This guide and all of my reviews contain occasional bits of rude language,
and opinions some people might find offensive but for which I won’t apologise.
Don’t read any further unless you are open-minded.
As hard as I try not to give away too much, I can't guarantee there are no spoilers.
----------------------------------
Offspring – TV Drama 2010-2017 (7 series) Network 10 Australia // DVD, iTunes and maybe still Netflix
Often amusing, often moving, totally addictive drama series.Nina Proudman is a 30 something single woman who treasures life, whether it is through her work as an obstetrician at a maternity hospital, or just life as it is lived with her whole crazy family.
The writers find endlessly creative ways of showing us what Nina is thinking, which they have to do because she internalises her insecurities. Sometimes her internal world is pretty mundane, but often it is hilarious.
Although she is a competent obstetrician, when she is within cooee of a bloke she fancies, Nina turns into an inarticulate, blithering idiot, partly because she sometimes can’t distinguish between reality and the truckloads of fantasy-world-images and conversations in her head.
Asher Keddie has said one thing she liked about playing the part of Nina was that Nina is brave. Nina needs to be brave – while she internalises her insecurities, her sister Billie externalises hers, and it can be ouchy to watch when Billie lashes out. Billie is, at times, seriously toxic.
“Your family know you longer than anyone else,” says Nina. Personally, I don’t think that’s any reason to keep forgiving excessively bad behaviour that no one is prepared to change. And if I would not be likely to forgive it as a family member, how likely am I to forgive it as a viewer?
At times, it seems to me, some of the Proudman family betray trust or confidences a little too easily. I don’t know if that’s normal, I have no idea. And if manipulative behaviour is normal or reasonable, that still shouldn't make it okay, should it? And lying just seems odd to me. I know I've told one or two lies in 60 plus years, but not many cos I've a shit memory and a transparent face which means I'm a crap liar so I'm basically honest. The way people lie on this show is almost an Olympic sport, and one or two other things they do make me cringe - but maybe that's just the early episodes and it just takes some getting used to. In spite of all that I love to death almost everything about Offspring. Yes, the good bits are so good they more than make up for the annoying bits, which is really saying something.
With shows like this there is eventually a character or storyline that resonates at a visceral level - with me it is Patrick's father who reminds me there is no male equivalent of "the c word". He has an attachment disorder, but as I always say: there are two types of people with a mental illness, those who are arseholes, and those who are not. Patrick's father is in the first category. Why don't people believe us when we say they exist? Most importantly, why don't the people we are supposed to be able to count on believe us when we say they exist? (Mercifully, the character only makes a brief appearance.)
Rewatching Offspring and I'm only halfway through episode 3 and Billie is just a total knob but I'm already weeping snot and the next minute Nina notices something odd and I'm grinning madly cos life is just about the little moments -- and good drama is about the writers who think to share little moments with us.
Offspring is not just a drama it’s a comedy drama. Sure, sometimes a storyline demands tissues but more often – especially once the writers hit their stride in season 2 – I found myself laughing like a drain through entire episodes, not just because they are funny but sometimes because they are brave, or creative or surprising.
Scripts are decidedly apolitical but (family dysfunction aside) the show’s values are excellent. It’s clever, it’s intelligent, and occasionally someone even sneaks a moment or two of something surreal that is pure gold on to the screen.
I have no frame of reference for judging whether the “sister” bond between Nina and Billie makes sense; at first Billie just strikes me as inordinately self-absorbed at times, though over the full seven series the two sisters both end up supporting and hurting each other in extreme ways in equal measure.
Deborah Mailman continues to be a brilliant actor. Until Love My Way I’d never seen Asher Keddie before, and here she actually has a chance to do something interesting. Asher not only surprises with her comic range, sometimes she astonishes in other ways; – there is one scene where Nina expresses a feeling of shame at having said something awful and her ears actually burn scarlet. How does she do that? Billie is not always a sympathetic character but Kat Stewart is mind bogglingly good in the role.
