“Tudafish? Is that Danish?“
Main Cast: Kitty Flanagan, Julia Zemiro
Created By: Kitty Flanagan, Vincent Sheehan
Helen Tudor-Fisk (Kitty Flanagan) is having a rough year. Her marriage and career have taken serious turns for the worse and she has moved from Sydney to Melbourne. She finds a job in a small family probate firm and sets to putting her life back in order.
That is so much easier said than done, as chaos seems to follow her despite her best efforts to be solitary and boring. Helen is a woman who owns three identical brown suits, because it makes getting dressed so much easier. They are all several sizes too large.
Helen is a dry, witty combination of awkward and outspoken. She is also a very good lawyer, whose competence is desperately needed in her new position at Gruber and Gruber. She has family in Melbourne, none of whom really appreciate either her wit or her competence.
Fisk is, in many ways, a typical sitcom. There are eccentric characters galore and each week brings a new client into Helen’s closet/office. She clashes with coworkers, misunderstands basic human interaction, and generally fumbles her way from one day to the next.
What I really enjoy about Fisk is simple. It’s Helen. She’s wonderful. Co-created, co-written, and played by the brilliant Kitty Flanagan (who also directs), Helen is absolutely endearing and human. Her straightforward approach to the law is at odds with her unorthodox approach to every other aspect of her life. On occasion the two worlds collide, especially if she’s acting on behalf of someone else.
Helen is not immune to emotion. She loves her father, the famous Judge Anthony Fisk, and her dog Artie. She likes George (Aaron Chen), the probate clerk/webmaster at her new firm. She tolerates her other colleagues and her father’s husband. She despises her ex-husband.
We know how she feels, but she is never, ever overly emotive. She is incredibly tolerant of the eccentricities of others even if she grumbles about it behind their backs. She’d like to blend in, do her job, and go home, thank you very much. I adore her.
Fisk is quite episodic. There are storylines that tie the episodes together, but we usually get a new test of Helen’s patience each episode. Some installments are stronger than others, but they’re all pretty delightful. My only real complaint is that there are only six episodes per season. I’d like more Helen, please.
Fisk is an Australian production that began airing in 2021. The show and Flanagan both won AACTA Awards for its first season. It arrived on Netflix in the U.S. in late 2023. There will be a third season, set to air sometime in 2024.
Sue reads a lot, writes a lot, edits a lot, and loves a good craft. She was deemed “too picky” to proofread her children’s school papers and wears this as a badge of honor. She is also proud of her aggressively average knitting skills She is the Editorial Director at Silver Beacon Marketing and an aspiring Crazy Cat Lady.
Leave a Reply