Mitch McTaggart's must-see special on 2023 TV concludes a Project joke was the target of an orchestrated campaign, fuelled by media clickbait, and ultimately unsupported by Network 10.
“I always stress at the start of the year that there’s never going to be enough things happening and I won’t be able to make an hour of content,” says The Last Year of Television host Mitch McTaggart.
“But this year, either we’ve gotten really good at finding stuff, or TV’s getting more silly. And I think it’s probably a bit of both.”
McTaggart’s mostly-snarky kaleidescope of 2023 television will dissect everything from panned biopics, to baffling programming choices, all the way to the fallout of a joke on live TV.
Screening just days before the curtain falls on 2023 is both a challenge and a jackpot for McTaggart, whose work previously appeared on SBS and Channel 31.
“We try and offer up something new as best we can, because we’re coming in at the tail end of the year. So here’s some stuff that you’ve probably forgotten, rather than rehashing what you already know,” he explains.
“The rule that we have is if Media Watch covers it comprehensively or if The Weekly talks about it at length, then unless we can find a new angle it’s been done.
“We like to watch Charlie Pickering’s Yearly to see if there’s any crossover and through no deliberate attempt they’re really quite different. So I think that’s quite fun. Two review shows can comfortably co-exist and offer up something completely different.”
Indeed many ‘highlights’ posed during our interview did not make the cut: ABC’s King’s Coronation coverage, Kerri-Anne in the jungle, Stan Grant quitting ABC, Ben Roberts-Smith, Bruce Lehrmann trial, the Writers / Actors strikes in the US…. the list goes on.
“You’re mentioning a lot of things I’ve wrestled with. We mention the Coronation, but just in passing, because at the end of the day, I think we’re doing a Comedy show. But to have to unpack a lot of the genuinely distressing things… there’s really a set number of things that we can do of that tone. It’s a tough one, you’re making me really question what we’ve got in there right now!” he concedes.
“Random highlights, there’s the Jesus joke on The Project, that was a phenomenal storm out of nothing. We do a huge piece on Jesus joke on The Project from start to finish. What happened, how it happened, and just what went wrong -if anything. The Warnie telemovie of course. The Spotlight Trans special – bafflingly horrible. There are so many amazing pieces of television. I’m using amazing in a very broad sense there. It’s wild times.”
And TV flops like Blow Up?
“I like how they made blowing up balloons seems life or death.”
The FIFA Women’s World Cup success?
“We cover Channel Seven not broadcasting the Welcome to Country. That was glorious. That was one of our slight rule breaks, given Media Watch had covered that one. But we found a funny joke that we really liked so we kept it.”
Daryl Somers auctioning a Gold trophy at the Logies?
“I was laughing so much at that…. just the fact that nobody else was laughing in the room made it funnier.”
McTaggart also finds time for some of this year’s scripted television.
“Last King of the Cross cops a bit of a mention. We have The Claremont Murders in there, largely forgotten. North Shore, Black Snow, Riptide, Heat, Deadlock, Scrublands,” he continues.
Yet there’s also room to applaud some of this year’s drama storytelling (but you’ll have to tune in for those).
Since his move from SBS to Binge, how does McTaggart incorporate Foxtel commentary? Might FBoy Island get skewered for claiming it is ’empowering women’, perhaps?
“There’s not a lot of Foxtel-Binge stuff, through no other reason other than there’s so much stuff that happened on Free to Air. This is where I always find myself in a bit of strife, because I’ve filled up the air time from the overwhelming amount of baffling behaviour on Free to Air,” he insists.
Is there any sign of industry putting forward content for inclusion, given Gogglebox producers are inundated with suggestions and footage?
“We’re very much a fringe kind of show. I think a lot of people would rather pretend we don’t exist. Which is great. It means that we never really have an obligation to include something. We can focus genuinely on the stuff that we want to talk about, which I think works for our tone,” he adds.
“I’d be very curious, though, to see what, what kind of clips people would start putting in front of me if they wanted to be included. I think because we’re maybe a little more -what’s the right word here- scathing than Gogglebox….”
The Last Year of Television Thursday December 28 on Binge / FOX8