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.
