In its first season, Austin was a series of two halves. In one, Australian actor Michael Theo played Austin, a young neurodivergent Canberra man on a journey of discovery across the globe sparked by the return of his absent father.
It was pleasant, entertainingly heart-warming stuff, enlivened by Theo’s winning performance and some funny supporting work from Gia Carides (as his mum) and Roy Billing (as his grandad).
In the other, UK actor and comedian Ben Miller played Julian, a self-obsessed children’s book author with a failing marriage whose career hit a massive speed bump when he accidentally (it’s always an accident) #cancelled himself on an Australian tour by retweeting a white supremacist. Then he thought he found a way back: callously exploit the son he never knew he had … which would be Austin.
That season ended on a cliffhanger: was Austin really Julian’s son? Which felt like a bit of a weird note to go out on. After everything they’d been through – mostly Julian’s attempts to exploit Austin’s neurodivergance to redeem himself – it was hard to see a DNA test making a big difference either way.
Watch the Austin Season 2 trailer.
But when the results come back negative – Julian, it seems, is not Austin’s father – Julian offers to help Austin find his actual biological father … and if that makes him look like a decent guy for once, so be it. Many twists, and a trip up north, soon follow before (in what is an actual surprise development in a series overly fond of dragging things out) this particular question is answered once and for all.
Meanwhile Julian’s wife and illustrator Ingrid (Sally Phillips), who spent last season realising her dreams had been stifled by her husband’s ambition, is now a solo artist living in the back shed and giving ‘gnomecore’ vibes according to their grown-up daughter Florence (Ellie McKay). Will the estranged couple find a way to make it work? Ingrid’s making a list of Julian’s good and bad qualities, and she’s checking it twice.
Austin: loose ends
The loose ends from the first season having been tied off, future episodes shift their focus to a pair of only loosely connected plots. Julian and Ingrid are largely occupied with the television series that’s being developed based on their Big Bear books – with Julian sidelined pretty much right from the start due to his social media pariah status. Which feels a little unlikely in 2025 but maybe they’re still touchy about such things in the world of children’s books.
Over on Austin’s side of the sitcom, the book he was working on last season has the potential to become a publishing sensation, but with that comes a bunch of challenges he’s not entirely sure he wants to deal with. Marketing is a slog at the best of times, but when it’s based on a version of you that you don’t recognise it’s a tough sell.
Sitcoms have had separate parallel storylines for decades. But this UK-Australian co-production often comes across as two halves that don’t really make a whole.
That said, there are a few connections here and there: Julian is still trying to steer Austin’s career, while Austin’s search for love (in shades of his breakout appearances in Love on the Spectrum) includes an assistant on the Big Bear series. And there’s an ongoing subplot involving Austin’s mum that promises to bridge the divide.
Austin: step back
Maybe what’s needed is a step back. If you consider the whole eight episodes to be a look behind-the-scenes at what it takes to create a media success, then Austin’s publicity woes and the various hijinx taking place on the Big Bear set (including a fun appearance down the line from Rodger Corser as the bear) do connect … in a thematic way at least.
Even splitting the locations between London and Canberra feels plausible, so long as you can accept an Australian production team would make a kids show like Big Bear as a live-action series and not an animated Bluey knock-off.
Consider it a way to double your comedy value – a kind of two for the price of one deal. They’re both solid sitcom set-ups, so it’s not like one side of the ledger is dragging the other down. Miller and Phillips are seasoned pros who can get a laugh with a look, while the always charming Theo deftly handles his own side of things whether he’s tackling comedy or handling a more serious moment.
It’s increasingly likely that series like Austin are the future of scripted projects on free-to-air television in Australia. Gone are the days when a show could make it to air by doing one thing well: now the more you can cram into a project to grab as many viewers and as much funding as possible, the better.
And if the end result is perfectly serviceable without being in any way memorable, a collection of quality ingredients that rarely combine into something special? At least nobody here gets murdered in a small coastal town full of secrets.
