If you miss ‘The Office,’ this hilarious Aussie hidden gem on Netflix is your next binge-watch
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If there’s one TV genre that I subconsciously avoid, it’s the “lawyer show” — those case-of-the-week procedurals and pulpy courtroom dramas have simply never done it for me. But I did recently find a successful (and surprising) entry point that might just have changed my mind on the law-show genre: “Fisk.”
Unlike “The Good Wife” and “Good Fight” and such, “Fisk” eschews gavel-banging dramatics for deliciously dry Aussie humor and everyday office absurdities, following a no-nonsense corporate lawyer working at a low-budget probate law firm in Melbourne. It’s more on par with “The Office” than “Matlock.”
If you missed the snarky sitcom — which has aired for three seasons on ABC in its native Australia since 2021 and reportedly will return for season four next year — here’s why you should catch up now on Netflix.
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What is ‘Fisk’ about?
Comedian and series co-creator Kitty Flanagan (“Full Frontal,” “Utopia”) leads the sitcom as our titular Fisk — Helen Tudor-Fisk, that is — a middle-aged, high-end contracts lawyer who leaves Sydney for her hometown of Melbourne to escape the fallout after her marriage breaks down and her career implodes.
Helen soon finds work at Gruber & Gruber, a small law firm in the Melbourne suburbs that specializes in wills and probate law and is populated by a lovable team of weirdos, played by Marty Sheargold, Julia Zemiro and Aaron Chen. (John Gaden also stars as Helen’s father, a retired Supreme Court judge who comes out as gay later in life.)
Across three seasons (thus far), Helen has to navigate not only her new co-workers but also her absurd and difficult clients, whose family wills, inheritance clauses, and the like seem designed to test her patience.
Why I recommend you stream ‘Fisk’ on Netflix
If you’re into the cheeky Aussie humor of sitcoms like “Kath & Kim,” “Summer Heights High” and “Utopia,” you’ll appreciate the deadpan laughs of “Fisk,” but the series smartly balances out the title character’s causticity by pulling in the cozy, lighthearted sweetness of fellow workplace comedies like “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation” and “Abbott Elementary.”
Anchored by Flanagan’s hilariously understated lead performance and boosted by a supporting cast full of Australian comedy veterans, “Fisk” makes Gruber & Gruber a place where you’d definitely want to hang out, even just to witness the kinds of legal hijinks Helen, Ray, Roz, George and the rest get up to each week.
It’s not a surprise, then, that the sitcom has resonated with viewers and became a sleeper hit when it arrived on Netflix globally, cracking the streaming service‘s weekly top 10 charts across multiple countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Canada. It charmed critics, too: “Fisk” previously took home the AACTA Award (basically the Aussie Emmy) for Best Television Comedy Series and Best Comedy Performer for Flanagan. We’re looking forward to even more Gruber & Gruber shenanigans when the show returns for season 4!
Stream “Fisk” on Netflix now
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