Highlights reel
The year’s TV stand-outs combine all that is great about story-telling; fantastic characters, drama, comedy and intrigue. There’s still time to catch up on the best of TV from 2018 – just read on as DANIELLE MCGRANE highlights some of this year’s stand-ou
There have been two women who stood on stage this year, told jokes and had some of the greatest moments on TV in 2018 – one was fictional, the other was Hannah Gadsby.
It seems only fair, while looking back over the year on the small screen, to acknowledge Australian comedian Gadsby’s groundbreaking Netflix stand-up special Nanette.
The show pulled apart the form of stand-up comedy, exposed its self-deprecating style for its ability to excuse shameful behaviour, and was one of the most perfectly executed social justice statements of the year.
As we delve into the year in TV, Gadsby has to get the number-one spot for most outstanding TV moment.
In close second, is the fictional tale of another standup comedian: Midge Maisel, played by Rachel Brosnahan.
As the second series of the
Amazon Prime show The
Marvelous Mrs Maisel just dropped in December, this TV gem managed to sneak into this best-of list at the last-minute, but deserves to be there more than nearly any other show.
For anyone who has yet to cast their eyes upon this series, it tells the charming story of Midge Maisel, a 1950s New York housewife (from the Upper West Side) whose husband suddenly leaves her and, in a state of drunkenness and despair, she stumbles into a seedy club and discovers her talent for stand-up comedy.
The charm and mastery of this TV show can not be undersold. Each scene plays as a pastiche to the most beautiful Hollywood and Broadway musicals of the 1950s, while the dialogue is whip-smart and thankfully up-to-date.
Staying in international waters, the British BBC TV series Bodyguard inspired many water-cooler moments in offices around the world. The gripping series brings together Game of Thrones star Richard Madden and
The Durrells actress Keeley Hawes as a bodyguard and British politician working in a politically unstable environment.
The less known about this thriller the better, suffice to say it’s available on Netflix in Australia and is worth an epic bingefest.
But at home, Australian TV has been meeting these high international standards while maintaining a distinctly local voice.
While audiences were gripped by Bodyguard, they were equally intrigued by the dark secrets of the outback in ABC thriller Mys
tery Road. The series, a spinoff of Ivan Sen’s film of the same name, saw Aaron Pedersen reprise his role as the terse detective Jay Swan. But the shadows of Mys
tery Road lie in perfect contrast to the brightness of the blue heeler puppy who stars in the surprise children’s hit show Bluey.
The cartoon has been one of the more endearing series of the year, show casing Aussie voices, characters and landscape in a humorous manner, as it follows the exploits of Bluey and her family in Brisbane.
“When I show it to my daughters it’s just their world. They get the language and the jokes and the cockatoos – it’s all in there. And there’s plenty in there for parents to enjoy too because Mum and Dad are quite well spoken and can tell a joke,” Bluey’s producer Charlie Aspinwall said.
“The charm and mastery of this TV show can not be undersold.”