There is a serious premise at the heart of ABC1's Compass documentary series The Mission, but for the most part it has been dressed as gimmick.
Tasmania's Hobart Catholic Archdiocese is in crisis. Its priests are ageing, and their numbers dwindling. The congregations are, too — and dramatically so. The solution? In the words of the unofficial series tagline: 'Missionaries in reverse'.
Three Nigerian priests, Fathers Felix, Christopher and Kene, are sent as missionaries to Australia's island state. After overcoming a fear that they will die from the cold, and enduring a month of 'enculturation' (they speak fluent English but struggle with Strine), each is posted to a remote corner of the state.
The young priests see their three-year sojourn as mission in the literal sense; they are there to bring religion back to a land that, in their eyes, has lost its way. To them we are the 'other' to be helped and pitied. They are perplexed by miniscule congregations, which strangely surge only at Christmas and Easter. When Christopher attends the final Mass at a remote parish that is to be closed, he is visibly depressed, and horrified to learn that things are really so dire.
Writer/director Varcha Sidwell makes a meal of juxtaposing the priests' Nigerian experience of Church — marked by thousands-strong congregations, colour, youth and vitality — with that of Tasmania, where sparse handfuls of glum-looking, elderly parishioners rattle their way dutifully through Mass in nearly empty churches.
The contrast is vivid, but the point is superficial, particularly in the early episodes. Often, cultural differences are played for comedic effect (Felix is bemused to witness competitive wood-chopping and ferret racing; Kene sneers at a proffered sample of Vegemite) more than to explore the complexities of the missionary experiences.
The third and fourth episodes are more contemplative. Christopher has trouble shaking patriarchal attitudes that, while usual in his home country, do not wash with the female receptionist at his parish. Felix struggles to understand why one young Catholic couple would want him to marry them on the beach, and not in a church.
The Mission may be superficial but it's well-meaning, and it does attain moments of profundity. Most poignant is Father Kene's visit to the remote Big Dog Island in Bass Strait, to go mutton-birding with a mob of Aboriginal Australians. He visits an old chapel on the island — a 'sorry' place, he is told — that stands as a symbol of