It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week ayby welcome back guys to TV Reload. My name's Benjamin Norris, and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors, and casting agents, plus the talent that we see on our screens.
TV Reload reloads the shows that you are currently watching and gives you a better insight into our television industry and our streaming services. Today on the podcast, I have Penny Winn, who is the executive producer of the scripted drama The Twelve, which reaches its conclusion this week on
Foxtel and Binge. Over ten weeks, fans have been glued to their screens as startling revelations of a high profile murder trial have unfolded, alongside the stories of twelve jurors who are not only confronted with the grim details of the case, but with their own realities and struggles which are rev could be changed.
Their lives forever.
Penny has worked across some amazing shows like Wentworth, A Place to Call Home, Deadline, Gallipoli and so many other brilliant dramas that has Australian and international audiences not only enjoying but celebrating. Actors want to work with her, crews want to work with her, and writers know how much she values their hard work to make the characters we.
See on our screens come to life.
We will talk about The Twelve's journey from page to screen, if scripted drama is getting easier or harder to make, the pressure or constraints of delivering a certain amount of episodes, and what Penny thinks of the statistics, and what Penny thinks of the statistic that most of Australia believes per character Kate Lawson is innocent.
However, let's get started with today's guest.
I'd like to welcome industry legend Penny Win to TV reload.
For a lot of people watching it, it would have resonated.
The twelve is extensibly about a je sitting on a murder trial.
I've always been very strong about portraying female violence on screen. Claire Spears was fourteen years old when she was murdered by Kate Lawson. Sometimes you tell stories that you've never told your family or people, you know, if she was strangled with her own school tie. I've always had interested in having strong female characters. The jury is everything, best form of storytelling. You want people to go away still talking about it.
Hi, Penny, how are you?
I'm very good? Thank you? Is it Ben or Benjamin?
It's funny.
I can work out how people know me based on how they say my name. So Ben is pretty much what most people call me. But I was on a reality show years ago where they called me Benjamin. So if I hear people screaming Benjamin, I think ah.
I always like to ask, because I'm very much part of that school of realizing I've lived in. When I lived in London, I realized that what Ozzie's and keewis? Do you hear them being introduced to somebody and they'd go the English person go on, my name's Anthony or David or whatever it is, and we'd always go Dave or Tony or ant We'd immediately shorten it without even asking.
So, well, you can call me anything you're like, No, be careful, We'll wait and see how the interview goes. You know, I have to say congratulations on the twelve. How long has this project been in your life for it was.
I'd spoken to Hamish about it earlier in twenty twenty, not long I think after it all started. So the writer's room started in December in twenty twenty because I was in quarantine in New Zealand when I came back, so I remember that starting. So been it's been a while. It was a good long development period but a lot of writers, so a long time in development. But then once it started shooting, and it was a long shoot, they always go really quickly, even though it doesn't seem quickly.
Suddenly you think, oh, we've got plenty of time, and then you get oh my god, there's like three weeks left. No changing.
Now you have a bit of a process though, where you kind of have the team of writers together and get the project basically written before it's green lighted.
Is that right?
Basically the standard in Australia. A lot of it comes down to being state funded or green Australia funded, but basically before you green light, what you'd like from the producers is the first stage of development is a bible and if you can of the first and second script, so before you green light it, because I mean that's where everybody, so you can see you've got faith in it, you trust in the whole process, whatever else is, but that's normally for you green light that you have that
to start with.
Well, I'm sure that this project has been under your skin for a very long time. Is it a bit bittersweet to have the series finale happening this week?
Oh?
It's always bitter sweet, it really is, but a sweet when you spent so much time on any project you've worked with, there are so many stages of the anticipation and then oh my god, they're more anticipation.
It's like the writing, and then it's great, but then
it's pre production. Then production starts happening and you go through all that, and then that finishes and there's edit, and then it goes to air and so it can keep on living for a long time, and then when the final one goes, where you go, that's actually the final, almost the final, full stop because in the world we live in now with streaming, screaming, everything going on, but you know it always is, and then you look forward to the next one.
