With a new season of The Newsreader comes the return of Australia’s favourite fictional TV presenters. Don’t worry Mike Moore, we still love you, but Helen and Dale are where it’s at now. The former co-news anchors – played by Anna Torv and Sam Reid – were once in a “will they or won’t they” relationship that very much culminated in they did. Things have changed, however, and by the time the third season begins they’ve parted ways, and are now working for different networks. Although some things remain the same: namely their work ethic, each tenaciously furthering their careers while – continuing the show’s now-familiar format – real-life events provide dramatic scaffolding.
Deploying newsrooms as central settings allows the screenwriters (Michael Lucas, Christine Bartlett, Adrian Russell Wills and Niki Aken) to incorporate past events – including, this season, the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Tiananmen Square massacre – while depicting how they were reported and narrativised; how history itself was made. Well-drawn characters, strong performances and a good pace keep this format engaging, although for me this latest – and last – season has dipped a little, losing spark and lustre. Some elements feel quite on the nose, and more than ever the show – created by Michael Lucas and again directed by Emma Freeman – conjures elements that don’t always ring true, in historical and storytelling terms.
Episode one (this review encompasses the first four) focuses on the 1989 Logie awards, where Dale is considered a shoo-in to win the Gold Logie. The staging of this event feels a little clumsy in its incorporation of actual footage. When host Bert Newton takes to the stage, for instance, Freeman cuts to a screen inside the venue displaying (via archival footage) the real Newton. This technique is repeated a few times. It’s clear she’s attempting to seamlessly combine real moments with sculpted drama – but it’s distracting, and you can see the join marks.
The point of this stretched out Logies set piece is to reveal that Dale and Helen will both be hosting shows during the plum 6pm time slot, thus placed in direct competition. This is a surprise for Dale, though he takes the news almost annoyingly well – I wanted drama, conflict! – and the pair remain friends. The writers are more interested in prying open their private lives, Dale continuing to explore his bisexuality and Helen seeking professional support for her mental health. These threads are reasonably interesting but far from riveting.
The placement of characters within media environments leads, as always, to some interesting frictions. At one point sports reader Rob Rickards (Stephen Peacocke) walks back comments he made about how people in rugby “do not see colour in our sport” after Noelene (Michelle Lim Davidson) – his wife, and a major supporting character – explains why that view is problematic. Her words are bang-on, though the dialogue feels like it’s been shaped from a contemporary perspective – the sort of words you might expect to hear during our slightly more enlightened present.
While The Newsreader explores certain aspects of the past with a warts-and-all perspective, there’s a lingering feeling that the writers are sometimes presenting the past not as it was but how they may wish it to be. There’s traces of this in the show’s unusually diverse workplace (papering over the historical reality of white male-centric Australian media) and its lack of smokers. Why aren’t people sucking down durries? They were in real-life. Accurately portraying history does not mean endorsing it.
The character arc of Noelene (played very persuasively and empathetically by Davidson) is an interesting example of modern sensibilities potentially influencing historical veracity. When she is heavily pregnant, and in hospital, she’s still working for the newsroom. When she has her baby, she continues working too, furthering her career while her parents care for the bub.
Such circumstances have of course unfolded in real-life, although the historical reality is that pregnant women were pushed out of good jobs – in the rare event they were permitted them at all – by the (almost entirely male, and white) powers that be. Depictions that err on the side of idealism run the risk of becoming forms of erasure, in this instance potentially undermining the historical reality of monocultural and patriarchal oppression. It’s not wrong, per se, to depict people who break the mould, but storytellers should remain cognisant that characters in period pieces aren’t only individual personalities: they’re also emblematic of broader experiences.
When The Newsreader’s in full flight, as it was in season two, these issues fade into the background as the characters and performances shine, propped up by intelligent writing and direction. The third season dips a little but there’s still more than enough to satisfy fans.
Season three of The Newsreader premieres Sunday 2 February 8.30pm on ABC iview and ABC TV
