The Assembly (Australian TV series)

Hosted and mentored by Leigh Sales,^[1] the documentary series focuses on a group of 15 autistic journalism students and lecturers at Macquarie University^[2] as they prepare for and eventually interview some of Australia's best-known personalities.^[3] The students have been given paid internship at the ABC.^[4] The series' format is based on the French series Les Rencontres du Papotin (Chatterbox Encounters), created by filmmakers Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache^[1] based on their magazine Le Papotin  [fr].^[5] The concept has been adapted in 21 countries,^[6] including Spain (100% únicos  [es]), Canada (The Assembly) and Great Britain (The Assembly).

The seven-part series is produced by Mark Fennessy's Helium Pictures for the ABC,^[7] with production beginning in May. Fennessy also executive produces the Australian version alongside director Melissa Maclean, Therese Hegarty,^[1] Vanessa Oxlad and Julie Hanna.^[8]

The first episode of The Assembly received an overnight average audience of 577,000 viewers,^[39] alongside a national audience reach of 859,000 viewers.^[15]

David Knox of TV Tonight gave the series four out of five stars.^[18] Debi Enker of The Sydney Morning Herald wrote about the series' tone, "The tone of The Assembly, like other ABC factual productions, is warm. ... So in addition to being a worthwhile and engaging undertaking, it represents a breath of fresh air in terms of TV interviews, particularly those featuring politicians, but not confined to them.^[40] The show has also been criticised as being inspiration porn, with further criticism over the fact that the journalism students, initially, were not to be paid.^{[41][undue weight? – discuss]}