Come for the doggy meet-cute, stay for their owners in new ABC comedy

Dog Park ★★★★

If you’re drawn to the ABC’s Dog Park solely for the dogs, or stumble upon it thinking it’s a companion piece to the new season of Muster Dogs, you might come away disappointed. Sure, it features a pack of loveable pups, but they’re not the main attraction. This smartly written six-part series turns around contemporary lives and relationships with humour and wisdom. Come for the doggy meet-cute, stay for the human comedy.

Leon Ford plays grumpy misanthrope Roland, who’s crash-landed into an unhappy middle age. His gregarious wife Emma (Brooke Satchwell) is on the verge of accepting a dream job overseas and effectively ending their already shaky marriage. His teenage daughter Mia (Florence Gladwin) barely acknowledges his existence. His main focus in life is day-drinking, complaining about the annoyances of the modern world and wondering where it all went wrong.

Adding insult to injury, he’s been charged with the care of the family pooch. When the dog runs away, Roland finds him at the local dog park, where a close-knit group of dog owners meet each day. It’s a club he doesn’t want to be a member of. Eventually, however, he’ll come to realise it’s the community he needs if he is to break out of his rut.

These oversharing oddballs, who call themselves the Dog Park Divas, seem to know more about each other than their families do. They bring out the best – and occasionally – the worst in each other. Their (and their pets’) trials and tribulations propel diverse storylines that touch upon marriage, mortality, resilience, romance, community and more.

It falls on Ford to do the heavy-lifting in Dog Park. But there’s a rollicking goofiness to him and the show that cuts through any hint of bleakness or possibility that the world might not return to its natural balance. It is a shaggy dog story with a reassuring, perhaps even old-fashioned, message that companionship is both lasting and fleeting, that a stray – human and canine – can be rescued, and that people look after pets and each other in a way that defies logic, commonsense and judgment.

The metaphors are subtle, but their impact is powerful, and to its credit Dog Park never labours them. Nor does the show overplay the roles that the Divas have in the unfolding episodes (and, one imagines, potential future seasons). As Samantha, Celia Pacquola effortlessly brings her brand of eternal optimist comedy, a role she has perfected as loyal buddy Emma in Rosehaven, can-do bureaucrat Nat in Utopia or sharp-tongued kibbitzer in quiz-show Have You Been Paying Attention?. From the moment Samantha first notices Roland at the park, the viewer is emotionally primed for the romcom journey of two people who may or may not be right for one other.

Ford has extensive writing credits in film and TV, and it shows in the crisp dialogue, wry observations and economy. There’s a scene in episode three (directed by Matthew Saville) that dissects Roland and Emma’s predicament with piercing clarity.

The ABC’s recent form in scripted content has been patchy, at best. And meagre, when you discount the majority of shows that begin with the discovery of a corpse or dark deeds in a small town. Hopefully, Dog Park will get tails wagging for something refreshingly different and unexpected.

Dog Park premieres at 8.30pm on Sunday, February 1, on the ABC and ABC iview.

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