When a handful of Australian writers did their research for a free-to-air comedy series about the “dark arts of PR”, they had initial concerns about finding “enough material” from which to draw inspiration.

The Chaser’s Charles Firth and upcoming writers and actors Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst (The Feed, Nugget is Dead: A Christmas Story) are filming the ABC series, Optics, in Sydney and admit they were wrong.

“When we started, we were worried that there weren’t enough PR crises in Australia to sustain 30 minutes of television each week.

“As it turns out, there’s enough material for about 30 years of television every week.”

ABC’s head of scripted Rachel Okine says “we know audiences will … be gobsmacked to learn what goes on behind the scenes in the often murky world of PR.”

And the Optics producers, who also got behind Colin from Accounts, said they “can’t wait for Australia to see them all practising the dark arts of PR in the halls of Fritz and Randell”.

Directed by award-winning Max Miller (Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café, Australian Epic), Optics follows two 20-something women (Owen and Zerbst) who are unexpectedly promoted to run crisis management PR firm, Fritz & Randell, after the death of office patriarch Frank Fritz.

Power challenges from veteran PR flack Ian Randell (Firth) lead the young guns to realise their firm might have a scandal brewing of its own.

They begin to wonder if they were set up to fail.

“It’s a fast-paced, laugh-out-loud workplace comedy that lifts the veil on everyday office politics and the corporate spin that influences all the news we consume,” the ABC said.

Real PR crisis

PR and marketing firms represent celebrities, sports stars and business leaders.

When they need to be promoted, or make a blunder, the team is called in.

Multinational corporations that have handled PR crises – for example, distrust of Qantas after the Covid handouts; the catastrophic Optus outage; price gouging by supermarket giants – have their in-house specialists to deal with issues, as well as outsourcing independent advisers when the proverbial hits the fan.

Sometimes the boss is put in front of the camera.

Bring in social media and viral videos, and the job can be a 24/7 headache.

Clarity Solutions’ Geoffrey Stackhouse, whose company specialises in media and crisis communications training, says a PR crisis is a test of a company’s values.

“It’s a chance to show the world who and what you really are. Talk is cheap, and in a crisis you’re defined by your actions, not by what you say,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

It’s unknown what real-life PR crises the Optics writers saw as material, but we do know they will be highlighting “the absurdities of our digital age”, according to Screen Australia’s Grainne Brunsdon about the series.

Rob Sitch (aka the boss of the Nation Building Authority) in Utopia. Photo: ABC

This is not the first time we’ve seen the genre at play on our screens.

It could be said the 1980s hit Yes, Minister about British politicians being manipulated by their advisers, was the first to combine office politics and corporate spin.

Since then, we’ve been treated to series like The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Mad Men.

Locally, Working Dog’s original series Utopia (up for four nominations at next month’s Logie Awards) and Kitty Flanagan in Fisk cleverly worked crises, mistakes and blunders into the office landscape.

Optics will premiere on ABC TV and ABC iView in 2025