Fisk Season 3 review: funny, feel-good, fab

When last we saw Helen Tudor-Fisk (series co-writer / creator Kitty Flanagan), she was moving up in the world … well, just a little. The lawyer in the brown suit wasn’t pulling down the kind of success that shatters the premise of a sitcom, but it was enough of a win that, if it was the note to go out on, it was a high one.

For a long while, ABC sitcoms had two seasons (if that) and they were done; having Fisk return to our screens was not a sure thing.

Well, aside from the fact that it was one of the ABC’s rare comedy hits, pulling in over a million viewers locally (the Season 2 finale had 1,106,000 viewers, besting a World Cup match between the Socceroos and France) and scoring an international fanbase after making the jump to Netflix.

Watch the Fisk Season 3 trailer

It’s so popular, it’s even available on DVD – not a claim most recent ABC sitcoms and dramedies can make. Seems the secret to success is a charming and slightly daggy sitcom with lots of jokes: who would have guessed?

Fisk: partner

Now a name partner at the newly retitled law firm of Gruber & Fisk, Fisk is tackling wills and probate alongside Ray Gruber (Marty Sheargold), while his sister Roz (Juila Zemiro) runs Conch Mediation just down the corridor. Probate clerk and self-styled webmaster George (Aaron Chen) is still manning the front desk. Basically, it’s business as usual – at least at first.

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There have been a few changes. For one, Fisk now has her own home, and an annoyingly petty neighbour (played by Carl Barron). A big part of the genius of Fisk is that while in their broadest strokes the characters are stock comedy types – sleazy clients, bossy co-workers, an annoying neighbour – they’re always so specific and well observed they never feel generic.

The way the neighbour see-saws between trying to get free legal advice and claiming that the actual advice is just a scam to get him to pay up is perfectly pitched. Larger-than-life characters and real behaviour is once again a winning formula.

Being a partner doesn’t seem to have changed Fisk’s status around the office. Her business cards say ‘partner’ in biro; she’s always the one who has to go to someone else’s office when they want a meeting, and she barely has couch privileges in Ray’s office. And while she’s relishing her new position – she’s even brought in a fancy coffee machine that makes way too much noise – there’s a growing list of responsibilities (and workload) that comes with it.

Fisk: finely tuned

Fisk is a finely tuned mechanism built around exasperation. If someone is happy in a scene, chances are that at least one other person will be annoyed or frustrated by whatever’s causing their happiness. What makes it all work, aside from the sense that everyone has realised that exasperation is their lot in life and so they never take it personally, is that it’s a burden shared.

You wouldn’t call the cast of Fisk overly complex characters. Yes, Roz does have a sideline in song-writing and performing, while Ray has found love (‘friends three months, benefits three weeks’) and with it a surprisingly softer side. As for George, turns out he has a grandmother who used to be a hacker. But nobody here is just ‘the annoying one’ or ‘the bossy one’.

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Even Fisk, who way back in Season 1 arrived as a put-upon character struggling down a bumpy road not of her own choosing, now frustrates her co-workers as much as they irk her (possibly even more now that she’s developed a slightly brighter outlook on life).

Being annoyed by others and yet tolerating them is the glue that holds the series together. Well, aside from the many clients and business rivals who are just plain jerks, even if they’re being played by many of local comedies bigger names (including Dave O’Neill, Tom Ballard, Anne Edmonds, Claudia Karvan, Ray O’Leary, Sam Campbell, Mel Buttle, Rhys Nicholson, Brian Nankervis and Glenn Robbins).

Our review of Season 2 called Fisk ‘the funniest sitcom Australia’s seen in years’. Two years have passed since then, with no challengers for the title in sight. It’s charming, smart, funny and feel-good: we’re lucky to have her back.

Fisk Season 3 is currently showing on ABC and ABC iview.