Wow. No matter what this show is trying to do, any intentions it has to deliver some sort of "message" is lost. I agree that Aboriginal Australian's have been and continue to be treated like something akin to a slave race, but this show's efforts to address this is lost. The production values are woeful; the acing is barely passable. Embarrassingly so. It makes one wonder if they kept the bad takes and rejected the good. The writing, although based on an interesting concept, has been murdered along the way. I am a lover of almost all genres of film, but this attempt at Sci-fi is poor. The levels of gratuitous violence are unnecessary, and are really only inserted for "shock value" or to appeal to the baser side of an audience that this offering's message would be wasted on anyway. In addition to this, the way women are portrayed in many scenes is despicable, and is not warranted in any genre. Australia has been attempting as a culture to rid itself of the entrenched attitude that violence is acceptable towards women, and sadly this show undermines this. Any movie/game/show that contains graphic displays of this under the "it's OK, it's only make believe" loophole is wrong. You don't have to look far to find a consensus view that most people, subconsciously or consciously, are influenced by what they see on a screen. Congratulations to those that are not - you are in the minority. For the rest of the easily influenced world, this show is reinforcing rather than changing the current view. The next, and final point I raise, is for the NSW government. Why would you put your money into a second series of a show that is so poorly produced, and contained such questionable content. Surely spending the money directly towards the issues the series "claims" to address, would be better and more fruitful.
Review of Cleverman
