It’d be easy to write off Network Ten’s latest offering, Sisters as a light, fluffy, colourful Aussie drama like the many that have come before it.
But we’re gonna stop you right there.
Wednesday night’s premiere showed us exactly why Sisters is worth a watch. And we saw it in the first seven minutes.
Made by the same producers and writers behind arguably Ten’s most popular Australian drama, Offspring, many – including us – were quick to draw comparisons between the two shows.
Same genre. Same location – both are set in Melbourne. Same-ish faces, both with all-star Aussie casts of fresh talent and household names. Even Sisters’ trailer had an Offspring vibe to it, focusing on the messy life of its main female character.
But that’s where we got it wrong. Because while both shows are great in their own right, they are not the same.
In Offspring’s premiere, we’re introduced to Nina and all the absurdities that are her life. Her fantasies. Her relationships. Her office politics. While Nina’s popping in and out of work to deal with Jimmy’s bike or her mother’s midday wines, we see Sisters’ lead, Julia coming home to empty her terminally-ill father’s urine container.
A 30-year-old only child, Julia's struggles are far different to Nina's. Namely, being a full-time carer for her elderly father, something which many adult children find themselves doing at some stage in their lives.
Minutes later, our first introduction to Lucy Durack's Roxy Karibas, a children's entertainer, is similarly untidy. Passing out on-air, a consequence of a prescription medication addiction she relies on to get through the day, we see her parents coming to rescue, wondering if they're ever going to get through to their adult-aged child who still hasn't grown out of 'that phase'.
Then there's Edie Flanagan, played by Antonia Pebble, whose first scenes feature her sitting on a therapist's couch, forced to explain to her husband exactly why he's unable to make her orgasm. In humiliating detail. The conversation is uncomfortable to watch, but mirrors what so many women should be telling their partners and aren't.
Before the first ad break, Sisters gave us three very different, but equally raw and realistic depictions of what a 30-something-year-old woman's life looks like. Sure, we still fantasise and banter with our work wives like Nina. But it's the day-to-day struggles of Julia, Roxy and Edie that lie underneath the Nina-like facade we all try so hard to maintain.
LISTEN: The Binge's Clare Stephens chats to Lucy Durack about why Sisters is so bloody good (post continues after audio...)
Durack agrees, telling Mamamia it's the shows' messages that make them fundamentally different.
"Offspring is largely about how love is the answer in lots of different ways, whereas Sisters is about learning how to belong," she says.
"These are girls who are keeping on keeping on in a world where they're facing very large struggles, and I think that's fairly true to life which is what make it relatable - they keep on keeping on and keep finding the minor triumphs in life that are the major triumphs in life, which I guess is philosophically true. It's uplifting in that way."
"I've always loved Offspring, I am extremely happy with the comparison," Durack adds, summing up what we all know to be true. Nothing could ever replace the Proudmans. And that's the beauty of Sisters. It's going places Offspring's first seasons never went, and we're excited to see where it'll take us next.
LISTEN: You can get the full episode of The Binge in your ears right here...