== Brisbane Catholic ==

Brisbane Catholic is an independtly-produced television program shown on the Australian free to air Channel 7. It has gained a small cult following and is known for its much more realistic portrayal of teenage nerds in the school society. It is shown at 11:30 pm on Tuesdays, and runs for roughly 23 mins (excluding advertisements). Its theme song is a little known song called Sprout and the Bean, by Joanna Newsom

Synopsis

The show largely focuses on the life of a self proclaimed nerd named Dominic Hefferan. It is a single camera dramedy that has been described as "everyone else's life according to him (Hefferan)" The show often references obscure movies and old sitcoms as Dominic watches a great deal of television. The show is based largely at school, as this is where the show gets its name from, and the acceptance of Dominic and two of his friends into a very respected yet very challenging class known as Investigaing Science and Technology, which takes only the top 5% of a year level. The show is also known for its far more frank views on school life compared to others, who have good looking actors who are obviously not the age they are portaying, and who also have a mostly positive outlook on life. Brisbane Catholic instead shows actual fifteen year olds who are simply living out their lives. The show also almost always ends with Dominic and his friend Rhys Dwyer discussing the day as they wait for the bus and their mother, respectively.

Main Characters

Dominic Hefferan is 15 years old, and currently attends St. Laurences College. He is well read, intelligent, creative, eloquent and in the top 5% of his grade. He is also occasionally witty. He is known as "eccentric" by his friends and odd by most others. He is upfront with teachers, often aruing with those whom he does not like, but is never openly offensive, instead preferring to shade his comments i.e.: "Miss (his science teacher), you certainly are the reason that teen suicide was invented." He has one older brother, who also attended St Laurences, and he feels consistently in the shadow left by him. At school he seems to be some one who enjoys putting people out of their comfort zone, and will act with a certain oddity to put them off. He especially enjoys doing this to student teachers, regarding them as "fresh meat". However, when he is at home, he often becomes miserable, as he finds that his parents cannot accept him as a nerd, and frequently attempt to change him. It is also at home that it is revealed that he harbours an intense fear of change. He is hard to categorize or predict, as he describes himself as a "true original", or somebody who is one of a kind. When not in school uniform, he often wears an old pair of jeans or tracksuit pants with a plain white shirt on, this is reflective of his desire to not be assosciated with any particular brand name. He is also known for breaking down the fourth wall, saying things like "If this were a cable show, I'd be allowed punch you right now", "I hate how the student teachers are always introduced mid-season, it never allows for any character development" and "It's weird, but i can never seem to remember catching the bus to get school and back". The last qoute is a reference to the fact that bus scenes are never filmed because of budgetary restrictions.


Daniel Molyneux-Barrett is Hefferan's longest friend, having known him since the first grade. He is short, blond and with blue eyes. Because of this, Dom often jokes that Dan is his Aryan Companion, and other nick names of that origin. Daniel has many siblings and is frequently annoyed by most of them. He also has some culinary ability, and has been known to make "the most artery clogginly good breakfast there ever was", which itself is a mixture of bacon, fried eggs, melted cheese and butter. He knows alot about Dom, and has what he calls a finely tuned Bullshitometer which gives him an uncanny ability to know when Hefferan is lying. He later claimed that he copy writed this device, so that no one else could use it without buying him a drink. This is part of a recurring joke that Daniel is cheap and stingy. This was first started in the second episode when Dan asks to borrow some money of Rhys, who replied "Dude, I've known you 3 years, and already you owe me a four digit sum!"

Nick Piper has been described as a more conservative version of Dominic. He is less willing to go into a potentially embarrassing than Hefferan, and has less belief in his own abilities. This being said, sometimes he has been just as shameless as Dom, but he is mostly the voice of reason to Hefferan - often finding that Dominic can be intensely irritating in large doses. He enjoys his punk rock, and is a talented artist. He also has a will-they, won't-they relationship will an old female friend of his, who is rarely seen. Nick is generally described as the best looking of the group, but he has compared this to being "the best ice skater in Egypt". He is also an avid fan of the sitcom Scrubs, and he and Dom often qoute or imitate episodes. He also recently got cable television, something that Dom is rather jealous over. It has been expressed during the program that Nick shares a shallow and mutual dislike of Rhys, as they have occasionally-conflicting beliefs. Piper is the only Atheist in his group, and a staunch one at that, and he constantly voices his opinions on the matters of religion. This always annoys Dominic, much to Nick's satisfaction, but it often arises in a semi-comical debate between Nick and Rhys, resulting in long monologues that are somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Perry Cox in Scrubs.

Rhys (pronounced Reece) Dwyer is also short and blond friend of Dom's, but unlike Daniel, he is extremly skinny. He is also physically unnatractive, but rather bright. It is generally accepted that he is about as smart as Hefferan, as they (along with Nick Piper) were in the IST class this year. Rhys has been compared to Gareth Keenan, something which he does not enjoy. He has also been called an Aryan, which he also resents as he has brown eyes. Rhys has a deaf mother, which means that he can speak in sign language, and often insults teachers or others in this way. Whenever he does communicate in sign language, there are subtitles so that the viewer can understand what he is saying. The only time that this did not happen was in the pilot episode, when he was showing one of his new teachers this ability. When asked what it meant, he simply laughed in the teachers face. (Fans who translated it disclosed that it meant "If you can understand this, then Brisbane Catholic is on the air. Hooray!"). Rhys is also the only character, apart from Dom, to break the fourth wall, which can be evidenced by his sign language, his comment that "When this season ends, I hope i get a spin off" and also his various jibes at Dominic, such as "Just because your the star doesn't mean that you can't get a good beat down". The odd spelling of his name is something he attributes to "having a mother who won't know what it sounds like".

Teachers

Miss Lauder is Dominic's science teacher and someone who he regards as an extremly stupid individual. Whilst not exactly stupid, she is none the less someone who is a terrible teacher, often flirting with th Jocks of the class (resulting in the nickname Miss Easy), and getting side tracked and mixed up. Dom will often argue with her on test results, no matter how well he did, on the basis that "Its the only time when I can annoy her as much as she annoys me". He often likens her lessons to that of banging his head against something hard.

Miss Spektor is easily Dom's favorite teacher, and someone that he says has helped him get through high school, because she was the only teacher that he has had for every year. At the end of the first season she decided to move to England to teach there for a year, something which devastated Dom with his fear of change.

Mr Carmichael is the Head of Year Ten at St Laurences, and is an overly strict man who has a dislike of Dominic. As he is often unable to keep up with Dom verbally, he often just results to threats about punishment, of which he rarely has the power to carry out. This bluff was called during the season finale, which took place on the last school day of that year, when Dominic (feeling distraught after the leaving of Miss Spektor) angrily replies to one of his threats "Sir, I think that you should relise that the punishment your threatening is obviuosly one that would only be deserved by a psychopath. that said psychopath could be a student at this very school, some one who has been desensitized by the media so much that he sees no problem in stabbing his head of year to death". Carmichael was then speechless. He had no chance of rebuttal though, as the final bell was then rung, effectively ending the school year, and the season.

Seasons

To date there has only been one season of Brisbane Catholic. At this time it is not certain as to whether there will be another, but all the cast have agreed to return.