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Last night I finished watching East of Everything, the latest ABC 6-part drama. I make it a point these days not to read reviews of TV shows and films before I see them, but I couldn't help hearing negative whispers about this show. This morning, I note what seems to be an overwhelming thumbs-down. Patrick Tangye of Adelaide's CitySearch website thought that the first episode "fails to deliver". Jon Faine on Melbourne's 774 called it "boring". Keith Austin in the Sydney Morning Herald wanted to like it, but on the basis that he couldn't find one character he'd "take home to meet your mum" he rejected it. On the Internet Movie Database website, one reviewer called it "disappointing" and "trite", with "unlikeable" characters and a "yawn" of a story. S/he didn't "much care what happens" to any of the characters. Another called it "terrible". Yet another thought it was a "total waste of my time and energy".

I find these reviews incredible. Did we watch the same series?? For me, this was the best TV since Marking Time (2003). It's a strong and genuinely feel-good fantasy in the true SeaChange sense, and the characters of Eve (Porter), Bev Flick (Bader), Lizzy Dellora (Beck) and especially Art Watkins (Roxburgh) retain a moral honesty in the sense intended by John Gardner. This series shines with humanity!

If anything is "depressing", it's those posts which claim that their authors "don't care" about the characters, who are "self-made losers". Just what is a "self-made loser"? I must have a very different understanding of what a "loser" looks like. Perhaps the closest I can come to agreeing with such a judgement is to concur that Art, Bev, Vance (Long) and even Melanie Freedman (Carides) have made choices they come to regret. Isn't this part of being human? Or are we all expected now to combine 20-20 foresight with the moral aptitude of a well-rounded middle-class sophisticant? Even allowing for the possibility that screen drama allows us the space to form moral judgements which we must otherwise reserve in our lives, the assumptions behind these posts are bewilderingly normative.

Is Lizzy Dellora a "self-made loser"? As we learn in the final episode (as if we couldn't guess), love was not a part of her upbringing. Is Dale (Budge), the wayward nurse who has escaped a family he finds oppressive, a "self-made loser"?

On the contrary, these are exactly the sort of characters I care about. Flawed, fragile, *human*...or does our narcissistic neo-liberal obsession with growth and power blind us to frailty all over again, as we struggle to stomp all over each other in our lemming-like race to oblivion?

While the series is exceptional in its humanity, it retains remarkable dramatic qualities. It contains all the ingredients for a first-rate soap opera - and then takes it all down a gear, with devastating effect (a la Fireflies, another ABC series whose unpopularity I struggle to comprehend). Yes, the inclusion of the Melanie and Terry Adams (Bisley) characters does at first threaten to undo the otherwise tight script, but they emerge as crucial to the fantasy that envelops Broken Bay (a fictional Byron). If Josh (Stott) seems a little too sure of himself for a 17-year-old, and Dale and Owen the lawyer (Garvey) a little too sagely, it's all part of the moral fantasy of the series. Its themes seem universal: the optimism of hopelessness, the richness of commitment, the fantasy of dreams and disillusions.

East of Everything (2008) - ABC miniseries

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