Opinion post from guest contributor Mihika Hegde
If you’ve kept up with Channel 10’s highly anticipated drama series, you would have been on the couch, phone in hand for those twitter catch ups, when it wrapped up last Wednesday.
It’s a chick flick meets a nod to progressive politics against an Aussie backdrop- what could go wrong? The series pivots on a tightrope of subtly pushing the genre’s set in stone boundaries while pandering to audiences who’ve come to love the whimsical, starry eyed format that rom-coms have so faithfully delivered.
The show, an adaptation of entrepreneur, Zöe Foster Blakes novel, starts with a promising opening, following offbeat Lily Woodward (played by Jessica Marais), a producer on a run of the mill breakfast television show. She’s quirky, doe-eyed, and a relative newcomer to world of adulthood. The series takes a look at the trials and trepidations of balancing friendships, love, and work, kicking off the morning after Lily sleeps with her best friend, Pete Barnett (Ian Meadows).
Awkwardness and fast paced damage control ensue as she juggles adjacent commitments to maintain some sense of normalcy, not simplified but the addition of a new talent on the breakfast show, chef, Jack Winters (Rob Collins). The pair quickly cement an undeniable chemistry, bolstered by the constraints of their workplace, that prevent anything resembling a relationship from eventuating.
Add to the mix a best friend that’s barely keeping it together (Hayley Magnus as Simone) and a family on the flip-side of a divorce and you get the soft comedy of errors that is The Wrong Girl.
The series heavily borrows from rehashed tropes whether it’s through a love triangle, a two dimensional ‘ditz’ who’s every worst female stereotype at once, or through its career vs relationship narrative theme, that undercuts the story’s arc.
There’s good reason for this- reused and recycled The Wrong Girl may be, it’s got universal appeal and while the TV ratings have been soft so far. The series averaging almost 600,000 views per show, has been renewed for a second season.
If there’s one thing the The Wrong Girl does right, it’s taking a step towards diversity without looking for praise, too overtly. There’s Peter Drew ‘Aussie’ posters in Lily’s apartment, the inclusion of more than one minority character without an exhaustive justification for their presence, and forty minutes of screen time taking a look at sexism in the workplace.
It’s light hearted, palatable, and even generic at times. The Wrong Girl might lack the creative execution of Channel 10’s previous hits Offspring, and Jessica Marais’ work in Love Child; but it’s a work in progress, and with a little experience, it could just become the right show to take the network, to new heights.
