On Wednesday, 21 October 2026, the ABC announced its 2027 programme slate. That is a slate announcement, not shows already on air. Yasmin Jeffery, at ABC News, led with the return of the comedy Fisk, with Kitty Flanagan, and the new drama The Great White, with Hugo Weaving.

Flanagan is back after two years for a fourth season, in the baggy brown suit of wills-and-probate lawyer Helen Tudor-Fisk. She writes the series with her sister, Penny. She joked that for three seasons they had thrown the word “probate” wherever it sounded right. After their father died earlier in 2026, they learned the admin for real. “It would be crazy not to do another Fisk, now that we actually know what we’re talking about,” Kitty said. Don’t expect Helen to fall in love or develop a fashion sense.

Weaving plays a brilliant but disgraced barrister, Alan Armstrong, in an office above a panel beater’s workshop in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Variety Australia writes. ABC News says he takes a dangerous-dog case he considers beneath him and is drawn into a path of self-discovery. Variety adds that after that case he ends up in the Supreme Court, fighting to free a zoo elephant. Those are two plot descriptions, not a single synopsis. The producers, ABC says, are those behind Slow Horses and Apple Cider Vinegar. The series had not aired on Wednesday.

You Can’t Ask That returns with its first new season in four years, Variety confirms. Kirk Docker, co-creator, says ordinary Australians ask unfiltered questions and people with lived experience answer. The announced themes include scam victims, voluntary assisted dying and survivors of war. Docker said a chatbot gives a flat summary; different voices who disagree remind you that life is not monotone.

Hugh Marks, the ABC’s managing director, spoke in the official release of a slate from screen to news and audio, and of Australian stories. Jennifer Collins, director of Screen, stressed integrity and originality. Among the new dramas: Rural Crime Unit (Rebecca Gibney), Fortitude Valley (Hunter Page-Lochard), John Bailey — The Enemy Within. Hard Quiz is back for a 12th season. None of these titles was on air on the night of the announcement.

Wednesday’s announcement is not the OzAsia festival and not a season already completed. Episode transmission dates, in the articles consulted, were not a premiere calendar already kept.

Image: ABC headquarters in Ultimo, Sydney, 11 August 2007, J Bar, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The building in 2007, not Wednesday’s slate announcement.

Sources consulted: From Kitty Flanagan in Fisk to Hugo Weaving in The Great White, the big names returning to the ABC in 2027 — ABC News; ABC announces 2027 content slate — About the ABC; ABC Announces New Shows for 2027 Starring Hugo Weaving & More — Variety Australia.