It’s our ABC Season 2!
In what’s been described as “
Great news for reality TV fans”, the ABC today announced there would be a new season of the award-winning reality program
It’s our ABC. Chair Ita Buttrose said the ground breaking show provided an open window into the daily workings of the national broadcaster and gave the public a genuine insight into how the ABC lives up to its charter. Buttrose stated: “
it’s difficult to see how anyone could label the ABC biased in any way after watching it”. Managing Director David Anderson said the long awaited new season, airing on ABC TV later in 2020, would be one of three Australian television series selected for the 70th Bejingale, one of the world’s largest and most-distinguished public film festivals. The other two being “
Tony! Tony! Tony!” the ABC’s much loved docudrama about its humble news presenter Tony Jones, and “
Just burn it all to the ground” an entertaining, light hearted playful comedy from ABC’s Indigenous Unit. Anderson said “
The ABC is proud to fly our flag, all three of them, for outstanding Australian content at this year’s Bejing International Film Festival. It’s our ABC exemplifies the ABC’s commitment to distinctive Australian stories that resonate around the world. This recognition also celebrates the high calibre of our homegrown talent, on and off camera, that make these shows possible.”
Season 2 will feature the following entertaining episodes:
Episode 1 WRONG TRUMPET
Frustrated that no media outlet has ever found proof that US President Donald Trump is corrupt, ABC’s investigative news unit decide to send a reporter in undercover to get the dirt they know exists. Following facial reconstructive surgery ABC’s US correspondent Donor Cuffy changes his name to Fart Vanderlay and is accepted into the White House Internship Program gaining access to Trump’s offices. We follow “Fart” as he makes new connections and gets closer to locating the evidence he and the ABC know exists.
Looking over the outdated computer he has been assigned Cuffy discovers some suspicious video files buried deep on the hard drive and immediately reports on twitter that he has found something that might be worthwhile. ABC news staff are so confident it’s the dirt they are looking for and without further checking the files they decide to interrupt an episode of Four Corners and cast Cuffy’s report live to air. In exultant tones ABC veteran Sarah Ferguson describes the situation. “We interrupt this important Four Corners Report on the abuse of Lobsters in South Australia to bring breaking news about US President Donald Trump. For the past 6 weeks our US correspondent Donor Cuffy has been secretly working in the Whitehouse and just now he has found damning evidence of the President’s culpability. Donor play the tapes.” On screen a blue cloth passes in front of the camera and some seconds later the words “Ohh Monica” are distinctly heard. The screen suddenly goes black, and a blank faced Sarah Ferguson states, “We are now taking you back now to our programmed report. Fatima el Baksheesh-Namatjira investigates animal abuse in our crustacean fisheries”.
Trump is so impressed with the report Fart Vanderlay is offered a permanent job on the White House media staff.
Episode 2 The Conservative
According to ABC’s Chair of Human Enterprise Learning and Leadership the ABC has the most diverse staff profile of any media organisation on the planet. Among its 5000 or so staff there is even a conservative! This episode spends a week in the life of ABC’s conservative reporter Fanny Blacksmith. Her oddball political allegiances became known after results of a confidential staff personality survey were leaked by the staff elected board member.
It’s the 2019 federal election and after four of its senior presenters and the weather man leave to run as Greens candidates conservative voting Blacksmith gets her chance and is asked to anchor the midnight to 2am slot of ABCs 24 hour news channel. On her appointment Managing Director Anderson states “This appointment shows claims the ABC is biased to the left by the likes of Gerard Henderson are a complete sham”. Despite numerous mysterious technical glitches the ratings go off the charts and the early morning news claims more viewers than the prime time slot. This leads to calls, even from the Friends of the ABC, for Fanny to be elevated to lead the main 7pm news report. However with the opening credits rolling on her first prime time show she is tragically killed, impaled live on air by a falling light boom girder. The broadcast is saved by seasoned presenter Juanita Phillips who just happened to be on set at the time. During the funeral Chair Ita Buttrose states “We will never see another one like her”.
Episode 3 We never climb ULURU Ayers Rock
We follow seasoned ABC environment reporter Fatima el Baksheesh-Namatjira, an Indigenous transgender Muslim and stellar graduate of Wendy Bacon’s University of Technology journalism course, as she travels to Australia’s red centre to cover the ban on climbing Uluru. She conducts numerous interviews with the current owners, elders and Park officials and they all agree that no traditional people ever climbed the Rock and that they never did. Happy with the interviews Baksheesh-Namatjira is invited by the owners to take a camel ride around Uluru but as the camel passes the climbing spur her flapping black burka spooks it and it runs crazily up the summit walk casting aside the last climbers on the way. Near the end of the chain things go from bad to worse as Baksheesh-Namatjira is thrown from the back of the wild beast. Fortunately as she starts to slide down the rock face her burka catches one of the chain posts and prevents her falling to her death. Hanging with her underwear exposed and lower limbs flailing her modesty is saved by a passing Japanese tourist who drapes her in an Australian flag that continues to flap in the breeze as she is brought safely to ground hanging from a helicopter cable.
A few months later mobile phone footage of Baksheesh-Namatjira riding the camel up the Rock becomes the most watched youtube video in history and she is given the role of leading ABC’s Indigenous unit.
Episode 4 Covid1984
ABC's medical expert Norma Swann features in a special 4 Corners report tracking down the origins of the Covid19 virus. Swanny goes deep undercover into the stinking wet markets of China's Wuhan province determined to find the bat or pangolin that started the pandemic and thereby prove once and for all the virus didn't come out of a Chinese lab, a view exposed by President Trump. Posing as a vertebrate guano dealer Swanny enters the Wuhan Infectious Diseases Institute and sneaks into the laboratories. While Swanny is praising the health setup and safe guard the camera pans to a shelf in the background that shows a signed picture of Tony Jones and a box of organic carrots from ABC's roof top garden. A bat swoops in and munches on the carrots then flies straight into Swanny who looks into the camera and then sneezes as he states it will never be known where the virus originated from. As we follow him out a distinct dry coughing sound is heard. The camera tracks back to the bat now in convulsions on the floor half eaten carrot in its claws.
Other episodes this season include:
Ridd Iculous lauds the ABC’s far ranging in-depth coverage of the dismissal of Professor Peter Ridd from James Cook University. ABC head of news stated that the
9 minutes of reporting provided by ABC was amongst his proudest achievements ever;
Saint Greta Greta Thunberg takes up a 3 month internship with ABC Science but the organisation is thrown into chaos as she insists no CO2 be emitted by the organisation for the length of her stay. For three months ABC rely on wind and solar and manage to provide about 20% of their normal output. Both the Chair and Managing Director thank the Australian public for their patience and say they are gratified that not a single complaint was received about the interruptions to broadcasting.
imPelled-Guilty as all Hell: follows ABC’s balanced impartial reporting of the trial of Cardinal George Pell; and
Austinct? We find Australia's first climate refugees. ABC reporters Emily and Chris, members of Extinction Rebellion, are interviewed about their amazing survival following their emergency exodus from their inner-city apartment to a yurt in Mongolia due to smoke from the bushfires.
