Frontline-Series 2 (1995)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	346:30 (Case: 345)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Santo Cilauro Tom Gleisner Jane Kennedy Rob Sitch
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Rob Sitch Bruno Lawrence Kevin J. Wilson Steve Bisley Jane Kennedy Tiriel Mora Alison Whyte Santo Cilauro Anita Cerdic Trudy Hellier Linda Ross Genevieve Mooy Lynda Gibson
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$39.95	Music	Craig Harnath

    Frontline  - Series One was released on DVD back in 2004, so we've had to wait a fair stretch to finally see Series Two and Three released in the last few weeks. For those not in the know, Frontline was made by Working Dog, the same production team responsible for such television gems as The Late Show in 1992 and 1993 and feature films The Castle in 1997 and The Dish in 2000. Frontline is widely regarded as one of the smartest and funniest satire comedy series ever created in this country and the fact that many episodes are used as parts of media syllabuses in universities around the country is testament to the esteem in which it is held and the look it provides at the commercial media circus in Australia.

    The series is a satirical fly-on-the-wall account (with an almost documentary style which is further helped by the fact that it was shot on a domestic style camcorder) of the background workings of a commercial television current affairs programme. Frontline is the name of the program shown each weeknight on an unnamed commercial network. Think of a cross between A Current Affair and Today Tonight and you are pretty much on the money for the style of story that Frontline is after. You know the sort - miracle diets, dodgy repairmen, or complaints against Telstra are the staple for these lowest common denominator programmes. Frontline is hosted by former ABC journalist Mike Moore (Rob Sitch). Apparently Mike was the finance reporter for the 7:30 report in Perth before being poached by the commercial network. He thinks he's hard hitting and in the same league as someone like the ABC's heavyweights Tony Jones and Kerry O'Brien, but in reality he's pretty lightweight and not much more than a talking head. He spends a great deal of each episode trying to prove his journalistic worth and increase his standing in the hierarchy of Australian television, all without much success. It is amazing how little Mike does around the office and still manages to claim he is under the pump all of the time.

    Back for series two and handling all the on-air reporting duties are Brooke Vandenberg (Jane Kennedy) and Martin Di Stasio (Tiriel Mora). Brooke is still the highly ambitious and very b****y young professional who will let nothing get in her way as she scrambles to the very top of the television pile and the dream job of celebrity interviews on 60 Minutes. Marty is the archetypal journo. Heavy drinking, cynical, hard-bitten and extremely rough around the edges. A veteran who has done much and seen even more and really can't be bothered with all the shenanigans of those wannabes around him. But like Brooke, he has been known to bend a few rules and stretch the journalist's code of ethics to breaking point to secure the exclusive story.

    The main change to the cast for series two sees a new Executive Producer take the reigns of the show. The change was forced due to the untimely death of the talented Bruno Lawrence who played Brian Thompson. Stepping into the EP role is Sam Murphy (Kevin J Wilson), who just like his predecessor keeps both eyes on the ratings, one on his staff, and yet another on the executives pushing for higher ratings. As before the real brains and effort behind each of the stories is program producer Emma Ward (Alison Whyte), who comes up with most of the ideas for the stories, does almost all the research, writes most of the copy and is also probably the only staff member with any hint of integrity.

    Frontline Series Two continues to open the eyes of the unsuspecting viewing public to some of the more dubious and completely immoral practices of commercial tabloid television, all while raising many laughs. It again covers everything from the use of hidden cameras, the classic foot-in-the-door bullying style of interview, the crassness of cheque-book journalism and the need to consider ratings wins above everything else. It also deal some more with the huge egos obviously present in commercial television and the inability of many television stars to stop thinking about anything apart from themselves.

    Just like Series One, there are 13 episodes in Series Two. Here's a brief rundown of each:

Episode 1 - One Big Family (29:18)

    While the ratings are dropping and the threat of an axing has everyone at the Frontline office on edge and at each other's throats, not even a raging argument can get in the way of the filming for the network's new promotional ad.

Episode 2 - Workin' Class Man (24:51)

    The bread-and-butter blue collar audience of Frontline is declining, so in an effort to boost ratings, Mike Moore is the target of the publicity department's effort to make him more of a working class icon. The gleaming new Saab that Mike drives could be a problem though.

Episode 3 - Heroes and Villains (28:04)

    The Frontline team is gunning for a supposedly racist academic who allegedly made some outrageous claims in his new book. But at more than 800 pages, has anybody bothered to read it? Certainly not host Mike Moore who leads the charge against the unsuspecting studio guest.

Episode 4 - Office Mole (26:26)

    Mike is bored and when it is discovered that someone in the Frontline office has been leaking story ideas to a rival network, Mike dons his investigative hat and hunts down the perpetrator.