Do you have a person in your life that you will show an episode, someone maybe not from the industry, but someone you show your wall.
No I don't, Actually, no, I don't. Actually I've never done that. I'll say this here. But some of us do and some of us don't. Some of us watch it when it goes to air, and some of us have watched it so many times and we have our own thing of whatever it is, and we don't watch it go to air. And so I'm one of those ones who don't watch it go to air. But I will go on social media to see what people are saying about it and what all the movements are. But no, I don't.
How hard is that to read?
I mean, we tell the talent not to read the screen, but you know, the people who are behind the scenes, you know, it's just as personal, if not more personal to them. So how what is that relationship like when you are reading the audience reactions.
I just think of it as a learning thing. It's further education and the world we live in with television because it and storytelling, you know, it's part of it. You don't use it to change what you think, but it can influence, and it's more to do with movement and the zeitgeist and what's happening at the time, and you need to have feedback from all sorts, and you get it from industry, you get from people you know who watched it, but going online and reviews and just
seeing how the waves and how people are responding. I think it's really important you don't take it to heart. You can't take it to heart, because we all know. In terms of social media, more people are inclined to if they're angry, to write on social media. And back in the day when I started in television, it used to be coming in and reading the overnight. It's not the ratings, but what the people who complained rung up about, and so you read all those and that's normally. That
hasn't changed. It's just more people read it.
Is there anything that you've read online that stayed with you that's maybe worked for the better, like you've read something gone off?
There have been times, particularly say on Wentworth there I would read because it was sometimes characters and because it played the characters. But sometimes characters hit differently than you, and then you think they resonate much larger, whether it's because they hate the character or they really like it. If you're working like ongoing series or you're still writing as it's going to air or shooting whatever it is that can that does. I'm not to say it can
it does. You go, okay, okay, you don't change it for what they say, which are very aware of the impact it's having, and that can influence sometimes, you know,
because you know, socially things change. Finding out some things that have impact with people, whether it's gender I don't want to say gender politics, but things like that, and you go, okay, we've gotta be careful with this for things like I've always been very strong about portraying female violence on screen is the reason for a show to exist, So paying attention to those those will also you go, look, we're not doing that. Let's move away and find another way to tell that story.
That's sure.
Went Worth was really quite interesting, though. I mean, you guys, really you stitched us up, like sometimes you'd make us love a character only for you to make us haay.
Them, you know, I think.
I mean, we gave the clue in the very first episode of the very first series. That was the clue that this Wentworth wasn't going to be what you thought when we killed off Governor Jackson Catherin McClements, who was great and wonderful and she was the only one you who knew going in, and she did it. And we've had her on all the marketing and in the end
the shop. I remember being a lot of previews where people were really shocked, and so that's what I said, Well, if we can do then that ball is going to keep rolling. Just you know, don't get attached to anybody. There were a couple of characters I knew that I was never we were never going to kill off, but they shall remain nameless but pretty obvious.
Well, I absolutely love that Alfred Hitchcock quote, which I know that you've shared often, which is what is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.
I love that quote.
Yeah, funny. I was thinking about that today because it's pretty much true. That's exactly what it is. You know, in the world that we live in now with television viewing, with how people dive into it and all the places they can go, our audiences are smarter and smarter and smarter, and the bar is raised higher and higher and higher. So in any development, any story you choose to green light and go ahead with, always been complicent of the
viewers being really smart. There's nothing wrong with tropes, but it's working with them against them to them. Because our viewers are really smart, you don't need to tell them what's going on. They want to work it out themselves. So I think that's a really big part of development making great shows.
Well, particularly with The Twelve.
Like I have to admit it is the intelligent man's scripted drama. I shouldn't say, man, you know that's the that's the phrasing, but this show is the intelligent person's scripted content. Like I was watching it and it wasn't a show you could have your phone in your hand, that is for sure.
