Strong and Moving!

ridiculous rating

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Utopia/Dreamland's fast paced jokes-within-jokes are all equally well written and fit in without the pretension or awkwardness of a "made-for-intellectuals-witty-banter" type program. In retrospect, after watching a clip or episode I realize how well put together and incredibly thought out and ...."planned" the comedy is. The dialogue and characters somehow embody the ridiculous types of comments, initiatives and people we all encounter in daily life. Those characters then somehow solidify the vague, annoying and counterproductive things we see in work and life into succinct dialogue that almost feels like the satisfying feeling one gets when you finally remember that word that was on the tip of your tongue. A viewer could start at any episode as if it were a pilot and still find the laughs and totally follow the premise - because even though as many commenters have noted, the media market is quite saturated with The Office like mockumentary series's, I think Dreamland/Utopia is still worth whatever risk a viewer or a studio takes in starting "just another "The Office" government office faux-comedy". It's contemporary, relatable to people who work in conceivably any industry. The subject matter is a perfect blend of creative professions, business, government, and even students working on a group project. In shorter words, yeah, you've seen shows that pioneered the genre of the workplace comedy, but that takes nothing away from the quietly hilarious and engineered show.

I work in a very similar environment, and this show is a pitch perfect satire of my job. It makes me feel uncomfortable in the way a fantastic satire should. The writing is spot on, and the performances, especially from Rob Sitch, Kitty Flanagan, Celia Pacquola, and Dave Lawson bring it to life in such an incredible way. It truly realizes the absurdities of government life in a Westminster-style government in a way many shows don't grasp and truly demonstrates in its best moments the conflict between good policy and political realities without leaning on any one character too heavily to point out the absurdities. That being said, I don't know how much all of it would resonate with someone outside of the climate of government. Some of the episodes are pretty universal - there's a season 2 episode with an HR rep that probably would resonate with most office environments, but I fear that some of the more clever moments may be lost on some viewers.

It is surprising that the Australian government allowed the Working Dog team to film in a department headquarters for so long and obtain such candid reactions from their staff. The small group of employees are responsible for developing nationally significant infrastructure (a.k.a. "nation-building"). Clearly, most government departments work the same way as this department reminded me so much of the one in which I used to work. Logical decisions are constantly over-ridden by politics. Long-term planning is defeated by short-term political imperatives. Media advisers outrank experts in the field. The main purpose of the department is smothered by peripheral workplace issues such as occupational health and safety, IT upgrades and social events. The second series is a great improvement on the first. Perhaps the employees were a little nervous in front of cameras for the first time but, in the second series, their true characters are much better defined. All these people would make excellent actors if they ever wanted to give up working for the public service. Kitty Flanagan would certainly make a great stand-up comedian. Some of the projects proposed are very exciting. I am looking forward to the unveiling of the solar-powered train. Also, now that Stage 2 has been "launched", I can't wait for Stage 3, hoping then to have some idea what it is! This is among the best pieces of writing that Australian television has produced.

There's been a glut of the mockumentary civil service comedy of errors shows in the past few years. We have the venerable Yes, Minister, which serves as one of the inspirations for the genre, having been recently repopularised by the likes of Veep and the Thick of It.Utopia seems to be an Australian emulation of these kind of political machinations by veteran Australian comedian Rob Sitch; of Frontline fame.Whilst I appreciate an attempt at this kind of comedy in Australia, the truth is, we don't really have the writing talent to execute this concept well. This show is very "first season" - raw, characters are underdeveloped, dialogue is often cliché & the writing predictable. The players aren't very believable; with players either swinging between down to earth to fault, or completely insubstantial. The attempts to mock government waste and bureaucracy fails because it seems that the writers can't actually create a convincing bureaucracy or Catch 22. It seems instead that writers rely on characters simply flip flopping between two outcomes.The secretaries are so incredibly daft that it often destroys willing suspension of disbelief. The manic pixie dream girl is especially deserving for ridicule for bad lines, poor acting and a terrible stereotype Sometimes it seems this show was written by American writers using Australian actors.One of the major flaws with the show is it often makes pretenses to humour that aren't there. It is simply put at times, unfunny and unoriginal Other times plots are so cookie cutter that the show becomes less cringe humour, and more cringeworthy. It has a that very "drama undergraduate" vibbe that all ABC and many other Australian productions seem to have. It's important for writers and dire tors to remember that just because something amuses the players on set, doesn't mean it will amuse the audience; as most of the shows jokes fall flat.The show isn't a complete write off, it occasionally draws a wry laugh, and watching Sitch and Flanagan can be entertaining.The premise isn't necessarily that bad, but it needs to take more cues from The Thick of It, and far, far less from the US remake of the Office, which is far closer to what this show represents in reality if not ambition.