Kath and Kim

Kath and Kim works because it commits to suburbia as a comic world of petty status games, bad taste and domestic vanity. By our assessment, the show is strongest when it lets its two leads bounce off each other with deadpan timing and very specific Australian social awkwardness. The downside is that the joke style is so built on repetition and character tics that it can feel narrow if you want broad plot machinery. In practice it is all about voices, attitudes and tiny humiliations rather than story turns. It sits in the lineage of character comedy, closer to social satire than to joke-a-minute sketching. Kath and Kim is best for viewers who enjoy catchphrases, suburban self-mockery and personalities stretched just enough to be funny.