It was definitent. I mean, as everybody knows it was adapted from a Belgian series, The Twelve, and the writers and the people who sat in the room and the script producer and everybody talking about it was really really really wanted to make sure that it was an adaptation. It was an Australian adaptation. So you go for the sense and the sensibility of the show and what the core,
heart and core of it is. But I think they've done an unbelievably beautiful job of adapting it to Australian, being reflective and representative of Australia, the streets that we walk around as the people we see. There was nothing there that was inserted or there was no techs, no tech boxing, boxing ticks, oh my god, there was none of that. It was all organic and true. But it was wherever you go, that's the world that you see, the people that are on the screen so and the
stories that resonate with Australian So they didn't. They thought they did a really, really beautiful job.
It's such an honor to chat with you. I mean, I've been in your audience for so long, watching so many shows. I've always wanted to ask you, particularly, what is it that you love about scripture drama.
It's storytelling, isn't it. It's just storytelling from the moment we're born all the way through our lives, you know, whether it's nursery tales or sitting in kindy or for me, it was like going to the library and reading every book in the library. It takes you to a place that you couldn't be yourself. You can go away from the world you live in if it's bad or it's good. You can walk a mile, well not a real but you know, you can walk a mile in the shoes
of somebody else that you may never see. You may never know, you can experience other like other cultures, you can understand and see and people can see themselves on screen. It's a way of telling the story of the world in a way that we can access. There's a passion that goes behind storytelling and what you see on screen,
the amount of people. I just think it can be an escape you can Entertainment can also provide a way for you to learn things that you didn't know, that you didn't know or you want to know more of,
and it's still entertaining. I just love it. As you can tell, I might just get really passionate about it, and I get listening to recently culture and Australia and the importance of storytelling, the importance I grew up at a time as many Australians of a certain age did and New Zealanders where we didn't see our own stories on screen where and the music that we heard was England or America, and we had people doing cover versions of it, and all our shows were from England and
the UK, and all the bands and the music and the TV and the movies that came up and we saw ourselves on screen. They were huge because we were seeing ourselves on screen. And so right now, I just think it is really important for Australian storytelling because a lot of people don't remember when we didn't see it, and how important it is for a culture, for people, for communication, for storytelling, to see ourselves on screen, and particularly now when we've all changed, because we're not we
are truly multicultural. There are so many stories and people to be represented. It's even more important now because that's our world that we live in now and scripted drama under entertainment can invite us into those worlds.
Oh. Absolutely, it was a bit of a rave.
I'm sorry, but.
I would expect nothing less and if you didn't do that, I'd be disappointed. So I mean, for me, I remember being a child and hearing stories read to me by my mum, like The Far Away Tree, and I always loved that feeling when you just connect into a different
world and then connecting to what you're talking about. I have seen that evolution for us here in Australia to be able to see ourselves more on screen, and that's the currency, that's the currency between us and the content is to be able to see ourselves.
I think when that.
It's super really important and we because we see it, just understanding that if it goes away, we won't see it, and what the impact that we'll have on how we perceive our own country and how others perceive us. We are different and if we want to each of our countries are different. If we want to perpetuate that, we have to. We have to see it on screen.
I keep saying it's about our mental health, like we need to be reflected as a society on screen. The government needs to reinvest more money into our homegrown content because it's vital, you know. I feel passionate about it, and I think that there is some responsibility, some accolade in some of the brilliant scriptwriting that has happened that has allowed us to feel normalized.
Yeah. No, I consult to both Boxtel and SBS and both of those roles. You know, there amazing talent out there that you want to move from there to their to there and you can and the stories and the writers and the creators that are coming out of so many communities with amazing stories to see for themselves, but for us to hear and see it's pretty vibrant. It's just as you say, getting the support behind it to
lift everyone. I mean, there's that old cliche, the rioting tide lifts all boats, but it's actually kind of true.
It's true, it's true, it's true, And if we could, can we talk about these sort of interwoven themes when it comes to your back catalog of work, is there a signature, Penny when look and feel that audiences have come to expect with you.
When we first started commissioning, the last way with Fox Tell was lifting up production values, the look, the quality of the writing. So because the shows that we were showing were HBO and Showtime and BBC, and we knew that Australia could do it, so that was the first part. And then it's the writing. So it's always We've always been a lot on development and writing, and I think the writing is the first start in the writer's room and the authentic of the voices, and that's increasing as
time goes on. As well. I've always had interested in having strong female characters, and that's not at the disservice of male characters. But there's no point having strong female characters and leads if the men aren't strong as well, so that's always been a big one. And location, the locations being a character in the show. And yeah, just like that, the quality of it all, particularly in the writing.
