Behind the Reviews – Edition #25 (Street Smart)
Street Smart premiered on Network Ten on 5 August 2018 and was described in that year’s TV Week Previews edition as a “hilarious and entertaining look at a team of bumbling crims who dream of fast cars, attractive women and getting rich quick.” Street Smart was created by Rob Shehadie and Tahir Bilgic, who also created Here Come the Habibs, and they play two main characters in the show, Joseph and Steve, a parking inspector and the leader of the “criminal” gang, respectively.
When I read that Street Smart was the brainchild of Shehadie and Bilgic, I wondered whether there would be any comedic similarities between it and Here Come the Habibs. I did try to avoid making comparisons as I felt it was unfair to do so as this is a completely different show, and I mostly succeeded, however there turned out to be two similarities: the over-the-top plots and stereotypes.
The “criminal” gang consists of Steve, Hung (the brains), Shane (the muscle), and Raj (the wheelman/Uber driver) and despite the gang being promoted in the media as “Australia’s dumbest criminals”, throughout the series they were shown not to be the sharpest knives in the drawer but also proven not to be complete idiots either. The gang were also shown on many occasions to have a moral compass (e.g. refusing to steal from a charity, and even going to the trouble to do financial reports and pay taxes) and most of the time they didn’t actually commit any crimes. If anything, I don’t believe the gang was necessarily aiming to commit a crime, more get rich quick.
Each episode of the season pretty much had the same formula – Steve instantly coming up with an idea that’s bound to fail, the gang getting to work fast on the idea, inevitably failing and going back to square one, and repeat. There were times where this formula became a little predictable and repetitive, but what made it work was the fact that there was a different plan/scheme in each episode. What I found interesting was Shehadie’s and Bilgic’s choice to have Joseph be Steve’s cousin to establish a connection between the two, and upping the stakes (although not very high) by having Joseph be a parking officer, constantly watching Steve and the gang in the hope of “arresting” them, with help from Tia, a trainee parking officer under his wing.
In terms of stereotypes, the only noticeable ones were Hung’s wife, Trans. Trans was fairly one dimensional and under utilised, however she redeemed herself by clearly being smarter than the gang, Hung included.
The season ended with Joseph getting Tia to go undercover to find out what Steve was up to, only for her to have more fun with and feel more appreciated by Steve. I wrote in my review of the finale that overall the season was done well with a variety of both the gang’s schemes and their levels of success/failure, and a balanced amount of character interactions, although it would have been good to see more of a focus on both Trans and Tia.
Rob Shehadie announced on Twitter that Street Smart was cancelled after its first season.
Behind the Reviews – Edition #26 will be released next week and will focus on The Good Place.
Loveday Writing 