all about, introduce them, you have just seen this and said that their personality is no good and annoying. The first episode isn’t a first episode at all, it is an introduction.
“It’s not the same as judging a person the first time you meet them, in fact, it’s more like judging a television character the first time you meet them.”
It is entirely the same.. eg. you meet a new person down the street, you don’t just judge them on what they are wearing, you wait to talk to them, to get to know them, and to see what you have in common. You have to do the exactly the same thing with a new TV show, with new characters, watch a piece of it, see what the producers have made them all about, do they share the same qualities and believe the same things you do?
How is it not the same?
Offspring has been made in the image of any typical Australian, and the characters appear just the same as the next person walking down the street in any Australian city.
First, Rush:
821,000 – 936,000 – 683,000 – 707,000 – 707,000 – 773,000 – 687,000 – 774,000 – 861,000 – 800,000
Those are the number of viewers Rush has had in the last 10 weeks. It hasn’t hit 1 million viewers in that time (your measure of a success), and is in fact hovering somewhere just above the cancellation mark. Channel 10 would not be happy with those numbers. They will put up with them, but they won’t be happy with them. Rush was not in the Top 100 shows of the year. A success would be 1.4 million viewers (like Glee), 1.5 million viewers (like Junior MasterChef), or 1.6 million viewers (like Hawke). Rush is not a success, and nor is Offspring.
Now, Offspring:
Now you’re being a little silly. “you meet a new person down the street” – who meets people down the street? “you don’t just judge them on what they are wearing, you wait to talk to them, to get to know them.” – who does? who are you talking about? in what world do you live where people are wandering down the street looking at strangers, NOT judging them based on appearance and then striking up a conversation in hopes of finding the wonderful series long character development beneath the surface?
This is not the same thing because this is a television show. Unlike real life television shows are crafted by people with a story to tell. To tell these stories they create characters. In the first episode you will get an hour long glimpse into the lives of these characters. This isn’t striking up a conversation with a random at the train station, this is calculated by the writers of the show. They show you what they want to show you, they show the characters in the way they want them to be seen. This isn’t somebody who I misjudged because I felt they were rude to me at a party but later found to be quite a great guy, these are characters whose words are written for them by somebody who presumably knew what they were doing. This is quite obviously a different situation.
I would also suggest that they are not TYPICAL Australian people at all. I know very few women with ex-boyfriends who have a penchant for blowing things up. But that’s besides the point.
You are correct in saying that this is an “introduction”, and just as in real life if you meet somebody (not see them down the street, but talk to them and get to know them a bit like over, say, the course of an hour) and you find them annoying you will not want to spend any time with them in the future. Instead you will probably seek out the company of people who you enjoy. Unless, of course, you just insist on spending at least a year with every person you meet because you can’t possibly know whether or not you like a person after only an hour.
I don’t know where you got your figures from for how many people watch Rush, but they are clearly wrong, as channel Ten announced that they would continue Rush as it had more than 1 million viewers and because of its ratings.
“Now you’re being a little silly. “you meet a new person down the street” – who meets people down the street?”
I’m being a little silly…. no, I confirm you are. “who meets people down the street?”, anyone who speaks the English language would understand that that sentence is clearly just a figure of speech. What it is meant by it (as I would clearly need to explain it to you) is that when you just meet someone new, anyone. Also, I feel very sorry for you if when you just see anyone, that you judge them solely on their appearance.
“I know very few women with ex-boyfriends who have a penchant for blowing things up. But that’s besides the point.”
I understand that you know very few people who enjoy blowing things up, nor do I, but what this is showing, is that this was any TYPICAL ex-husband who was fishing for anything to get her attention (and as he was an explosives expert, this was one of the ways her thought he could do it) the man just wanted to talk to her as he was clearly obsessed with her, and if you bothered to follow on, then you would have found out that the man had been checked into a rehab facility to deal with his emotional side of things.
I do believe that over the course of an hour, or even in a shorter time, you could well and truly know weather you enjoy being with someone of not, but as we both said, the first episode of a series, is only in introduction to what their life is like, and they are only going to feed you very small pieces of information so that you stay to find out more, and with only these small pieces I do not believe that you can make right judgment of these characters, but in real life, as you can ask the person anything when they are there with you, it is much different and you could know in 5 minutes weather you like that person or not.
