Last year, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering delivered on its promise to appear weekly, and to be hosted by Charlie Pickering. This year, it promises to put the sense back into the nonsense of the news world, with three comedians who are expert at supplying sense, and eliminating none.
Like all hastily thrown-together sequels, the second season of The Weekly is bound to be even better than the first. As the news cycle spins ever faster, there’ll be no shortage of targets for Charlie, Tom and Kitty to hit with their carefully-aimed comedy scattergun.
They’ll spend their Wednesday nights exposing the absurd, revelling in the ridiculous, and throwing shoes at the hypocritical. When they run out of shoes, they will throw socks.
The Weekly with Charlie Pickering: Putting the sense back into the nonsense.
I was channel flicking past The Weekly tonight and stumbled onto Charlie’s indulgent editorial. This week it was the topical issue of gender marketing. So topical, in fact, that it retrieved a '70s advertisement for Lego that had been doing the rounds on social media for years. It also featured footage from a 2014 story from The Checkout which had covered the issue in depth.
So this is the hot topic of the moment? A story so old that they had to resort to pinching footage from another ABC program that pre-dated it by about 2 years?
Not exactly biting editorial. I think Kitty Flanagan is the only good thing going with that show.
The Weekly with Charlie Pickering is a popular news comedy show incorporating topical, opinionated coverage of current affairs, cutting edge humour and satire sitting easily alongside serious interviews. In The Weekly, journalism is as important as the satire and comedy. The show is shamelessly outspoken, railing against the injustices, inadequacies and idiocies of the world. It will call out newsmakers, business interests and politicians. It does not take sides with anyone except the viewers. It has heart as well as brain.
Production credits: Produced by Thinkative TV in association with ABC TV.
Runs for: Twenty x 30 minute episodes on ABC and iview
It has it’s moments, but is really just a poor imitation of Last Week Tonight John Oliver. Pickering’s smugness was tolerable on The Project as he had Carrie and the others to counteract that. On his own the smug attitude is annoying.
2016 will be remembered as the year of Brexit, Trump and the Budgie 9. But sometimes, a year needs to know when it has outstayed its welcome. The Weekly’s Charlie Pickering, Kitty Flanagan and Tom Gleeson grab 2016 in a headlock and wrestle it out of the party before it takes any more musical legends with it.
I actually have to agree. I’d tried to stick with it when it was on but just found it to be a tryhard Micallef and so self indulgent. And when the best things about the show are only the 2 sidekicks then there is a problem.
This shit is a prime example of why people are turning against the ABC.
Charlie’s smug, sanctimonious lecturing and belittling of people who hold views that they don’t agree with is great for the self-indulgent progressive type who loves hearing examples of how conservatives are literally Hitler, but to a great deal of people, it just makes progressives look really bad.
I consider myself to be a progressive type of person…yet the rise of people like Charlie Pickering, Waleed Aly, John Oliver and Adam Hills etc. make me ashamed to be one!
Last year, The Weekly promised to put the sense back into the nonsense. In 2017, the nonsense has defeated us. Each week, Charlie Pickering, along with Kitty Flanagan, Tom Gleeson, and - joining the team - Adam Briggs, will pick the news apart, and then attempt to put it back together, hoping that no one will notice the bits they broke.
In a world that is changing at breakneck speed, The Weekly will hardly change at all. We will continue to spend our Wednesday nights exposing the absurd, revelling in the ridiculous, and throwing shoes at the hypocritical. We encourage you to throw yours at us on the telly. After all, it’s your telly.
The Weekly with Charlie Pickering: making breaking news brokener.