By FRANCES GRANT
The meltdown of the Jelly family and their brave rallying is the best thing to have happened in Pearl Bay since, well, the last season of SeaChange ended.
Changes are apparently afoot in the small seaside town hosting a disproportionate swag of endearing Aussie characters. Winter is approaching and
some of the Pearl Bay natives are feeling restless.
But the wobbly Jellies aside, last week's double-episode season opener had many moments when it looked like Australia's favourite comedy-drama series was stuck playing the same old song.
SeaChange's strengths in its superb first season - the will-they-won't-they storyline between Laura and the effortlessly superior Diver Dan, and the slow erosion of Laura's big-city pretensions by laidback country values - has become its weakest link.
This season's long-running teasers will be whether Laura and Max finally stop pussyfooting around each other and have a proper fighting relationship, and if Judge Gibson will be swayed by an attractive newcomer to the Bay.
It's getting harder to care, because as a character Laura (Sigrid Thornton) reached her full potential long ago.
While Thornton still strikes a happy balance between chaotic private life and convincing judicial wisdom, her comedic talents need somewhere else to go.
Fortunately, some other characters are being given a chance to shine in the new series.
Young Jules Jelly is already proving to have inherited father Bob's shark-like instincts for business. Unlike suspended real estate agent Bob, she also seems to have a brain.
Hopefully, Laura's appealing daughter Miranda, who has always been rather under-used, will also get to develop this season.
Meanwhile, former policewoman Karen's attempt to broaden her horizons with a career change are already proving an early highlight.
Her brave sortie into the real estate business was flawed from the outset.
"Your name and whereabouts please," she said on the phone to a customer. "What is it pertaining to? Perhaps if you come down here and make a statement to the relevant agent."
Bob Jelly winced.
"That was too police-y, wasn't it," said Karen.
"The idea is to attract clients, not arrest them," Bob explained.
Angus' descent from cool surfing dude and uncommitted boyfriend of the marriage-hungry Karen to tormented stalker of his newly independent love has been a nice turning of the tables.
But while the show appears to be sticking faithfully to its tried-and-true elements, so far it's suffering from lack of surprises.
Both of last week's episodes felt routine.
Although planting an "endangered" frog species in the area to save Max's boathouse from demolition was a typically inventive Pearl Bay solution to a crisis, it felt like the community was just going through the motions.
The annual dance episode also suffered from too few twists and turns of the plot. For all Laura's and Max's elaborate scheming to get partners, you just knew that they would end up together at the end of the evening.
Still, the beauty of the show has often been in the small touches and they remain in abundance: a scene of Laura wrestling with her mobile phone which perfectly summed up the vanity component in so much human technology; the way Bob Jelly always lets it all hang out in the beer-belly department when he's feeling defeated; the permanent look of hastily in-drawn breath on wife Heather Jelly's face.
And the show's end credits - the best on telly. Some things should never change.
* SeaChange, 8.30 pm, TV3
By FRANCES GRANT
The meltdown of the Jelly family and their brave rallying is the best thing to have happened in Pearl Bay since, well, the last season of SeaChange ended.
Changes are apparently afoot in the small seaside town hosting a disproportionate swag of endearing Aussie characters. Winter is approaching and
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