The Disney+ original series Last Days of the Space Age is a gloss-lacquered period drama set in Perth in 1979 that views the past in a misty-eyed way, like somebody recalling a distant summer from long ago.
History can only ever be recreated through the lens of the present, a conundrum that results in some productions – like this – feeling temporally out of sorts, based neither here nor then, with old-looking settings and decor but obviously modern sensibilities.
Like the recent TV series Ladies in Black, Last Days of the Space Age feels generally unconvincing rather than making any major period-specific mistakes. It unfolds with a binary sense of right and wrong and an aura of unreality, touching on some tough topics but with a sense that history’s rough edges have been smoothed.
Created by David Chidlow and directed by Bharat Nalluri, Rachel Ward and Kriv Stenders, the series doesn’t pull off the end-of-an-era vibe it’s going for, and spreads itself too thin. Out of about a dozen key characters only a few come across as interesting, fully dimensional people. The most resonant is Judy (played vividly and impactfully by Radha Mitchell) who, like her husband Tony (Jesse Spencer), is an employee of the local power plant where workers have been picketing for months.
The show begins with the pair in a quiet moment in a car, the peace shattered when a brick flies through the windscreen with a threatening note attached to it. Judy is promoted to a managerial position, placing her in conflict with the strikers – whose demands she increasingly believes the company cannot afford – including Tony. Perhaps some real-life couples have found themselves in comparable situations but I never really bought it: this development felt to me like a writing flourish, calibrated to create friction in their marriage.
Meanwhile, Judy and Tony’s eldest daughter Tilly (a persuasively wide-eyed Mackenzie Mazur) dreams of becoming an astronaut, even though her mean career counsellor tells her to “get married and have some kids”. But her spirits can’t be crushed and you know she won’t give up – particularly after a mushy peptalk from her neighbour Eileen (Deborah Mailman), whose grandson Bilya (Thomas Weatherall) is a fellow student at Tilly’s school. As is Jono (Aidan Du Chiem), whose parents Lam and Sandy (Vico Thai and Linh-Dan Pham) own a fish and chip business on the beach.
A Miss Universe competition is about to descend on Perth, triggering one of the least convincing protest scenes in recent memory. A small group of women on a lonely patch of road outside Perth airport hold signs emblazoned with messages such as “Hear me roar”, chanting for equality in front of virtually nobody; I wonder why they didn’t choose a busier spot. In another production a moment like this might have shown some fire in its belly and projected some grunt and oomph, highlighting political and social unrest. Here that mini protest is little more than set dressing to zhoosh up an unrelated dialogue exchange that takes place in front of it. The Miss Universe plotline’s key character is the USSR competitor, Svetlana (Ines English), whose story feels only vaguely connected and could’ve been snipped, her character literally airlifted in.
The writers (Alice Addison, Dot West, Alan Nguyen and Jeremy Nguyen) touch on themes including workers’ rights, feminism, homophobia, the immigrant experience, racism and Aboriginal culture. But there’s a “jack of all trades, master of none” mentality at play; surely it’s better to unpack a couple of key issues powerfully and attentively rather than attempting a batch half-heartedly. Structurally the drama feels a bit shapeless, as if the show itself is drifting around, looking for a core purpose. On several occasions I wondered what the point was – what this show’s really about and what connective tissue binds its disparate storylines together.
Last Days of the Space Age is perhaps best viewed with a kind of soap opera mentality, the characters’ various narrative threads connected tonally and geographically, like the communities of Ramsay Street and Summer Bay. This is a middle-of-the-road vision of the past, with some moments of dramatic intrigue here and there. But as a historical or quasi-historical portrait, it feels like a shiny billboard advertising a past that never happened.
Last Days of the Space Age is streaming on Disney+.
