The first thing I thought upon watching the pilot episode of Channel Ten's latest "grown up" dramedy, as Asher Keddie lapped slowly up and down a suburban pool, was, hey, this reminds me of another of Channel Ten's "latest" grown up dramedies.

Yes, it appears pools and lap swimming are every bit as vital to the lives of slightly screwed up thirty-somethings today as they were when Kelly moved in with Alex and Evan.

So is Offspring the new Secret Life Of Us? (The show does share a castmember or two, most notably the long-absent Deborah Mailman as Cherie.)

This time around it's Fitzroy instead of St Kilda that gets the star treatment - HAY GUYS THERE'S POLYESTER RECORDS! LOL THAT'S JOHNSTON STREET! - and Keddie's Nina provides the constant inner dialogue that was once Samuel Johnson's domain.



(At least Evan's voiceover gave us this.)

And boy, is Nina's commentary ever a constant. 

It feels a cheap way to drop an audience into a show's universe; I'd much prefer to just watch things unfold and gradually work out who is what to who, rather than being given the "As you know, Bob..." treatment by the voiceover.

The show does have more things going for it than most new Australian series have in the past few years; namely the likeable Keddie, and Don Hany as Dr Chris Havel.

If Hany's prime had hit around 1997, he definitely would have won Dolly's Prince Of TV title:


(Certified hunk.)

But one stone cold fox does not necessarily a great show make (step right up, White "OMG Matt Bomer take me now" Collar), and there's one major thing about Offspring that doesn't work for me.

Nina's ex-husband is a stalker who blows things up to demonstrate his undying love for her. This offers the chance for such Logie-bait dialogue as "You blow up my chair, and then you break into my locker!"

ZANY!

No, seriously:



I believe the correct term here is "lolwut".

Putting aside obvious issues with using a psychotic ex as a device for offbeat humour ("There are two things in the world that I'm good at: one, I'm good at loving you, and two, I'm good at blowing shit up"), it illustrates the key problem with Offspring, and indeed with so many quirky Australian comedies: quirk and whimsy in the place of solid characters or story.

Offspring is so crammed with flashbacks, fantasies, hand-written overlays, voiceovers and dinky musical cues that it's hard to tell if there's a good show lurking underneath the kitchen sink.

(Is this a television series or a Yalumba advertisement made by 1st year advertising students?)

But there is something compelling (in the way that my quasi-Raymond Carver Year 12 lit short story where a mother and daughter were both screwing the same teacher was compelling) in the plot twist that the newly returned Cherie is in fact having Nina's dad's baby - i.e. her new half-brother!!!1 - that could go either way.

I'll keep watching Offspring, because I like the cast and it's good to have a Melbourne show on air that isn't the nonsensical Rush, but I just hope they lay off the bells and whistles soon.

I like to keep my quirk and my dramedy separated.