SBS NITV Digital Originals review: don’t let these gems pass you by

By their very nature, new talent showcases can be a bit hit-and-miss. Sometimes the formats don’t help: the ABC’s comedy-focused Fresh Blood program builds to a handful of half-hour pilots that often end on cliffhangers that may never be resolved. We get an idea of what the talent can do – we just don’t always get a satisfying viewing experience.

SBS’s award-winning Digital Originals initiative takes a different approach. Each year’s series – there are three this year – are made up of six ten-minute episodes that tell a one hour story.

That’s enough time to create a fleshed-out, stand-alone narrative, while the time constraints make sure the stories keep moving along. It’s a format that makes you wonder why we don’t have more hour-long dramas on our screens.

With a focus on highlighting diverse storytellers on both sides of the camera, this joint initiative between SBS, NITV and Screen Australia has been responsible for kick-starting the careers of a wide range of talented people since its launch in 2019.

This year’s line up features two First Nations productions (co-commissioned by NITV), and a queer Pasifika-Australian story for a trio of strongly personal, sharply focused dramas.

Digital Originals: Moonbird

The program starts this Thursday with Moonbird. On remote Seal Point Island off the coast of Tasmania, a father (Kyle Morrison) and his son Sonny (Lennox Monaghan) are about to spend a week on their own muttonbirding.

The relationship’s a fragile one: Sonny lives with his mother in Melbourne and we can tell his dad wants to make this week a special one, but the shabby state of the island’s hut suggests the kind of neglect that can’t be swept away in a few days.

It soon becomes clear that Sonny’s father’s not fond of white people, though Sonny’s mother’s white. His proud statement that ‘it’s been almost a whole year’ since he had a drink is a bit of a worry, especially as there’s bottles of booze stashed around the place.

Sonny’s expression as he dumps a bucket full of dead mice into the ocean pretty much says it all; this adventure is going to be a bumpy ride.

Watch the Moonbird trailer.

Digital Originals: Warm Props

The following week sees the release of Warm Props, a behind the scenes look at a Western Australia film shoot. Things starts out rough for Charlie (Tehya Makani): there’s no lift to the set from Broome, news of her return is spreading fast and her agent warns her this is her final chance to turn her career around.

Her job is to handle the background characters (AKA the ‘warm props’) on Red Dirt Dreaming, a film about ‘a white man who becomes Indigenous’. Things don’t improve from there. Turns out Charlie’s had a good reason to stay away for the last six years; she might be firm that she’s back for work only, but if she doesn’t face down her past it’s going to haunt her forever.

Watch the Warm Props trailer.

Digital Originals: Moni

The final premiere this year is Moni, in which a gay Samoan man (Chris Alosio) is back in town for his sister’s wedding, a decade after his family last saw him and three months late for his mother’s funeral.

With his sister in no mood to forgive or forget, the road to the wedding is set to be a bumpy one – until he returns to the family home to find his mother’s ghost waiting to give him a serve.

Of the three, Moonbird is the most straightforward. It was one of only eight projects worldwide to be featured in the Short Forms Competition at Series Mania in 2025, and it’s easy to see why.

Built on two strong performances and with a script that constantly finds new levels in their relationship, it’s a gripping drama that ramps up the tension while remaining grounded. Booze and guns don’t mix, even when it’s just a slug gun.

Watch the Moni trailer.

Digital Originals: revealing talent

While family is a theme across all three series, the second two rely more on mystery, with children returning home after a long absence that they don’t want to talk about. Both mix comedy with drama; Warm Props is more of a workplace (romantic) comedy, while Moni focuses more on family, but both do a solid job of mixing laughs with more serious issues.

These three series have enough in common to fit well together across the three weeks – if you like one there’s a good chance you’ll like them all – while each standing apart as their own take on the wider issues of identity, culture and community. Polished and professional, taken together they underline the depth of creative talent currently out there.

More importantly, they’re all entertaining in their own right. Snappy storytelling, strong performances and often striking landscapes combine to create a trio of series well worth their one hour run time.

Australian dramas are few and far between on free-to-air television; don’t let these gems pass you by.

The first Digital Original premieres 19 June, 8.30pm on NITV and SBS On Demand, with new episodes airing weekly

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