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The Hollowmen

Field	Value
image	Thehollowmendvd.jpg
caption	DVD cover
genre	Situation comedy-Drama
creator	Santo Cilauro
Tom Gleisner
Rob Sitch
director	Rob Sitch
producer	Santo Cilauro
Tom Gleisner
Rob Sitch
opentheme	"North by North" by The Bats
country	Australia
language	English
num_seasons	2
num_episodes	12
executive_producer	Working Dog Productions
company	Working Dog Productions
network	ABC1
first_aired
last_aired

Tom Gleisner Rob Sitch Tom Gleisner Rob Sitch

The Hollowmen is an Australian television comedy series set in the offices of the Central Policy Unit, a fictional political advisory unit personally set up by the Prime Minister to help him get re-elected. Their brief is long-term vision; to stop worrying about tomorrow's headlines, and focus on next week's.

The Hollowmen was first broadcast on Wednesday, 9 July 2008, on ABC1. Each series comprises six half-hour episodes. On the eve of the first episode's national premiere, the series was approved by the ABC for a second series. The second series was screened right after the first, beginning on 13 September 2008.

The comedy-drama satire is produced by Working Dog Productions, which was also responsible for Frontline, The Panel, Thank God You're Here and Utopia. The music used during the opening credits is an edited instrumental excerpt of the 1987 song "North by North" by New Zealand band The Bats. A special one-off presentation of The Hollowmen was created by Working Dog and played at Parliament House in Canberra on 11 March 2009, in support of the ABC's funding bid for 2009–12.

Cast

Main

Rob Sitch as Tony, the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary
Lachy Hulme as David 'Murph' Murphy, Senior Political Advisor and Director of the Central Policy Unit
Merrick Watts as Nick, Senior Political Advisor
Neil Melville as Ian, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff
David James as Phillip, Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Stephen Hall as Warren, Departmental Under-Secretary
Jacquie Brennan as Mel, Senior Media Advisor
Santo Cilauro as Theo Tsolakis, Head of Market Research
Nicola Parry as Holly, Unit Office Manager

Supporting

Rob Carlton as Kenny Pratt, advisor to the previous PM
Graeme Blundell as Geoff, Party Director
Leonie Hemsworth as Dianne, Prime Minister's Secretary
Sacha Joseph as Vanmathy, Unit Office
Ben Chisholm as Josh, Unit Office
Sarah Arthur Young as Sarah, Unit Office Receptionist
Phil Pollard as Phil, Prime Minister's Security Guard
Brett Swain as Talkback Caller

Guests

Garry Who as Real Estate Agent

The Prime Minister is an unseen character.

Episodes

Series overview

Series 1 (2008)

Series 2 (2008)

Episode ratings

The first season premiered at 9:30 pm on Wednesday 9 July 2008. After episode 5, it was removed from schedule due to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The season finale aired at 9:00 pm on Wednesday 27 August.

#	Episode No.	Airdate	Time	Ratings
(5 capital cities)	Timeslot rank	Overall nightly rank
1.01	Fat Chance	9 July 2008	Wednesday 9:30pm	1,185,000	1st	13th
1.02	The Ambassador	16 July 2008	1,040,000	2nd	16th
1.03	A Time for Talk	23 July 2008	950,000	3rd	18th
1.04	Rear Vision	30 July 2008	996,000	2nd	16th
1.05	Military Matters	6 August 2008	816,000	3rd	24th
1.06	A Housing Crisis	27 August 2008	Wednesday 9:00pm	926,000	2nd	15th
2.01	Shared Interests	3 September 2008	931,000	2nd	17th
2.02	Edifice Complex	10 September 2008	1,044,000	2nd	16th
2.03	Wonder Drug	17 September 2008	941,000	3rd	19th
2.04	Vulnerable to Attack	24 September 2008	906,000	3rd	15th
2.05	A Waste of Energy	1 October 2008	877,000	3rd	16th
2.06	A Quiet January	8 October 2008	931,000	3rd	16th

Production

It was partially inspired by Cilauro's 1996 documentary The Campaign about Paul Keating's failed election. They initially wanted to make a series about an independent politician, but decided that such people didn't really hold much power and wanted to explore the idea that politics is run like a corporation.

Reception

Debi Enker from the Sydney Morning Herald described the first episode of The Hollowmen as using "low-key style [and] sandpaper-dry wit" to show the hollowness of the political newscycle.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott used its premiere to criticise the government, claiming that the "Howard government didn't work like that", and that the series would not have made sense under a Liberal government.

It won the 2009 Logie for Most Outstanding Comedy Program.

Accuracy

In 2008 the Sydney Morning Herald interviewed political advisors about the accuracy of the show. Political advisors noted that the characters were more cynical and amoral than them and their colleagues, and played to people's prejudices, but a few conceded that they knew people like Rob Sitch's character, Tony. They found that pollsters were portrayed as having too much power in the show, and noted that senior public servants were not as innocent as they were portrayed.

In contrast they found larger themes of media driven policies, "arse-covering" and superficial treatment of complex issues were "remarkably accurate", noting that the Melbourne 2am Lockout laws were a good example.

Home media

Series 1 and 2 of The Hollowmen is available on DVD as a three disc box set.

References

(8 June 2008). "Working Dog starts rounding up the Hollowmen".
(9 July 2008). "New Tom Gleisner TV show The Hollowmen a hit unseen". The Daily Telegraph.
Knox, David. (3 August 2008). "Bumped: The Hollowmen".
Michael Idato. (7 July 2008). "Capital punishment". The Sydney Morning Herald.
Enker, Debi. (8 July 2008). "The Hollowmen".
Dart, Jonathan. (11 July 2008). "Hollowmen are Rudd's men:Abbott".
(3 May 2009). "2009 Logies: The winners".
(3 May 2009). "Hollowmen takes top comedy Logie". ABC News.
(17 August 2008). "Hollow truths".
"Roadshow Entertainment catalogue listing".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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