The Commons review – eerily plausible and uncomfortably timely climate crisis drama

Stan’s eight-part Australian drama The Commons is based in “the not-so-distant future” – a familiar turn of phrase to describe story worlds similar to our own in many respects but strikingly different in others. It is set in a climate crisis-devastated Sydney, where the air is a sickly shade of orange and extreme weather conditions pose all sorts of problems – making the show’s arrival uncomfortably well-timed, perhaps, given the 2019 bushfires and increased discourse about the relationship between extreme weather and global heating.

A still from the first season of The Commons, an
eight-part Australian climate crisis drama from Stan.

The first episode opens with a dream sequence in which a heavily pregnant protagonist, Eadie (Joanne Froggatt from Downton Abbey), runs desperately through an empty hospital and into a beautiful garden. There her water breaks, bats fall from the sky and her pregnant belly suddenly disappears; she clutches the ground and howls in pain.

Read the story from The Guardian by Luke Buckmaster - “The Commons review – eerily plausible and uncomfortably timely climate crisis drama.”