Written & Directed by Tony Walsh
Starring Julian Curtis, Thomas Larkin, Becky Lucas, Sam Cotton, Sophia Emberson-Bain, Jonathan Fang
Score 3.5/6

For A Good Cause was created by emerging writer and director Tony Walsh (The Bus Knight, Sodium Squad) with funding from Screen Queensland’s shorts program. The Pilot episode White Balance premiered on YouTube on November 26th, 2018. The Series Producers are currently pitching the series to broadcasters and VOD platforms.

The series follows Ollie, the agency’s newest editor and fall-guy, as his moral compass is slowly eroded by their toxic work environment and poor values. Led by the manic and manipulative creative director Max, and constantly kept in check by the ballbuster producer Grace, the dysfunctional team hypocritically betray all of their ethics and work their staff into the ground — because after all, it’s for a good cause.

I’m not sure if For a Good Cause is something that I would normally watch, when it comes to Australian comedic content, I’ve been more of a fan of sketch comedy. I’m glad I gave For a Good Cause a chance because there are times that seems that Australian series are harder to come across then an Australian movie at the cinema.
As we all know comedy is one of the more subjective genres and I will admit that I did feel a little awkward while watching this, I suppose we can chalk the awkward feelings up to first episode jitters, as I have been burnt by other Australian comedy series in the past, (In the pilot episode Ollie is ordered to “fix” the diversity problem in a government ad for the opposition party) I did find myself chuckling a few times throughout the episode especially at the end. I have to wonder would it have been better for the episode that I saw if the 12 second teaser was not at the beginning of the episode? I can understand the use of episode recaps for subsequent episodes, but those 12 second was an overly detailed, unneeded road map of the jokes for the episode.
I was unfamiliar with everybody who was cast in the series though I enjoyed the relationship between Ollie (Julian Curtis) and Max (Thomas Larkin), though I have only seen the pilot episode as the series progresses, I can only hope that Ollie’s victories outnumber his losses.