http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/arts/television/review-in-800-words-a-widowed-father-of-teenagers-uproots-the-family.html 2016-09-05 10:06:33 Review: In ‘800 Words,’ a Widowed Father of Teenagers Uproots the Family This light, heart-warming drama series is about an Australian dad and his two teenagers decamping to New Zealand to start afresh. === The Australian drama series “ That tic should tell you that in every other way, “800 Words” (online at And it’s surprisingly watchable — the humor isn’t too broad or saccharine, and the central performers are skillful enough to make the emotions feel real. (Apparently not all of Australia’s good actors have left to do American TV.) Mr. Thomson is a little bland but winning, overall, as George, whose wife has died as the show starts. A dreamer who had let his more practical spouse handle the details of life, George decides to start over by uprooting his family — brittle teenage daughter, geeky teenage son — and moving to the small town in New Zealand where he spent summers as a child. From there, the story proceeds along two predictable but satisfying tracks. There’s the family drama, in which the endearingly bumbling George (for starters, he buys the wrong house in New Zealand) learns to be an adult under the withering but loving gaze of his children. Then there’s the culture-clash comedy, in which the three Aussies are seen as interloping, clueless snobs by the New Zealanders. Tension is provided by the question of which nubile, available Kiwi woman — there is a surprising number of them for a ramshackle small town — will catch George’s eye, and how his daughter, Shay (an excellent Melina Vidler), will react. “800 Words” is the definition of lightweight, but it’s amiable and touching, and it’s easy to get sucked in by its scenic and anthropological charms. It is refreshing, for instance, that on the first day at their new school, the teenagers are chagrined because they’re