Episode 5 - Basic Instincts (26:46)

    Stu the Frontline cameraman stumbles on a violent bashing of a young man in a park and captures it all on tape, rather than lending a hand to the poor victim. Sam is over the moon with the footage and prepares to air it on that night's programme. The ratings may be up but the incident has raised some serious moral questions.

Episode 6 - Let The Children Play (25:31)

    Channel Nine is scoring big ratings with their series of specials in which Angry Anderson helps some underprivileged kids in a charity-style event. Sam pinches the idea and pushes the Frontline team to come up with a similar concept. All is going well until Mike decides to help out.

Episode 7 - Divide The Community - Multiply The Ratings (27:42)

    Ethnic violence is exploding in the suburbs and when Frontline captures a bashing on camera the situation spirals way out of control.

Episode 8 - Keeping Up Appearances (26:44)

    A tragically scarred woman, whose face was seared with acid, sells her story to the highest bidder. Frontline wants the scoop but can't afford the price, until Sam comes up with a brilliant idea.

Episode 9 - All Work and No Fame (28:02)

    Once again Mike is worried about not being taken seriously as a journalist, so he decides to help out Marty on an investigative piece - with disastrous results.

Episode 10 - Changing The Face Of Current Affairs (25:08)

    Management is concerned about falling ratings, so a consultant is called in to help change the show. A funny episode with American Harry Shearer starring as the alternative management consultant who loves plants and the colour orange. Needless to say, his suggestions leave much to be desired.

Episode 11 - A Man Of His Convictions (24:21)

    Mike is again accused of being a lightweight and when he decides to hit back hard his past catches up with him.

Episode 12 - The Great Pretenders (25:22)

    Mike is adamant he wants to appear on the network's quiz show, Jackpot, but Sam, knowing he is going to make a dill of himself won't let him. Meanwhile Marty bails out a killer from jail in a trade for an exclusive story.

Episode 13 - Give 'em Enough Rope (28:15)

    Mike is angry at the thought of all the cross-promotion occurring in the network and is adamant he won't stoop to such a level. But when the network owner asks to appear on Frontline in an effort to show his honest side, Mike is thrown into an ethical dilemma.

Video

    Just like Series One, anyone who is familiar with either the original television broadcast on the ABC or the VHS tape version of this series will know exactly what to expect in terms of video quality. Again the answer is not much. But really that is part of the charm of this show. The highly variable video quality contributes to the overall style and mood of the show. In what co-creator and star Rob Sitch described as a possible world-first, the majority of each episode was recorded on a simple hand-held video camera (probably nothing more than a home style Hi8 or S-VHS), while the on-air segments of the actual Frontline show were shot using a higher resolution Betacam SP video camera.

    Just like in Series One, the difference between the two is quite remarkable but allows the viewer to instantly switch between the professional controlled on-air environment and the slapdash chaos and almost fly-on-the-wall style that is the behind-the-scenes action. Grain is highly problematic for the majority of each episode, particularly the lower resolution video footage. This is in no way a mastering issue though, since it has always looked like this. Shadow detail suffers on the odd occasion, but again this is not a mastering fault, rather the use of poor lighting during filming. It was a pretty low budget production after all. Just as it was with Season One, edge enhancement on the lower resolution shots is rife throughout, and is actually probably worse this time round. Overall the video transfer for these DVDs mirrors exactly how the show looked on television and is as good as can be expected.

    The original made-for-television aspect ratio of 1.33:1 has been maintained and this transfer is not enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

    Colours are fairly drab, but again this is exactly as expected.

    Compression artefacts are absent, but there are plenty of video artefacts present throughout many of the episodes.

    Series One was hampered by the lack of subtitles. Thankfully that problem has been remedied and English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles are now present for all episodes. They are well placed on screen in a nice bright yellow typeface and are easily read.

    Both discs are dual layered with separate episodes spread across separate layers.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Unlike Series One, which somewhat surprisingly featured a Dolby Digital 5.1 effort encoded at a bit rate of 448 Kb/s, Series Two contains a vanilla Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track. This is basic stereo track which manages to perform the task required of it with little fanfare.

    Dialogue levels are adequate with no obvious audio sync problems.

    The main Frontline theme plays at the beginning of each episode, over the end credits and also pops up during the episode whenever the 'real' Frontline show goes to air. It's a fairly dynamic tune with quite an authoritative feel to it.

    There is no surround channel or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are no extras on either disc in this set.

    Frontline has yet to be released in Region 1.

    Frontline - Series Two is further proof that Australian satiric comedy can sometimes be world class. Building on the success of Series One, Series Two lifts the lid on the shenanigans of commercial current affairs. Watch this series and you will never, ever look at A Current Affair, Today Tonight, or the myriad of other current affairs shows that have long come and gone in the same way again.

    The video quality presented on this DVD is exactly the same as when the series was first shown on television and is on a par with the VHS release. It at least benefits from the fact it will not wear out.

    The audio quality is average, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack only.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall