Australian Sex Education that ‘pushes the boundaries’ storms Netflix chart after final season drops

The latest season of an ‘underrated’ Australian teen drama has soared up the Netflix charts after being released less than a day ago.

The comedy drama Heartbreak High was initially released in 1994 – running for seven seasons until wrapping up in 1999.

Itself a spin-off of the 1993 movie The Heartbreak Kid, the 90s series followed the lives of the staff and students at a multicultural high school in Sydney.

At the time the series was said to have focused on ‘grit over glamour’, with the show proving so popular it ended up being broadcast in over 70 countries.

Then, four years ago, a reboot was released on Netflix. This time around it followed the students and teachers of Hartley High as they navigated ‘racial tensions in Australia, high school romances, and all sorts of teen angst’.

The ensemble cast included Ayesha Madon, Thomas Weatherall, Bryn Chapman Parish, Asher Yasbincek, Chloé Hayden, Will McDonald, and Josh Heuston.

A hit from the start, the series received praise from critics and audiences, also winning an International Emmy Award and being nominated for 15 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards.

‘The 2022 Heartbreak High is wild, fun, moving and bound to be shocking to some viewers — exactly what a drama about teenagers should be,’ The Age wrote in its review of the first season.

‘In just eight episodes, Netflix delivers a high stakes and high energy series with well-rounded characters you won’t be able to help but fall in love with. Authentic, edgy, and genuinely diverse, Heartbreak High is the show young people deserve,’ Pop Culture Planet shared.

‘Netflix Australia has clearly drawn some international inspiration from Sex Education for its first commission, but Heartbreak High is anything but a soulless copy,’ Digital Spy added.

Viewers called it ‘captivating’ and one of ‘the best coming of age show in years’ – with many going so far to declare it ‘better than’ Sex Education or Euphoria.

It’s also been celebrated for its racial, sexuality, gender and neurodivergent representation.

Overnight, the eight-episode final season was released on Netflix globally, with UK fans rushing to tune in. It is currently the third most watched show in the country on the streaming platform.

As teased by Netflix, the final episodes see the students getting ready to wrap up their final season of high school.

‘For Hartley High’s graduating class, it’s goodbye school, hello adulthood! Yet when a revenge prank goes horribly wrong, Amerie and her friends must cover up their secret or risk losing everything,’ the synopsis shared.

Ayesha – who stars as Amerie Wadia – also recently spoke about how while the Australian screen industry had come far in showing diversity on screens, more work could be done.

‘I’m so grateful for how far we’ve come, [but] I think we can push it,’ she said on the Rolling Stone Uncut podcast.

‘I think colour is a massive thing [in Australia]. Now, we need to see dark-skinned people on screen… I want to see dark-skinned Indians, I want to see dark-skinned black people, I want to see dark-skinned First Nations people on screen now. Overseas, we see so many incredible women of colour popping off in the States…Australia takes a while to actually catch on to those people.

‘Something like Heartbreak coming into the zeitgeist hopefully will show people that we can make really popular television and can make money. Like, if it’s a business decision, we can make money off stories of colour.’

The 28-year-old is the daughter of Indian emigrants and said the series’ writers did an exceptional job of challenging stereotypes from lived experience.

‘We really challenge a lot of the tropes, like being an Indian-Australian. Amerie is absolutely bats*** crazy. You never see women of colour in Australia as romantic leads or people of colour as romantic leads,’ she said.

‘You never get to see the tropes kind of being broken. I think we need to see more of that, especially in Australia.’

Heartbreak High is streaming on Netflix.

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