Fat Cow Motel

This article first appeared in the Age, on July 5th 2003

If you'd told me I would like Fat Cow Motel (Thursday, ABC, 9.30pm) I wouldn't have believed you. Call a show 'interactive' and I want to turn off before it's even started. My life is interactive - I talk to people, responses are demanded, I have to type stuff into a computer. God forbid, that TV should ask it of me as well. But the ABC deftly wooed me with silly postcards and key rings. (On that subject, my cats love their White Collar Blue Towel, Channel 10. But I digress). So I sat down and watched Fat Cow Motel and I'll be darned. It's really good. A funky Sea Change. A silly Grass Roots. And I enjoyed it without having to interact, which made me, well, start to interact.

The website (http://www.fatcowmotel.com.au) is extremely funny and details all of Fat Cow's major tourists sites, such as The Dam: 'Fat Cow Dam is open to the public for all recreational purposes except for swimming, water-skiing, kayaking and fishing.' I have even signed up for the regular emailed newsletters for extra clues to help solve the mysteries that arise as well as access to autopsy reports. There are thirteen episodes, but two versions of the 13th have been filmed and viewers get to choose via SMS how they want the series to end.

Fat Cow is a small (population 435 and diminishing) country town where there are big happenings and the 'Big Udder'. It is experiencing a sudden revival because a month ago 1980s pop legend Rory Toogood died in Room 13 of the Fat Cow Motel, despite the fact that Toogood had already been found dead in a hotel room bathtub in Mason City, Iowa, USA in January 1976. And the crowds are returning to town to see it for themselves.

Jack Green (Brendan Cowell) stars as the inquisitive young journalist who doesn't believe a word of it, despite the fact that Cassie (Kate Atkinson), the young owner of Fat Cow Motel discovered a self-made videotape of Rory Toogood confessing to faking his first death. There is also an an aging pair of Rory's underpants complete with pubic hair that has been DNA tested as belonging to Toogood.

The cast is great and they play it straight. Kate Atkinson, the centrepiece of the series, was good as Constable Karen Millar in Seachange, but here she's a real star. There is, inevitably, Unresolved Sexual Tension between her and Jack, but saving Fat Cow is her main concern. When Jack threatens to blow her out of the water, well, murder is an option. Her creepy sidekicks, the twins (Johan and Henrik Gongsater), are the link to all things interactive, speaking no english, but being hot on the SMS and email. The voice over is provided by Robbie McGregor whose voice is now so reconisably lascivious that it tends to overwhelm things. I would have prefered someone more neutral myself - but hey, its a small criticism for a show with such a big heart.

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