I got the figures for Rush from the list of ratings. http://www.tvtonight.com.au do a fantastic job of reporting the nightly ratings. You can check them out for yourself:
http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2010/11/week-49-4.html
That’s week 49, scroll down to Thursday, look at show #7, see that it is Rush and see that it rated 936,000 viewers.
http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2010/11/week-45-3.html
Here’s another week. Scroll down to Thursday, look at show #13 for the night, see that it is Rush, and see that it rated 773,000 viewers.
http://www.tvtonight.com.au/category/ratings
That’s the complete list of the ratings for the last few years, you can go through and check the numbers for yourself. Press release from networks aren’t always the most reliable source.
I think we’ve gotten a little off topic with Offspring though because the argument no longer makes sense from either me or you.
Your initial problem with my review was that I reviewed the first episode and not the full season.
When watching a show the first episode is all you have to go on and you have to form your opinions based on what you’re given.
Television is a weird medium in that regard because you don’t get the full picture and can only get glimpses of the bigger picture on a week to week basis.
Your point, and correct me if I’m missing it again, is that I should not make declarative statements like “these characters are all annoying” because I don’t know them well enough as I’ve only just met them.
That’s fine, but my point is that after that one episode I found all of those characters annoying. I could end every sentence with “but maybe they’ll become more interesting over time” but that seems a little redundant.
You’re taking the statement “these characters suck” to mean that they will always suck, when I simply mean that as I see them right now they suck.
I don’t think you’re wrong. I can name a good handful of shows where I wasn’t on board with the show or the characters after the first episode but spent more time with them and couldn’t get enough of them.
Breaking Bad and Parks & Recreation are two that spring instantly to mind. I love both those shows now, but after the first episode I wasn’t convinced.
There was either something in these shows that I thought might grow into something more later on, or I heard from others that the show got better and stuck with it until I felt the same way.
With Offspring I did not feel that there was anything there that might grow into something I would want to keep watching. If I heard later that it grows into something wonderful than I may have given it another chance.
Side Note: I know that “meet a new person down the street” is a figure of speech, I was just being a smart ass.
Second Side Note: People judge people all the time based on very little, at least with a TV show we listen to what the creators want us to hear for half an hour or an hour before deciding whether we like them or not.
Thanks for the website,
I agree I do think that we both have got off track.
Judging on what I have said, I guess that everyone is different, and you never really know what might draw someone else to anything, or anyone, for example, after first reading you review, I was thinking “how could you not like Offspring”, after I enjoyed the first episode, I figure that in the end we all have to respect one another decisions.
“Television is a weird medium in that regard because you don’t get the full picture and can only get glimpses of the bigger picture on a week to week basis.”
True. Very true. I guess just that the way that they write shows is to keep the ratings and views up. They are always going to give you minimal information, just so that you will wait until next week to find out what happens next.
You were right in understanding my point, and I guess that these shows are always made to target an audience, not just one person, so we cant always expect everyone to like the same show.
You are right in saying “right now they suck.” as later on, like all shows, possibly, there might be a chance for you to get hooked on the show.
With a TV show, it is true, that we only listen what the producers spoon feed to us, just the bits of information that they want us to know, that may help move the show along. I guess in real life, we find that people are completely different, as nearly always, people will always judge others purely on what they can see, but nothing that is on the inside, and that is exactly what happens with TV.
Glad we both got back on track.
I completely agree with you that the picture formed after one season is going to be fuller than the picture formed after one episode.
In future reviews I’ll just try and make it clearer that what I’m reviewing is just the first episode. (You’re not the first person to complain about me reviewing one episode rather than a season, but you’re a lot more civil and level headed than that other person was. It was a different show, but it was essentially the same point.)
Thank you for reading my review in the first place, and for the discussion. Always enjoy a good late night conversation about TV.
Ha Ha, to true.
Well I guess that is what they want, alot of people talking about their new show, just goes to show how much conflict can be caused just by one review.
Just before we end this discussion, I have to ask you, where are you located?
In Melbourne, what about you?
The same, in Melbourne.
So everybody agrees that Offspring is the best show on the planet? Good, because it is!
I, and I’b guessing you do too, believe so, but I have learnt that everyone has their own options, for very different reasons.
Yeah I respect your review John. I just disagree with it..