I think, you know, writers they're not valued as highly as they could be, particularly monetarily so, but yeah, strong characters and the intelligence of the viewers has always been big. Whoever the viewers are, they're intelligent when they're watching. That's why I always impress upon writers and productions, always think of them as intelligent and smart.
It's so good these days when you can see our shows up against the international shows we now are on the streaming platform where we get these little boxes right and the little trailer starts to play, and if you look at the content that we're making at the moment up against what is happening around the world, you know where at the same level, which is crazy to me. Before we did have some good scripts that just didn't
look the same. But these days you get in content that's just as good as anything.
Petition competition does that, as we know, with anything, whether it's closed shoes, food, restaurants, bars, competition, it's really good. And so as we've increased, you know, we went from freedomware networks only to pay cable satellite, then the streamers coming in and so it just lifts the game. It just as constantly the bar is constantly rising in our world and knowing we have to sit on the same
platforms as the best in the world. That's also and you know, and internationally in both Australia and New Zealand, they there's such a huge respect for the crews and
the writers and the people who were work here. I think it's also cheaper to be honest, but I think you know, value and the level of professionalism and quality and creativity and Australia is huge, So that's yeah, the competition has helped and it's also made the people that write the checks and Australia go okay, we know it's go And as that lifts up, there's a lot more confidence and less risk averse decisions.
Well, I think that there's something also very moody about the content that you make. Immediately you are transported into these characters' worlds, and I feel like with the stories that you've been telling that the characters are in it are as real to me as people in my own life.
That's been hugely important, I know in many a writer's room, and with particularly with ongoing series. I mean, if you've been in a writer's room where anybody out there has the one thing is that the rules are what happens in the room stays in the room, and so people are really honest about things. Sometimes you tell stories that
you've never told your family or people you know. And so whenever you watch a great drama on tally wherever it's from, if it's really great and the dialogue is great and the characters are fully evolved and they're talking and you believe the dialogue, that's because in the writer's room there's been an authenticity and the truth and the stories and the things that are being told, and you can smell it, you can taste it, you can see it, you know, and that's really important.
Absolutely. I mean I can watch just to see.
I watched a scene from one of your shows today and off the top of my head, I can't remember which one it was. It's the latest one that's on SBS that you've just done. Why can't I think of that?
True Colors?
True Colors. There's a little clip on YouTube and it's so weird because you just watch a moment that's happening. You know, you're watching, you've seen that's happening, but immediately you feel like you are a fly on the wall.
Yeah, that was That was one of the magic moments in my career was working with the people that made True Colors because the level of authenticity was more than one hundred percent, you know, and I can take little credits for that. I mean right as it was fun year, and it was it was Warren Williams and Erica Glynn and Stephen McGregor who were in the community, and so
it's really authentic. And that's amazing because when it is like that and there's so much respect showing the scenes that you're talking about, you can see that because of it, it sounds really important.
Well, you kind of you're downplaying that a little bit because at the same time, your names on the project and people want to side settle up against people that understand that you know, you've been sought out or you've found those people, and that's happened for a reason because you're all believing the same mantra when it comes to the art of storytelling.
Yes, and it's the joy of the career is working with other people who feel the same way. It's the alchemy when all of the parts work together to make something great. It doesn't happen with everything, but when it does, it's magic, and that's what you see on the screen.
I think the work that you've been telling is the finest quality of austrain and storytelling and something to be really really proud of. Is it getting harder to make scripted drama or is it getting easier with streaming platforms.
