The Newsreader

Though set in the ’80s, “The Newsreader” feels timely, especially in the way it portrays journalists wanting to do the right thing when it comes to holding power to account, only to be overruled by corporate bosses. It’s also a show attuned to the smallest details of an actor’s performance. .... Even the show’s writing is delicious.

If this series feels a shade jerkier than the first – sometimes it’s as if it doesn’t know what to do with Helen and Dale as a couple – it remains classy, laser-focused and like nothing else on the box.

I have watched the whole series and, apart from one jump-the-shark moment for Helen, it is a treat.

The Newsreader was, is, a joy to watch, and this is mainly down to Anna Torv who plays with fabulous nuance Helen, a talented, takes-no-crap TV newsreader in an Australian newsroom in the 1980s, suffering sexism, male hostility and panic attacks.

It’s a well-told and engrossing drama, offsetting the franticness of a tumultuous industry with a dignified sensibility.

It’s not subtle. But, like all the best news teams, it does the business.

Initially seems to go out of its way to be dreary, not helped by a colour palette in shades of beige and brown. If you make it past the first episode, though, it improves.