TV Wrap: A Place to Call Home

All soaped up

Sundays 8.30pm, Channel 7 (AEST)

What’s it all about? The saga of rural dynasty the Blighs and protagonist, nurse Sarah Adams.

The Verdict: An impressive, lavish Australian drama which is frustrating in it’s soapier, literal elements.

3.0/5.0

Taking a melodrama to task for being too soapy and all too obvious is a little like criticising a leopard for its spots - it goes with the territory. But do things have to be quite so sudsy at Ash Park, home to the sagas of wealthy farming dynasty The Blighs? 

Keep your shirt on

In recent weeks, this lavish 1950's drama from Packed to the Rafters creator Bevan Lee has worryingly ventured more and more into Mills & Boon territory via Brokeback Mountain. 

There’s been love triangles and quadrangles, blatant scheming, face-slapping and longing, lusty glances between handsome and/or shirtless-and-ripped farm hands. 

And some outrageous dialogue too; “The other night when you made love to me, was it on her orders?” says the suspicious society import Olivia (Arianwen Parkes-Lockwood)  to her afflicted hubby James (David Berry) of his grandmother's (Noni Hazelhurst) influence. Now that’s one meddling matriarch.

Slap happy

Another concern is that Lee and his writers are trying to tackle every major social issue of the period – mixed relationships, premarital sex, post-war trauma among the mix -  spreading themselves too thin and laying it on too thick. Issues of sexual identity and anti-Semitism are dealt with with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. 

And we don’t need a consistent 1950’s soundtrack or a roll call of pop culture references to remind us we’re visiting that decade - the sumptuous production design and elegant costuming take care of that.

One not-so-happy family

And there’s the rub. It may not be Downton Abbey (no matter what the naysayers say, that’s the cultural benchmark) but A Place To Call Home has a fine pedigree with many elements gelling, not least a compelling, steely leading lady in Marta Dusseldorp (Crownies). So it’s puzzling why a drama has to prove itself by spelling things out so acutely, at times painfully so.

It’s most probably a fanciful wish – why fix a show with a healthy audience if it ain’t broke – but as the show’s debut season wraps up this week, let’s hope season two will see things settle into a more subtle, less contrived groove.