Barons, Surviving Summer – surfing makes waves on TV

Surfing in 2022 is not how it was in its laid-back heyday but these shows express beautifully the thrill a great wave can still provide.

How did surfing, which prizes a laidback coastal lifestyle of philosophical oneness with the ocean, become so commercialised that 15-year-olds are already fretting about the trajectories of their professional careers?

Exasperated with her ungovernable daughter, Summer’s Aussie photographer mum Margot (Kate Beahan) has sent Summer to stay in Margot’s hometown with Margot’s childhood friends Abby and Thommo Gibson (Adrienne Pickering and Dustin Clare). There she meets the Gibsons’ teenage son Ari (Kai Lewins), a star grommet who’s still recovering, physically and mentally, from a near-fatal surfing accident a year earlier.

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Mel Campbell is a freelance cultural critic and university lecturer who writes on film, TV, literature and media, with particular interests in history, costume, screen adaptations and futurism. Her first book was the nonfiction investigation Out of Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit (2013), and she has co-written two romantic comedy novels with Anthony Morris: The Hot Guy (2017) and Nailed It (2019).