agolddog Saw the entry on the Dish program guide the other night. I'd been to Tonga a few years back, so I thought it might be interesting to see a bit more of their culture. Didn't realize it was a mockumentary.It wasn't offensive, or shocking, or whatever they were trying to go for. Just stupid. No coherence to what was going on. Didn't feel as if there was anything authentic about the performance. Even 14 year old boys can come up with more clever dick jokes than were given here.As jp said above, maybe it just doesn't translate well to America, and it's a riot for those in Australia. I remember thinking afterward that might've been the worst half-hour of television I'd ever witnessed.

jp7570 Chris Lilley's new show - "Jonah From Tonga" - is another in his series about fictitious Australian high school students. This limited-run 6-episode show on HBO looks like it was produced solely for Australian audiences, then picked up by HBO for zero production costs.It's not like I am watching HBO 24/7 but I didn't see any ads for this new series. I stumbled upon it in the listings and recognized Lilley's name from a previous effort ("Ja'mie: Private School Girl", on HBO in 2013).Lilley's brand of humor is not for everyone and often comes off as either creepy or racist. In "Ja'mie", Lilley - a 38 year-old man - played a high-school girl which came off as very creepy, even off-putting. For me, there weren't enough funny moments to offset the awkward factor. In this new series, a now-39-year-old Lilley plays a young Tongan teenage boy. Sure, Lilley has a slight build that allows him to play young (think John Leguizamo), but my impression is that Lilley is not nearly as talented as Leguizamo. Just dropping F-bombs and displaying generally contemptible behavior is not enough to make this character watchable.Lilley is building a stable of disenfranchised characters from presumably fictitious Summer Heights High School. So it wouldn't be surprising to see a movie in the works that incorporates all of the characters, including his signature teens Ja'mie and Jonah.There are some fans of Lilley's here and that's fine. However, I found his humor to be wanting at best. There may be some cultural things that we Americans don't get, or maybe Lilley's humor is intentionally uncomfortable and awkward - not unlike Andy Kaufman (but again, not as talented as Kaufman). I was able to get through 3 of the "Ja'mie" shows before deciding it just wasn't worth it. After watching the first "Jonah", I won't waste my time on the remaining 5 shows in this limited-run series.I give Chris Lilley credit for coming up with something original. But, like HBO's "Girls", the show is polarizing, off-putting, and quickly becomes derivative of itself. If you like Lilley's previous shows, then you shouldn't be disappointed by this new one. But if you weren't a fan of "Ja'mie", you might not want to put this one in your DVR lineup. Watch at your own discretion.

meggafish This show is a tragedy disguised as a comedy. Lots of swearing, nut punching, more swearing, dancing, corny jokes (the point of which is to be corny.) Not one original or fresh idea in the whole show. It plays like an old time minstrel show, where white men donned black-face to make fun of black people. I can't imagine who commissioned this tragedy. As you watch it you can see Jonah's future unfold; pregnant girlfriends, multiple children growing up like him, a series of minimum wage jobs, punctuated by long periods of unemployment and jail time. Later there will substance abuse leading to addiction and homelessness and the last act will be when he is murdered or dies at 44. Not much of a comedy in that is there? The fact that people find this funny is another disturbing aspect of show. I hope it gets canceled as soon as possible. We have enough people like "Jonas" in the world already and I fear this moron will become a popular part of popular culture, like the knock-out game and similar b.s. that mass media disseminates over the airwaves. To sum up, kill it before it spreads.

Scottles I think out of all of his work now Chris has shown that his strength is in character and situations but not in story. This is the case again with Jonah, although I do think it was better than the J'Amie series.The problem is it's kind of like the same joke over and over again - and it just wears off. I thought this series started a bit slowly then started to get good with the dance competition and the time in juvenile detention but then failed to fully deliver.The problem is the character never really got his come-uppance he doesn't grow or change enough to make him interesting or compelling enough to watch over 2 series. Jonah either needed to get the crap beaten out of him so he learnt some humility, or he needed to have something he really valued destroyed by his own actions and then come to realise it himself - and learn and grow from that.But none of this happens - and once we get the shock and the humour and everything to do with the character and style of the show it just wears thin. I found J'Amie very similar - if she had falsely accused someone of molesting her and all of that came to ahead and she was brought to account by it imagine how good that series could have been - rather than what we got.Chris is very talented and very insightful and observant - and brave - but I really think he needs to understand story more, and how it works and what it does to character and the audience - and why - in order to get the most out of what he is trying to do.