DVD Review: ‘Total Control’ Looks At Australian Politics
by Rachel Bellwoar
In my review of the first episode I suggested that Total Control wanted to be an Australian Borgen. Having seen the whole first season (season 2 is currently airing in Australia), Total Control never lives up to its potential, which is a shame because it’s about time Deborah Mailman was headlining more TV shows.
Total Control follow her character, Alex’s, unorthodox path to becoming a Senator when footage of her standing up to an actor shooter makes the media rounds. Suddenly Alex is being courted for a career in politics, with the Prime Minister (Rachel Griffiths) personally inviting her to take the spot of another senator who passed away. That it’s an election year and the Prime Minister needs the votes has nothing to do with it of course (sike), but Alex accepts the job. The question is whether she’ll regret it going forward
If Total Control really dug into the politics, it could be a great show. It might be utterly frustrating to watch all of the wheeling and dealing that has to go on to get things passed in government, but it’s fascinating, too, which is why whenever the show skips a beat instead of exploring the nitty gritty of how compromises are made, it’s disappointing and makes it hard to feel emotionally invested .
The show also never strikes the right balance between Alex’s personal life and her new job. Besides the fact that the show could’ve thrown Alex some bones and not having everything go wrong at once, no time is invested in Alex’s work relationships. Harry Richardson plays her chief advisor, Jonathan, and while he’s made out to be this sort of wunderkind, who’s fielding multiple job offers, where’s the evidence? When is his genius going to reveal itself? A moped doesn’t make a character, and unless the goal was to show that white men can be underqualified and still find work (and maybe that’s the reality of the modern political show), mission unaccomplished.
Then there’s Alex’s office manager (an underutilized Celia Ireland) who starts out the season with a photo of the previous senator on her desk, but then later says that Alex is the only “genuine politician” she’s ever met. If the show had spent more time developing their relationship that could’ve been earned but instead her change of heart comes out of nowhere.
In episode two, Alex has to convince the local Aborigine landowners to meet for a land council meeting and maybe if the show had focused on local politics instead of federal (or built up to federal in a later season), it could’ve told more satisfying stories. There are other weird choices, too, like a full-frontal nudity scene that’s completely standalone. No nudity scenes before or since.
As it is, while Mailman infuses her character with a fury that’s palpable, even in the scenes that are relatively calm, the show around her tries to cover too much, and the result is a series that scrapes the surface, instead of going deeper.
Total Control is available on DVD and streaming from Sundance Now.
