There is nothing better on a cold winter’s night than curling up on your couch with an awesome TV show and a bottle of red wine. Don’t fight me on this.
And while everyone is going on about Orange Is The New Black and UnREAL (both very worthy), there is actually a huge bundle of Australian-made TV shows on at the moment. You’d be silly not to feast on them.
We’ve put together a selection of five extraordinary Aussie shows you can watch right now. Yep, there’s your frosty season sorted.
1. Barracuda
This is the latest of Chris Tsiolkas' novels to be adapted for the small screen and it is eye candy CENTRAL.
In other words, if you loved The Slap, you will L-O-V-E this.
Set in 1996, Barracuda provocatively explores our national obsession with sporting heroes by diving us into the lives of fiercely competitive, high school swimmers.
Danny, the main character, is a working class teenager driven to become a champion in a territory usually reserved for the privileged.
What ensues is an intense clash of cultures and a fascinating look at the pressures placed on young, male athletes.
Top Comments
My son is a swimmer so from the perspective of knowledge about the sport, Barracuda is utterly TERRIBLE. I only lasted 18 minutes. I'll give you the issues from the first 18 minutes: No one trains alone (like in the opening sequence, gym is classed as "dry land" and done with a squad), no one trains with a school (they train with a club), squads NEVER are composed of 5 kids, all swimmers know EVERYONE. Kids are constantly at swimming meets, results are available on an app and the results database so the premise that the kids don't know the "new kid" is absurd. The "new kid" would NEVER get a swimming scholarship if he wasn't a finalist at states AND the states finals are called "STATES" not state finals. Mums NEVER hang around at training - they might meet up at swim meets but NEVER at training sessions. NO ONE would "improve 1 second" in a swim training session (with the most ridiculous coaching advice I've ever seen to a swimmer who is supposed to be amazing) as improvements are measured at proper swim meets, the five boys who "raced" didn't even do a warm up (they were dry). Should I go on???? LAZY script writing about a sport which would have been EASY to fact check. TERRIBLE....
On the other hand, Offspring gives a totally realistic perspective of what it's like to be a doctor. ;)
They had an app for results in 1996?
My son is in squad. And I'm Usually at training!
Watching a 16 year old???? More like watching a younger child surely?? My son would die if I watched each training session!!