Screen Queen TV reviews: Douglas Is Cancelled, Daddy Issues, Virgin River, Laid and a Wham! doco

Douglas Is Cancelled

Sunday, 8pm, ABC & iView

There’s something so satisfying about watching one of those rapid-fire British comedies. You know the ones: shows so razor sharp, so good, you feel the need to pause and rewind so you don’t miss a single joke. Shows like Fleabag, Peep Show and — the best of the crop — Armando Iannucci’s The Thick Of It, a comedy which took viewers on a white-knuckle ride through the corridors of power and was both anxiety-inducing and compulsively watchable.

This four-part comedy/drama, all about beloved TV presenter Douglas (Hugh Bonneville), who faces backlash and possible “cancellation” after a sexist joke he makes at a wedding goes viral online, has definite similarities.

His TV co-star Madeline (Karen Gillan) unwittingly (wittingly?) amplifies the situation, and before long he’s the centre of a full-scale media meltdown. Given recent morning TV scandals here and overseas, it feels sickeningly familiar to watch it all unfold, making this a series that demands to be binged in one sitting — seriously, we challenge you to stop at just one ep.

Thankfully, ABC has done tech-savvy watchers a solid and dropped the entire series on iView, so you can binge all four in quick succession — and trust me when I say you’ll want to.

The cast (Bonneville! Gillan! Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed!), the joke-after-joke-after-joke script, the twist at the end, and the fact it’s from Doctor Who’s Steven Moffat all make for an irresistible proposition.

And as someone who has worked in newsrooms (although I’ve never cancelled anyone knowingly) and as an entertainment reporter on a morning television program (didn’t last long enough to be cancelled myself, but suspect some of my colleagues tried their darnedest), I found lots to relate to in an anxiety-inducing-oh-god-these-people-are-awful kind of a way.

This is some spectacularly watchable car-crash television — don’t miss it.

Daddy Issues

Thursday, streaming on SBS On Demand

This week, free-to-air is really coming through with the goods, delivering another great under-the-radar comedy. This one is all about pregnant 24-year-old hairdresser Gemma (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood), who has her no-hoper dad Malcolm (The Walking Dead’s David Morrissey, playing against type) move in as a lodger. This is an unlikely dynamic, but thanks to some terrific performances, this series lands in the perfect sweet spot between the absurd and the heartwarming — which is to say, I loved it. There are also some great performances from the sensational ensemble cast, especially David Fynn, whose loathsome “incel” Derek is skin-crawlingly awful. Seek this one out.

Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped

Wednesday, 7.30pm, SBS

This nostalgic special has been released in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the classic Wham! Christmas track. How has it been almost half a century since this song became a cultural phenomenon? I am ancient.

Laid

Thursday, streaming on Binge

This is the American remake of the fabulously underrated Aussie comedy that came out in 2011 and starred Alison Bell as a woman who starts to get concerned when her exes start carking it one after the other. This has the reliably hilarious Stephanie Hsu at the centre and also stars Girls’ Zosia Mamet.

Virgin River

Thursday, streaming on Netflix

Six series in, and I’ve somehow managed to avoid engaging with this weirdly popular Netflix show, which returns this week. This series is set “against the backdrop of Mel and Jack’s romantic spring wedding”, which is something to get excited about, apparently. Meh.