I wasn’t at all surprised when GoggleBox Australia won the Best Structured Reality Program award at the TV Week Logies the other night. My inner ABC snob says that if I was going to vote, it would have been for classy, worthy, fact-based shows like Master Dogs or Nursing Home, but Gogglebox I have to admit that it does something that other reality shows don’t, and it’s currently in its 20th season. It just keeps going.
Warm, inclusive, and decidedly non-competitive, Gogglebox has no judges, no stressful qualifying rounds, and no real purpose other than getting together to watch and gossip. As a viewer, there’s something uniquely relaxing about sitting on your couch and watching other people sit on their couches and everyone watching the box and reacting to what’s on screen. This is the way we used to do things back in the day, before Netflix.
Gogglebox: saving us from ourselves
One good reason to check out Gogglebox is that you don’t have to watch a bunch of other mostly awful TV shows (FBoy Island Australia, I’m looking at you). At the same time, viewers can stay informed and engage in fun, sociable, watercooler-like conversations that are all too rare these days due to the decline of scheduled television.
Want to know why people are talking about the “black bathtub” on The Block? Or was it Lisa McCune’s winning performance on Dancing with the Stars? Or maybe Bondi Rescue’s adorable French lifeguard “Gigi”? Gogglebox has you covered.
Produced by Endemol Shine and aired on Foxtel, Binge and Network Ten, Gogglebox Australia uses a format developed for Channel 4 in the UK and features families, couples and groups of friends broadcasting in the past seven days. They have been filmed reacting to other TV shows.
ScreenHub: Logie Awards – All winners
comprehensive casting
The first episode of Gogglebox Australia’s 20th season premiered last week. The cast skews towards ‘average’ Ocker-accented Australians, including a diversity of class, age, ethnicity and sexual orientation.
The cast of Gogglebox, which returns for its 20th season, includes cricket-mad fans, the Delpechitra family. A happy grumpy couple and grandparents Lee and Keith. Best friends Anastasia and Faye, and best friends larrikin Adam and Simon. My favorites are mother and daughter Kelly and Izzy, and their growing baby Ruby. And the newest additions are sisters Mia and Bree, who love to scream, and their best friend Lainey.
We see their snacks, couches, semi-natural banter, and attempts at humor. Because telling jokes is always part of the agenda for these spontaneous couch potatoes who love to fuck it in front of the camera.
This week’s episode of the annual show included an expected but probably unhealthy amount of other Ten and Foxtel binge shows, and covered a number of other permanent format TV shows .
Goggleboxer appeared on season 3 (10) of the boring escapist competition show “Hunted,” season 2 of “FBoy Island Australia” (Binge), season 21 (7) of “Dancing with the Stars,” and “The Block.” season 20 (9), and season 20 of Bondi Rescue (Ten). The persistence of these programming formats for so long is something to ponder and perhaps lament. The broadcast television world is a tough old world, and doing what has always been done, and what needs to be adjusted from season to season to earn currency, is the onslaught of streaming drama. is one way to survive.
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What would we be without David Attenborough?
Another perennial Goggleboxer favorite is David Attenborough’s nature documentary, and this week I watched The Secret World of Sound (Netflix). The longevity of the world’s favorite naturalist is always a topic of conversation, along with worries about what he’ll do when he’s gone.
“What would we do without you, David?” one of the women said, because someone has to say it every time.
Note the well-edited nature sequence, the predictable gasping sound as a baby meerkat is almost, but not quite, scooped up by a bird of prey. Stunning close-ups of animals mating, nesting, and giving birth create audible “aahs” and “aahs” and mild sexual innuendos.
Enough to make us think about our own strange nesting habits. Our tendency as apes is to sit and observe other apes, and the other apes watch us…well, in this case, the clownfish is laying eggs and fertilizing them outside the body.
Novelty is overrated
A good drama is dramatic, exciting, and fresh. The new documentary is no different. The goggle boxers dutifully watched Netflix’s “Doco Sprint,” which depicts athletes preparing for the Paris Olympics. But even as they admired the muscular athletes and the tense moments of victory and defeat, their hearts didn’t seem to care.
Sometimes we want repetition. It’s another New Year’s Day, when foolish tourists get caught in a Bondi trap and are rescued by “real Australian heroes”.
One of the Goggleboxers says this at the end of this episode’s Bondi coverage. “It’s the same every year.” But I love it just as much. ”
Gogglebox Australia – Season 20 is currently showing on Foxtel/Binge and 10 and 10 Play.
