Lucy Mangan

It’s tremendously, gloriously, educationally bad.

All of human life is here. Not in any credible way – just here. ... In short, it’s just what HBO ordered from the man who by now is surely actually churning this stuff out in his sleep rather than simply giving the faultless impression of it.

What’s left is an exercise in frustration. It’s too earnest about people’s Special Days, the comedic presences jar against rather than leaven the proceedings, and, oh God, it’s so loud. Did I mention how loud it was? Exhaustingly frenetic, charmless, and pointless.

There is nothing wrong with trash. But this is just bad TV. Regressive, derivative, horribly written, filled with one-dimensional characters (Jenny’s son, for example, can barely be said to exist) and clearly made by someone unable to imagine that what is on screen might be harrowing rather than entertaining to great portions of its intended audience.

The Outpost is Game of Thrones meets Xena: Warrior Princess, as written by Enid Blyton. Or a monkey.

Little Voice is little short of a horror show.

It is terrible. ... Nothing has been written, shown or scored in a way to elicit any degree of human emotion.

There is an adamantine refusal to accept that sorrow and anxiety are attendant upon life all the way through, and a demented commitment to expunging every negative moment from it, whether by vegan eating, cold plunges, the cleansing of energy fields, psychic intervention or any other pseudoscientific activity that can be monetised for people whose gullibility marches in lockstep with their wealth.

I’m sure Lilley is capturing different Australian types and language registers better than I can appreciate, but still the whole thing looks and feels like a ragbag of choices that neither hang together per character or per show.