Few shows on television feel like real life.

Scan the free-to-air ratings or the weekly streaming figures and there are lots of things Australians are watching: The Voice, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and, of course, Game of Thrones are just a few that garner large audiences.

Audrey and Stevie. ( Supplied: ABC )

And in the next month or so, some big names will reappear to capture our attention: The Handmaid's Tale (June 5), Big Little Lies (June 10) and Stranger Things (July 4).

Some of this is escapism, one of the many drivers of televisual engagement. But seeing your everyday existence reflected back to you is important, too.

Rarely do I sing competitively. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is loveable ("Nine-nine!") but I am not a New York City police officer.

And let's be honest: I can't realistically see my dynasty, noble though it is, claiming the Iron Throne any time soon.

But I do have a one-year-old.

In a time of unreal reality TV, dystopian nightmares and the general Americanisation of our cultural diet, Australian dramedy The Letdown, on the ABC, stands out for being really, really real.

Sorry, this audio has expired Alison Bell of The Letdown talks portrayals of parenting

"We came to this project with a very clear agenda," Alison Bell, the show's co-creator and co-writer (with Sarah Scheller) and star, told Double J.

"It was both to try and make people laugh — because we enjoy doing that — but also to tell the truth."

That truth is about parenthood. More specifically: the myth of the perfect mother, the reality of postnatal incontinence, the torture of sleep training, and how to have a social life and a sex life when life itself is no longer all about you.

'We take it to some dark places again'

Bell plays Audrey, who is not waving but drowning, thrown overboard the great ship of motherhood and straining to grab hold of the gunwale.

In the first season, which aired in 2017 on the ABC, Audrey navigated her new reality with little Stevie in tow, helped (and hindered) by her well-meaning but mostly bumbling husband Jeremy (Duncan Fellows).

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"We ended the series where she was pregnant way too soon with her second and she was looking at moving to Adelaide instead of America, which she only just got her head around," Bell says.

"And certainly in season two we take it to dark places again like we did in season one, but the second season is very much about family," as opposed to struggle to define your new identity as a mother, which animated Bell's character last time around.

In season two, which kicked off this week, Bell says we can expect to see Audrey "coming to grips with the fact that every decision you make, big or small, necessarily affects the little person in your life now as well as your partner".

Those "dark places" Bell mentions will be issues rarely seen in mainstream depictions of domestic life, let alone in your average parenting book. (No spoilers here as to what those issues are.)

There was 'a glaring gap' in the market, Bell says

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The show began life as a pilot commissioned as part of an ABC TV initiative to bring new voices to Australian television.

Bell, who appeared in the series Laid in 2011 and has had a successful career in the theatre, says the writing is rooted in personal experience.

"Sarah had just had two kids herself, and had had a pretty fraught experience with a mothers' group, so that's how the project really began," she says.

"We thought there was a glaring gap in the market for a show like this."

It's true this show will resonate more keenly for parents than non-parents — and particularly for new mothers. It's also true the show is only real is if your reality is a middle-class urban one. None of the characters is trying to parent in public housing or a country town lacking easy access to maternal health services.

But all shows necessarily keep their focus narrow. One of the best things about the streaming era has been the liberation of the cult and the niche.

In season one, Alison Bell's character Audrey struggled with her new identity. ( ABC News )

In fastening the comedy of circumstance — bringing Frankenstein to a group meeting about mothering books; getting late-night parenting tips from the local meth-pusher — to the lingering shadow of a difficult birth and a divided self, Bell and Scheller are making funny television that knows its audience all too well.

In fact, Bell says that, for some people, it might be a little too real. If that's the case, just give it time.

"We are not just retraumatising parents; we are actually hopefully showing the reality that makes people have a bit of a laugh at it at the same time."

The Letdown airs Wednesdays at 9pm on the ABC and on iview.