‘Total Control’ could be your new favorite political drama
The deafening drama of the American political system often drowns out everything else to the point that it’s easy to forget that the rest of the world isn’t exactly awash in great deeds and goodwill either.
That’s driven home in spectacularly entertaining fashion in “Total Control,” the first season of an Australian series, debuting Dec. 17 on Sundance Now. The show takes the shady shenanigans and double dealings of “House of Cards” and gives them a uniquely antipodean twist. That it also features strong performances — especially from Rachel Griffiths (who co-created the show) as an embattled prime minister trying to cling to her slim majority and Deborah Mailman (“The Sapphires”) as an upstart Indigenous senator — just adds a sweet glaze to a delicious TV treat.
Griffiths is Rachel Anderson, a centrist in a conservative party (loosely based on Australia’s Liberal Party, which in an American context would be right of center) who is suffering from poll numbers in free fall, an insurgency from her right flank led by the aggressive Sen. Damien Bauer (Anthony Hayes, “The Slap”) and taunts from the opposition on the left (loosely based on Australia’s Labor Party).
So when a video of an Indigenous woman named Alex Irving (Mailman) standing up to a gunman during a rampage in the Queensland town of Mount Isa goes viral and turns her into a national hero, Anderson thinks Irving just might be right for an appointment to an empty Senate seat. What could be better? Anderson hitches her political wagon (and poll numbers) to a rising star, she gets Irving’s undying loyalty (and votes), and it makes her look more progressive than her cohorts across the aisle. And with Irving’s experience in smalltown councils, it’s not as if she’s a total neophyte.
For Irving’s part, she thinks she can make the Australian government make good on some of its
promises to both rural and Indigenous people whom she feels are too often kept from the table.
This is especially true for a deal the government is trying to cut with several Indigenous Queensland families whose land the government wants to use for a military base that the United States is pressuring the prime minister to provide as another bulwark against China.
Meanwhile, an incident in which a teenage Indigenous girl has been killed while in custody — the 12th that year — is starting to mushroom into a major story, one that could affect what Irving is trying to do, especially with powerful Sen. Kevin Cartright (David Roberts, so good in “The Square” in 2008), who oversees Indigenous Affairs and wants to sweep the deaths under the rug.
But “Total Control” — whose original title is not printable in a family newspaper and caused a firestorm in Australia when it was announced — is no “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Frank Capra’s 1939 film starring Jimmy Stewart as the Everyman from the heartland who’s appointed to a Senate seat. Almost everyone gets muddy here, and if you’re not being backstabbed or backstabbing someone else, well, then, you’re not doing it right.
Both Anderson and Irving are complex characters with messy but very real private lives — Anderson often visits her father, who’s in a long-term care facility, and single-mom Irving has a young son and mom to care for, a socialist brother (Rob Collins) who thinks she’s a sellout and a tempestuous relationship with an ex (Aaron Pedersen, “Mystery Road”). Not to mention all the social climbing by the aides and chiefs of staff, such as Irving’s assistant, Jonathan Cosgrove (Harry Richardson, “Dunkirk”), whose ambition is only outweighed by his love of hair product.
Directed by Rachel Perkins with the same keen eye for visuals and landscapes that she brought to Outback-set murder series “Mystery Road,” “Total Control” doesn’t just take place in the warrens of senators’ offices but in the wider Australia of the imagination. (The series also utilizes music from Australian singer Missy Higgins, whose vocals were most recently heard in another notable Australian series, “Upright.”)
“Total Control” was enough of a success below the equator to warrant a second season and, no doubt, when Americans finish scarfing down these easily digestible six episodes — a new episode will be released every week — we’ll be hungry for more, too. Though Washington, D.C., and Canberra are nearly 10,000 miles apart, “Total Control” shows they’re a lot closer than you would imagine.