No, it's not harder. It's not easier, but it's not harder. There will continue to be challenges. The one thing about the scripted television industry or the television industry as a whole, is now again a cliche, but the only constant is change,
and it's always changing. It's whether it's on a a company level when people are buying out companies, or people are moving from place to pace, the commissioning editors or commissioners are moving around, or the new streamer coming in, or laws of change, or writers in Australia have moved overseas, or directors or actors. It's constantly changing, so that has increased. But a good story is a good story, and if you find that good story. It is normally made, you
know it, and then people will find it. So I don't think it's any harder. I think you'll have people who producers listen to the girl it's so hard to find money, And yes it is, but it's never been easy either or not in my time. You know, it may be back in network days when deals were done over lunches, but great shows will continue to be made, great talent will continue to be found.
I think with The Twelve in particular, when you talk about acting and the content, it all sort of came together, and this show is just so fascinating.
It's a feast for the audience. It It was.
A beast in terms of the size. It's ten hours, the number of cast main is huge, and then you've got all the others who aren't made, but the secondary characters and the guest and then you know, you've got
two parallel arts going. You've got the crime, which is fascinating and it has to be written really, really well, and that one had to be cast really well because Kate you had to be sympathetic, empathetic and believe maybe no, and then you had to go yet to find the moments where cool and that's where Kate Moulbany was incredible. And then you've got the jury, the jury, and there's you know, there's fourteen of them to start off with and navigating that and build that, and that was I
would say. So it was a hard ask in the first episode because there was a lot coming onto the screen of for people to take on board. But so it was the beast that way. But the writers the directors did an incredible job. Many actors. There were the breads of talent from you know, the incredibly well known charismatic Sam Neil to the younger ones who this is their first big gig or people didn't know them and they've been acting in smaller roles and to take on that.
And then they were all looking together almost ensemble, because so many of the courtroom scenes it's just them and day after day. So it was a beast but amazing how it turned out. And there's a lot of story
in there. There's a lot of story. I think if people went back and watched it again, they would so pick up on the things they didn't notice the first time, to see how wonderful ly the characters have built just little little things in there with Georgina that slow build with what's happening in her world, or Corey and Alexis, and Alexis and his brother and the dad. You know, all these little things are just there to go their characters and then the tying up of this is our world.
If we were to commit a crime, or we're to be on a jury, this would be us.
That's how you feel as an audience.
You feel like that, are you worried that at this point where you've now story boarded this many characters, that you were worried that audiences would get too confused with too many characters?
Like what was your pull through with feeling that contures?
Remember I've said now, always assume our viewer is intelligent. Obviously you have to be aware of that, so you know there are changes through scripting and then when the directors rehearsed with the actors, and then an edit, and you know there are things you know, sound and all these things you can do to help lift the drama it needs to be. I think we all knew that with that many characters and storylines, we had to be
really be careful. So we're connizant of it. But the bottom line is you had to get the story there. You know, you had to you had to make you had to have the crime, and you had to have those jurors in there. So yeah, it was I want to say, risky, a little bit risky, I think because it's it's quite dense and in the world that we live in now, with so many distractions on television, it's
quite a big ass. But I think it was so beautifully crafted and people were trusting what they were seeing, particularly because of the actors and Fiona Donovan did a main amazing production design. I think they trusted it because they were going, look at them, look at them, how good they look? At the caliber? This is good? You know, there was so Yeah. I think it was a long winded answer to your question.
Sorry, no, it's I mean, you're going to have to give these answers because they aren't short answers. Because this story's magnitude, the tapestry gets lit all together requires information and that's why TV like what you make is good because it isn't all fed to you. You do have to think and you have time to talk about it with your friends, which I also think is a part of the magic.
You know what I mean, it's changed, and when Netflix first became huge and arrived in Australia, we all just loved the binge. I mean just we just all loved the binge. It was like, oh my god, we can watch tenets No, this is so amazing. And then over time both Netflix and others have gone see Game of Thrones. Help that was like, actually, some of the shows will just put out week on week to build up the anticipation,
but also for the talking. You're talking about people talking and discussing theories and being excited and then getting excited about watching the next one. And sometimes when there's a lot in it, like the twelve, that week of colgitating on it, thinking about it and if you're talking about it with people going did you see that? When do you think about that?
So?
Yeah, So I think the week on week is also really helpful.
