Television series
The Chaser's War on Everything
- Satire
- Relentless
- Dip in and out
The Chaser's War on Everything is a satirical current affairs show that weaponises absurdism against politics, media and public figures. Six comedians attack the week's news with sketches, pranks and deliberately terrible advertisements. It's smart without being smug, anarchic without losing focus. For anyone who wants their satire funny first and pointed second.
If you liked this
Have You Been Paying Attention?2013
The same acerbic sensibility applied to current events and pop culture, but as a quiz show. Sharp writing, genuinely funny panellists, and it never condescends to the audience. Australian comedy at its best.
But If you don't follow the news closely, half the jokes will sail past you. It rewards obsessive media consumption.
Shaun Micallef's MAD AS HELL2012
Shaun Micallef's one-man war on news, bureaucracy and corporate language. A single host, a news desk, and the funniest deconstruction of how institutions actually speak. Brilliant writing about the gap between what's said and what's meant.
But It's relentlessly focused on language and rhetoric. If you watch TV to switch your brain off, this isn't the show for that.
Brass Eye1997
A fake current affairs show where presenters interview real politicians and celebrities who don't realise they're being mocked. The audacity is breathtaking, the writing is surgical, and the discomfort is the entire point.
But It's often genuinely cruel and sometimes crosses lines deliberately. Some of the targets are sympathetic figures trapped by their own stupidity.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Chaser's War on Everything
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
In the Loop2009
Like The Chaser, it uses comedy to reveal how power actually operates—not through villainy but through institutional dysfunction, mixed priorities, and the gap between what's said and what's done. The targets are the systems, not the individuals.
Armando Iannucci's film extending The Thick of It into a war-on-terror satire where every character is so committed to their own agenda that catastrophe becomes inevitable. Acidic, furious, and desperately funny about how institutions fail through their own logic.
But It's very British and very specific about early-2000s Middle East politics. The relentless bile can exhaust you. There are almost no sympathetic people in it.
More like this (6)
The Thick of It2005
A mockumentary about British government where the Minister is incompetent, his advisers are sharks, and the dialogue is torrential abuse punctuated by actual policy disasters. Brutally funny and uncomfortably true.
But It's wall-to-wall swearing and verbal abuse. If you need likeable characters or a warm ending, keep walking.
NewsRadio1995
A sitcom set inside a small New York radio station where the jokes come from actual workplace dynamics, misunderstanding and the gap between what news should be and what it becomes. Matthew Brock is a particular genius.
But It's 90s network sitcom in structure, which means things reset each episode. Some of the humour is very much of its time.
Frontline1994
An Australian mockumentary about a second-rate TV newsroom obsessed with ratings. It invented the format that every satirical news show since has borrowed from. Surprisingly prescient about how media actually works.
But It's from 1994, which shows in the pacing and visual style. The satirical targets can feel quaint now—media standards have moved beyond where it was attacking.
The Colbert Report2005
Stephen Colbert plays a right-wing pundit parodying actual right-wing pundits, which sounds simple until you realise how perfectly he nails the rhetorical moves and genuine believe-it-yourself conviction that makes propaganda work.
But The premise wears thin over time. Later seasons rely on the novelty wearing off, which it does. Some jokes need you to know who he's impersonating.
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee2016
Angry, smart, genuinely investigative satire with a host who sounds like she wants to flip the desk. It goes further than most—actual reporting mixed with comedy, real stakes, and genuine rage at injustice.
But The anger can feel exhausting if you're already exhausted. It's very American and very focused on US political trauma. Some weeks it stops being funny and just becomes depressing.
The Act of Killing2012
Where The Chaser uses comedy to expose how systems lie, this uses the lies themselves—and those who tell them—as indictment. Both reveal truth through absurdity, but this one doesn't laugh. It just watches, and makes you watch too.
A documentary where perpetrators of genocide in Indonesia restage their killings as entertainment, directing themselves as action heroes. It's simultaneously unbearable and mesmerising—satire without irony, using the subjects' own derangement to indict them completely.
But It's genuinely disturbing and morally complex in ways that make you uncomfortable. The length is brutal. You will need to sit with what you've seen afterwards.
