The Ex-PM

2015 • Australian Broadcasting Corporation
4.5
8 reviews
Eligible
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Season 1 episodes (6)

1 Arrival
10/14/15
Season-only
Twenty something ghostwriter, Ellen LeBlanc, arrives at the home of fifty something former Australian Prime Minister, Andrew Dugdale. She's armed with a laptop, a deadline and a thousand and one questions. She's only got six weeks to write his memoirs but the first day does not go well, what with a lost grandchild, a stolen security system, a vandalised COMCAR, a cheating wife and a dead goose.
2 Childhood
10/21/15
Season-only
Dugdale plots against his wife, Catherine, for the chance to speak at their grandchild's Grandparent's Day. Meanwhile a series of disasters at home means it is Curtis, the COMCAR driver, who ends up enthralling the children.
3 Legacy
10/28/15
Season-only
With staff laid off for a day, Dugdale and Ellen head to the market, leaving Catherine to convince Carol to play the viola at a dinner party that could land the ex PM a plum Middle East envoy job. Curtis, meanwhile, thinks Catherine is trying to seduce him. Myles finds out what it's like guarding someone else's body for a change and Rita learns to play tennis. Sonny ventures out into the real world for the first time in years and discovers he really doesn't belong there.
4 Rivalry
11/4/15
Season-only
Dugdale is invited to attend a memorial service and he ponders his own legacy. A chance meeting gives him an opportunity to achieve a rapprochement with a long time political rival. Catherine does her best to help, but when the man suffers a heart attack during sex, it's up to Ellen, Sonny, Carol and Rita to conceal it from Dugdale. Curtis has
a fight with another driver and Myles may have accidentally shot the Governor General.
5 Immortality
11/11/15
Season-only
A commercial network has optioned Ellen's book and Dugdale has casting approval. Catherine loves Offspring and thinks Lachy Hulme should play Andrew. Actor and politician meet and don't exactly hit it off with Lachy ending up in hospital and the Nut Allergy Awareness Foundation likely to be sued for millions.
6 Love
11/18/15
Season-only
Henry disappears mid Skype call and Dugdale starts to get worried when no one can find him. A home invasion leads to some desperate hours of negotiation where Dugdale's skills as a diplomat are put to the ultimate test. A gun to his head, a hefty ransom at stake and a beaten and bloodied tennis instructor all add up to a potentially
devastating final chapter in the life of our ex PM.

About this show

As Prime Minister, Andrew Dugdale (Shaun Micallef) mattered. He dined with presidents and kings, hosted world summits and changed the lives of millions of his fellow Australians. Now his electorally enforced retirement has given him time enough to ponder the question ‘Was it all worth it?’ Not that he is asking it, of course. No, his inquisitive ghostwriter Ellen has an inconvenient appetite for the truth. After blowing the advance for his memoirs but writing nothing in return, the Ex-PM must accept Ellen into his dysfunctional household (one that includes a wife in name only, a grown up daughter with father issues, his former Chief of Staff who knows where the bodies are buried, a manager under house arrest and a chauffeur with a metal plate in his head).

Ratings and reviews

4.5
8 reviews
Steven TREWIN
November 13, 2015
Better than I thought it would be. Each character has their humerous quirks except for the biographer who is the one normal person and she does that role well. Topical and witty I thought. Satire is what Aust does best. Lightweight but yet still very well done.
1 person found this review helpful
Joss S
January 12, 2018
What would Australian comedy be without Shaun Micallef? I never want to find out.
4 people found this review helpful