Well, the characters at times are really quite complicated. You know, they really challenged us as an audience the whole way through this show with choices that kept making that were quite frustrating. I feel like that is the currency with audiences. We want to see ourselves in story because we are complicated and we make it a.
Yes and all complicated in so many different ways. I mean, what character has resonated for you?
Oh, I mean for me.
I don't know why because it doesn't have anything to do with my life. But Brooks Satchwell's character and the fact that she allowed this man to manipulate her, it doesn't obviously strike a chord with me, and it doesn't have something to do with something that's happened in my life. But I think we all feel like someone's undermining I don't know if I'm going off on a weird tangent here, but I.
Felt some Yeah, I've just felt that particular story.
I think it's because it's as resonates hugely in our current world. Family violence is an incredibly big issue and there's so much emotions, but you know, coercive control is one of the bigger issues, and the fact that there's now legislation in some states to understand that it's actually a crime. And she didn't allow herself to be manipulated. She was manipulated to a place where it was part of her world, and she had the children, so it's
protecting the children. And Brooke played it so subtly and a lot of it was just in her face and the reaction and what was going on. So it wasn't throwing it in the face of the viewer, but for a lot of people watching it, it would have resonated because even if they hadn't experienced it, they've heard of it or they've seen it in other things. And so I think she played it quite beautifully because I think
that happens. That's more common in reaction than you would think. So, and each of the stories I think with the other characters were like that, like the one that you don't think is a big story, but you know the dad with his daughter and she's been slightly rebellious, and so of course that was very similar to what was happening with Clear. And he was hearing the dad talking and
I was saying, oh my god, I'm like Nathan. And so you saw his slow change because he was a juror in a case that was similar and heat changed. And so there are little bit moments where the cameras on him and he wouldn't do much, but his eyes would go like this. So those little subtle things help to build the atmosphere and make people, I think, more malleable to hearing and seeing what they were seeing. Sorry, I just told you how to think, didn't I.
No, because I think you helped me with that. But I mean that's what this show is. I mean we should be talking about it like that.
You know.
I think that in some ways, when we're growing up, we think things happen in a straight line or that could never happen to me. I mean, I'd never be in a relationship that's violent. I'd never let someone manipulate me. But the subtlety of that and how we can find ourselves in situations where people are manipulating us is so gradual.
It's so it.
Starts from love. It starts from love. That's where it starts. I mean a lot of it starts with love. Vombans and then you want to go back to the love bombing. So yeah, it's a dark subject matter, but for it being out in the open is really helpful.
Getting into what we were just saying. You know, I felt like that this series, you gave the characters time to breathe, you know, all the while still gripping us as an audience. Was that deliberate? Were you deliberately trying to give.
Yeah, you have to. You have to have breathing moments in anything you do, and you do it in such a way that it just gives it this time to process, and it's subtle what you do. You have to have breathing moments, and you have to have moments where people can sit in the moment. So because you know there are sitting moments that are really important and breathing moments that are really important.
Is there a pressure to deliver a certain amount of episodes when it comes to signing off on a series? I mean, how did you come to ten episodes?
Again? The world has changed. Our distraction levels are really high. I think if you were to do any research, you'd find that even find a show that we love and we're glory in getting past two or three episode, it's really hard because something else comes up and you always think you're going to go back to it and you don't. And so you know, eight or ten. Eight probably is the one that we would go, Yeah, that's good. You know, it's longer than the sex. You know, it's a longer story.
But you're also having to think about where it sits in the PlantForm, people's attention, what they used to and whatever else it is. So yeah, you do think about it and it's also for international sales, you know, the production companies and getting the international financing. You've got to think about what's what they want out there on the international market as well. And you know, too short and unless you're a British company, too short and it's hard.
You've got to fill up schedules and have things. And so it is something that I've really thought about. And is a story? Do you have enough story for four at six? E's eight at ten but the twelve there were at least twelve stories.
How did you get Sam Neil to say yes? Is there a certain framing that is required?
