The Newsreader is the best kind of period piece in that it makes you reflect not only on the past but on the present. The first two seasons of this Australian drama about rival newscasters managed to cram in some of the biggest events of the 80s: the Challenger disaster; the Aids crisis; rumours of the end of Charles and Diana’s marriage.
As well as seeing the impact those stories had on the world, the series hinged on some perennial themes, too – women being sidelined in the workplace; homophobia; mental illness; and what drives people to stay in their jobs even when everything around them is dripping with toxicity. To watch The Newsreader in an age of boundaries and therapy-speak is to feel at once privileged not to be working in broadcast television in the 1980s, and acutely aware that many of the problems still persist today. As unsettling as it is, the programme has often been excellent: I have a suspicion that if this were a US series, it would be a smash hit.
We arrive at this third season – the show’s last – already well acquainted with Helen Norville (Anna Torv) and Dale Jennings (Sam Reid). At the end of season two we saw Helen depart for the US to cover the 1988 election, leaving her ex-partner and co-anchor Dale to helm the News at Six alone. (Sadly, we don’t get to see Helen in action in Washington, although we do see her during a detour to the UK, where she reports on the Lockerbie bombing.)
Red carpet … a deliciously camp first episode features the biggest night in Aussie TV. Photograph: BBC/Werner Film Productions/Lionsgate/EOne/Jane Zhang
The first episode is a wonderfully camp, highly dramatic affair, as she and Dale reunite at the biggest night in Aussie TV, the Logie awards, alongside Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan (whose presence is added here via archive footage). Of course, things are only briefly jovial: Helen has been offered a new TV gig with a 6pm slot, putting her in direct competition with her old team. Torv is masterly as a woman consumed by rampant guilt and furious ambition, while Reid is excellent as the once puppyish Dale, trying his best to live up to his newfound popularity as the country’s “King of News”.
The Newsreader is an ambiguous title for a reason and, at different points throughout this season, we see Helen and Dale respectively triumph as the media personality of the moment. When one is on the up, the other tumbles further into despair.
For Reid, that means digging even deeper as he conveys Dale’s increasing isolation. His struggle is twofold; on one hand, he is a queer man trying not to get outed by his colleagues – or the press – and on the other, his constant self-policing leads him to be branded by some viewers as rigid and fake. Meanwhile, Torv conveys Helen’s fraying mental health and frequent helplessness with raw sensitivity, even if the writers took far too long to get this character the help she so desperately needed. They are a joy and a misery to watch in equal measure, but if you have any qualms about scenes that hinge on severe mental illness, self-harm and substance abuse, you should steer clear.
While those two central performances – and much of the cast – remain powerful, I’m not convinced this season sticks the landing. The final episode sees Dale descend into an increasingly catatonic state, only to walk straight on to the set of the News at Six to deliver a bulletin. The joy of The Newsreader is that it has always felt a little soapy, but sometimes it is just absurd.
Conversely, the final scenes are bland and uncomplicated, as though they came from another show altogether. I also wish we had more time with Noelene (Michelle Lim Davidson), the News at Six producer who defects to Helen’s new show and masterminds an exclusive on the Tiananmen Square protests, and who later struggles to balance motherhood with her boss’s nonstop demands. There is so much more to delve into with her story, as both a working mother and a Korean Australian, wrestling with feeling unseen by her white husband and former co-worker, Rob (Stephen Peacocke).
Despite all this, I’m really going to miss this show. To spend three seasons in the company of Helen and Dale is to consider what being a good friend and a loyal colleague truly means, especially when your line of work is corrosive to your sanity. It’s not the most newsworthy season – but don’t switch over quite yet.
The Newsreader aired on BBC Two and is on iPlayer in the UK. In Australia it is on ABC iView