A great bonus is that Billie’s boyfriend Mick (Eddie Perfect) is a singer/songwriter (in later seasons he is joined by Clare Bowditch) providing some “live music”, and personal songs that reflect the storylines and characters.
“Deb [Oswald] said that she conceived Offspring as the opposite of those shows where there's a dead prostitute lying in a dumpster in the beginning of the episode. This is a show that's affirming of all the things that make life great: food, sex, love, family, babies, dogs. The things that make life meaningful are our relationships to other people, those tiny moments when you have a connection with another human being. Offspring is a celebration of that.”
Note re Subtitles/ Dialogue: Some seasons of the DVDs have no subtitles, while some do.
On the Netflix version, the dialogue is sometimes censored and in other episodes not censored at all, which is weirdly inconsistent.
The subtitles for the witty exchange between Nina and Patrick shown above “You have a problem/ Fuck you / Could be Tourette’s” is missing the “Fuck you” which not only kills the joke but consequently no longer even makes sense. English subtitles on Netflix are not prepared by a human who knows much English at all so often the subtitles are wrong. With Offspring, this is a bigger tragedy than usual because the added gap between English English and Australian English not only makes some of the subtitles utter nonsense but kills a lot of really great humour.
Bingeability: - Extremely high. Offspring doesn’t generate a desperate need to know what happens next, but from the second season I cared enough about the characters and had such great laughs that it was always a joy to just keep watching.
AFTER YOU'VE FINISHED BINGEING OFFSPRING (when you no longer need worry about spoilers) you get to search YouTube for one of those parodies... "Hitler finds out about... Offspring".
-----------oo0oo----------
One of the characters I really like and which doesn’t often rate a mention in reviews is Inner Melbourne. It’s an area where I spent many of my early years (before it was gentrified). If you don’t know Melbourne but want to do some armchair travelling with Google Maps, you’ll find a list of Offspring sites at http://www.theworldswaiting.com/2014/05/offspring-tour-of-fitzroy-melbourne.html
Other "location" stuff:
*Mick's Place is at 101 Kerr St Fitzroy
*The church spires often visible from the back balcony of the maternity hospital are St Patrick's Cathedral
*01x11 Westgarth Cinema, 89 High St Northcote is used in several episodes
*01x13 The Grandstand is at the Brunswick St Oval, the original home of the Fitzroy Football club, one of the first Australian Rules Football Clubs.
*Edinburgh Gardens are used in many episodes, and even incorporate, in one corner, the Brunswick St Oval. In 01x13 when the family gathers for a picnic you can see a band rotunda.
*02x02 When Mick is running to take his sample to a lab he talks to Billie on the phone from the corner of Nicholson St and Gertrude Street Fitzroy. The red Brick building to his left is the old Cable Tram Depot. The gardens directly ahead of Mick are the Carlton Gardens, and there is a tiny cream-coloured speck of the Exhibition Building showing. These gardens and the Exhibition Buildings feature in a later season.
*02x04 The liquor store where Mick goes to find his brother is Piedimonte's Best St Fitzroy (near Scotchmer St)
*02x06 The Nunnery backpack hostel where Jimmy and Tammy stay is at 116 Nicholson St Fitzroy
*02x06 The Marriage Registry Office is located in the Old Treasury Buildings in Spring St Melbourne
*02x08 Jimmy goes to Federation Square at the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets Melbourne
*03x01 Cubbie St Adventure Playground Fitzroy
*03x05 Roller Coaster is at Luna Park in St Kilda
*03x11 The Moorabbin Bowl (since demolished)
*04x04 Lawn Tennis Courts 11 Nicholson St Carlton
*05x08 Exhibition Building
*06x01 Billie & Jimmy are sitting at the cnr of Gertrude and Smith Sts Fitzroy
Later everyone goes to the Fitzroy Town Hall, 201 Napier St
