Change of fortune

Right from the get-go, in 2005, Outrageous Fortune has
consistently been the best television drama series ever
made in New Zealand. For four years I've had nothing but
admiration for its creators and main writers, Rachel Lang
and James Griffin, for giving us such credible characters
and strong storylines. They, the core cast and everyone
associated with the series deserve every honour heaped
upon them. At its peak—perhaps some time around series
3—Outrageous Fortune was outclassing just about anything
else on TV, homemade or foreign. Its great virtue was that
it never sank or settled into formula. Week on week, for up
to 20 weeks at a time, that ain't easy.

Yes. But. Sorry, guys, but a few eps into season five and
it's just not cutting it any more. I think the OF idea has run
out of puff and should be laid to rest with honour at the end
of this series. Every possible angle of every possible plotline
about every core character has been milked dry, and now
they're all coming perilously close to being bores, if not self-
parodies. It comes to all great series sooner or later and
there's no shame in that; the only shame would be in not
recognizing it. So I'm sorry to see that apparently there will
be one more series after this. If that's so, Lang and Griffin
are going to have to write some great tunes to make it sing.
One thing that would really help: bringing back Wolf, whose
absence has really weakened series five. The storylines
involving lesser beings like Sheree and Nicky are simply not
interesting enough to sustain whole episodes.

Here at Oppthumbcorp, a mass staff meeting has downed
tools long enough to pass a unanimous vote urging the early
return of Wolf, a lot less Loretta, who's really starting to
grate, and, hopefully, some industrial-strength kick-ass
storylines involving slings and arrows and stuff, even if it
takes a guest appearance by Sir Howard Morrison as a drug
lord to do it.