LOS ANGELES – “Colin from Accounts” started much like the Australian-based series.
Stars Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, who are married, were dog-sitting while writing the comedy’s pilot.
“It had a name that wasn’t resonating for us,” Brammall says of the dog, “and so we called him ‘Colin from accounts.’”
The scene landed in the series’ first episode. “That ping-pong moment was kind of stolen from our life,” Dyer adds.
Other scenes have had similar origins. The two characters – Gordon and Ashley – are unlikely romantic partners. He’s 12 years older. In real life, Brammall is, too.
But, “they make each other laugh,” Brammall says.
Because the two write the show’s episodes, they’ve hit on a routine that works well for them. In the first season, one wrote the odd episodes, the other wrote the even.
“When our child is at daycare, we plot the whole thing,” Brammall says. “We get ideas and snippets, we put it all down, plot the season and take individual episodes to write.”
As soon as an episode is written, the other polishes it. “There’s a bit of kind of passing back and forth,” Dyer says.
Now airing on Paramount+, “Colin from Accounts” was a hit in Australia, then made the leap to the United States in November. “Some jokes don’t land because it’s different,” Dyer says.
But, Brammall adds, “you get it…you get the joke.”
Colin – the dog – comes into the characters’ lives when Ashley (Dyer’s character) flashes Gordon (Brammall’s character) when she’s walking across the street. He hits a stray dog and the two are so distraught they take it to a veterinarian and learn it’s going to cost $12,000 to save him. Because they don’t want to put down a dog that’s not theirs, the two agree to pay the fees. When they take him in, both decide he needs a human name – like Colin from accounts.
The series then follows the beginning of their relationship, their search for the dog’s owner and the differences between them.
“They’re on the same frequency,” Brammall says. “They make each other laugh.”
Still, they have other woes – including his brewpub and her career as a doctor.
The first pilot was written several years ago based on an idea the two had. “It slowly gathered steam and when it started becoming obvious that it was going to become a show, we got serious about it,” Brammall says. “It’s really just the two of us…we don’t have any other writers.”
Early on the couple realized they couldn’t keep an audience guessing about the viability of a relationship, so they put them together and thought revealing other aspects of their lives could fuel more episodes.
“We haven’t met his family, we don’t know about skeletons in closets, stuff like that,” Dyer says. “So, there was enough to kind of pace out the season.”
Before writing Season Two (which will hit Paramount+ this fall), Brammall made a list on his iPhone of material they didn’t use. Among the key elements: She’s more of an adult. “We’re not really sure what happens with Season Three, but we’ll do something,” Dyer says.
Australian-specific elements haven’t been a problem. “There are some jokes that will go over some audiences’ heads,” Brammall says. “But it doesn’t matter because the more specific you can be, the more authentic it feels. We grew up watching a lot of American stuff and a lot of British stuff.”
Adds Dyer: “We just grew up accepting that it was snowing on everyone else’s Christmas. We didn’t question it.”
While Gordon and Ashley are riddled with problems, they mean well. “They make bad decisions, but you’ve kind of got to root for them if they are good in here,” Dyer says touching her heart.
And Colin? “He’s a soulful guy,” Dyer says. “He’s well trained; we’ve literally never had to go again for the dog. He was such a good boy in one of the episodes of Season Two I had to ask the trainer to walk around behind the camera because he looked animatronic.”
For the record, Colin is named Zak and, yes, he remains in the show.
Even though there’s a hunger for more episodes, Brammall and Dyer haven’t turned the writing over to others.
“I’ve been in writing partnerships previously with people I haven’t been married to,” Brammall says, “and when you find your creative partner, you find them. It just happened to be my romantic partner and my life partner as well. There’s a lot of pros. The cons are you can’t leave your work at work because we work from home.”
The upside? “If you’re trying to fix something and you’re watching TV or making dinner or bathing the kid, you can suddenly go, ‘Oh, it’s going to be this’ and you don’t have to drive to the office and explain it to the other person,” Dyer says. “It’s like our fourth family member.”
“Colin from Accounts” airs on Paramount+.
Bruce Miller is editor of the Sioux City Journal.