Well, you need to talk to the amazing Kirsty McGregor. It's the casting agents. And the agents are the ones that you know, I mean producers, you know them, and Ian Colly had worked with Sam, so that's always helpful. But when it comes or so to you know, they're very busy. The SAMs of the world are really, really, really busy. So it also has to fit in with traveling and dinosaurs and does it fit in and rest time. So that's how it works well.
As we come to a conclusion with the series, did you feel that there was a pressure to tie off all of these characters with proper endings or proper resolutions.
Well, it's yes and no. It's a slice of life. It's not a it's a slice of life. They're going to go on with their lives. We don't know what their lives are going to be and how it's going to be like except for the crime, there had to be some form of resolution. I think the best form of storytelling, whether you go to see a play or a movie or whatever else it is, you want people
to go away still talking about it. You want people to be thinking about it, so it's like it doesn't end, It doesn't finish, as story lives on on the consciousness. So with all of them, their lives will go. We won't know what their lives out. We can have a good to think about it. You think it might be that, It might be that, so you get some resolution, if you know what I mean. But if you tie it all up at the end, don't you think it's too neat to neat a bow?
Well, I don't like it like that, to be honest with you.
I can think of my favorite show of all time is Love My Way, and I often think about what Frankie and Julia and Charlie and all these characters are still doing because I mean, I'm sure that just like us in our real world, there's still facing struggle and there is no resolution.
They'll be different struggles, they'll be different with different people, all that kind of thing, and so they still exist. Therefore, their lives are still being low whereas if you tie it up, it stops there.
Yeah, you know, it doesn't feel real.
No, it doesn't feel real.
Which I think audiences will be less satisfying because we will need a resolution to the core case, which we're going to.
If you've developed and scripted and written and acted the character as well, whoever's watching will have their own take on who they are, and they understand you they are and they believe their responsors to things, so they will invent, you know, if they want to their own where it will go.
I love the question in this series that ultimately has been dividing its fans, which will obviously, you know, we'll find out at the end, did Kate laws and murder her niece.
Claire in Cold Blood?
And then if you look at what's happening online, the jury is still out because according to Twitter, seventy five percent of Australians believe that Kate is not guilty of this unthinkable crime.
Good on them.
I can't say anything.
Yeah, because everything leads to more Yeah, yeah, yeah, all.
I can tell you see where hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of discussion about it.
Well, I'm just so excited about the final piece of the twelve because I haven't seen it myself. Oh heaven no, I've been previewing. I previewed up to episode nine and had finished it a few weeks ago, and so the weight has been killing me.
There's some great they have been the whole way through, but there's some great performances. I do think that, you know, Kate and Sam when they have their twofers and the framing and the lighting and the camera work on it, some of it's just like artwork. There's some really great performance, isn't it. Well.
I kind of didn't want to watch the final piece talking to you, because then I still have this thirst, along with the rest of Australigay, to get that piece of the puzzle that I so need. For anyone that has been on this journey, they will feel it as well the same way I do.
Yeah, when the moments happened. You have to go to a dark place to really understand what it is in the place that you're sitting.
So, yeah, Well, the last question I ask you is so question I ask everyone that's joined the podcast over one hundred and fifty episodes that I've had of TV reload going behind the scenes of shows, what is something from behind the scenes of the twelve something we didn't see that we won't see, kind of behind the scenes tasty morsel from your experience working on this show.
So one of the biggest things was and it's not really naughty, it was just trying to work out how you prosecute a crime when there's nobody. It's a biggie. Think of Teacher's pitch. You know it's a biggie for you.
Well, fascinating.
I mean that's where I think, you know, Teacher's Pet was a real turning point for storytelling in a way, becacause it really shone a light on a category that we had no idea that we'd be so successful. I mean, people are loving true crime because they love to solve, they love to feel like they're a.
Part of Yes, yeah, and particularly like it being sold. There's nothing more frustrating than watching adoptu series and get to the end and they haven't sold it and it's all wasted my time.
I just want to say thank you for being so generous with your time and for being able to tell me some of your stories, because I've been in your audience for so long, and what a joy it has been to be able to unpack some of this stuff with you.
So thank you, well, no, thank you, Ben. I always loved talking to people are enthusiastic about storytelling, so that's great. Thank you.