The team are egged on in their race to the bottom by a revolving door of amoral executive producers with sleazy nicknames like “Thommo” and “Prowsey”, all in the name of winning the night’s ratings and trumping competitors like Ray Martin’s A Current Affair, the Stan Grant-led Real Life and Jana Wendt-era 60 minutes.
Season one’s City of Fear opens with then-Media Watch host Stuart Littlemore giving Frontline an on-air serve for spinning a series of unrelated crimes into a pearl-clutching beat-up about Asian gangs. So far, so familiar. In season three’s My Generation, the team targets the young and unemployed along a well-worn theme: “Kids these days don’t want to work.” It’s a catchcry that echoes through the decades.