Aside
from Cooks, Pacific Drive, Headland, Above the Law, The Bob
Morrison Show, Bullpitt,
David
Tench Tonight, Big
Brother, Breakers,
Sit
Down Shut Up, My
Two Wives, Skirts,
Young
Lions, Good
Cop Bad Cop,
Marshall
Law, Bligh,
Paradise
Beach, Crash
Palace, Tripping
Over, Hey
Dad, and Street
Legal there’s been some great Australian television
over the years – obviously the good: bad ratio isn’t exactly even –
most
principally, Foxtel’s acclaimed Love
My Way.
Claudia Karvan left Channel Ten’s
once-successful and once-entertaining The Secret Life of Us
at the right time – just before the soapy storylines took precedence
over serious and relatable issues like relationships, grieving and
struggling to pay your rent from week to week.
What the smart little cookie did is take the best bits of Secret Life
(the ‘realistic’ bits), as well as its creator (John Edwards), and
jumped ship to Pay-TV where they were prepared to give the duo
free-reign to do, well, essentially whatever they wanted.
The
result? An engaging, very realistic and immaculately penned and
performed drama centring on a group of thirty-something’s whose lives
are, to say the least, in a shambles.
Karvan plonked herself
into the lead role – that of Frankie, a single mother and painter,
who’s both unlucky in love and seemingly, life. The producers knocked
us for six at the end of the first season when they decided to kill off
the character of Frankie’s young daughter (don’t think anyone saw that
coming, did they?). But therein lied a fantastic set-up for season
two…. How does one continue on after everything they loved and lived
for is tragically taken away from them?
Frankie ultimately finds
love with her future step-brother (it’s a bit ‘eww’, but funnily
enough, it’s never even touched upon that they’re related so don’t
think about it, and you’ll be OK) played by Ben Mendelsohn, whose
introduced at the end of the second season. Everything seems to be
looking up for the long-suffering Sydneysider.
Or is it?
Season
3 sees the new marriage (they’d gotten married between seasons it
seems) of Frankie and Louis (Mendelsohn) hanging on by a thread;
largely due to his inability to communicate with his new partner, as
well as his battle with the bottle. And when his weird teenage son
comes to live with them, everything goes to hell.
Featuring a
superb line-up of talent, including the especially fantastic Brendan
Cowell (as Frankie’s on-off love interest and best friend, Tom), Love My Way
might just be the most solid Aussie TV drama to grace the screen –
well, the first one since, er, Tottie Goldsmith flashed her, ah,
Totties in Fire.
Unfortunately,
Karvan and Edwards have reportedly decided to leave the series there,
at Season 3, and have moved on to bigger and better things (Karvan has
a lead role in the new Spierig brothers film Daybreakers, and
soon starts work on a remake of the horror film The Long Weekend
co-starring James Caviezel), so it’ll be up to someone else to keep the
‘Good Local TV Drama’ fire burning.
EXTRAS
Special Features? Nadda. Zip. Not-a-one.
Well, unless you believe, like
the distributor seemingly does, that ‘Slipcase Packaging’ is a special
feature...
