TV reviews: top shows to watch this week include a Cold Chisel doco, more Strife and Tina Fey's Four Seasons
We've sifted through the latest offerings from TV and streaming platforms to find the best shows you should be watching this week.
The veteran rockers in Cold Chisel are going harder than ever at 50.
COLD CHISEL: THE BIG 5-0
SUNDAY, 8PM, CHANNEL 7
If you were one of the 250,000 or so people at one of the 23 sold-out Cold Chisel shows to celebrate the revered Australian band's 50th anniversary last year, you'll already know what joyous, adrenalized, quasi-religious experience it was. For anyone else with even a passing interest in one of the greatest bands this country has ever produced, this live show from Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl is the next best thing. It captures an astonishing band – one that has always been greater than the sum of its parts – in full flight and having an absolute blast in delighting a devoted crowd with high octane hits like Standing on the Outside, Cheap Wine and Goodbye Astrid, to more contemplative moments with Flame Trees, Four Walls and Plaza Hotel. There are also candid interviews with the band, as front man Jimmy Barnes shares his astonishment at reaching the big milestone, guitarist Ian Moss reflects on the band's bumpy journey, chief songwriter Don Walker reveals his favourite creation, bassist Phil Smalls remembers the tough times, and some touching archival footage of the band's late drummer Steve Prestwich.
Timothée Chalamet and Monica Barbaro in A Complete Unknown.
A COMPLETE UNKNOWN
WEDNESDAY, DISNEY+
Timothee Chalamet was well worth his Oscar nomination this year for his uncanny portrayal of the great Bob Dylan in director James Mangold's expertly-crafted biopic. Rather than trying to cram the music great's entire life into a couple of hours, A Complete Unknown focuses on Dylan's early years after arriving in New York City, during which he outgrew his folk roots to become an unlikely heart-throb and music sensation. Dune star Chalamet trained for five years to learn to sing and play guitar and harmonica like Dylan, and is hugely impressive in the live and studio scenes as the singer expanded his creative horizons – and defied backlash – in the lead-up to his now legendary electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
Asher Keddie is back as Evelyn Jones in Strife.
STRIFE
THURSDAY, BINGE
Six months after the events of the first season and Asher Keddie's new media entrepreneur Evelyn Jones is struggling. Former staffer Christine is about to launch her rival website (amusingly titled Whoman – the H is silent), her business is battling financially after expanding too rapidly and contemplating entering the world of podcasting, and she's desperately trying to hide her rage and self-pity, both of which are fuelled by an online stalker, who is bad for Eve's reputation but excellent for engagement. The always watchable Keddie remains the best thing about this home grown comedy-drama, finding laughs and pathos in Eve's blend of strength and vulnerability as she juggles the responsibilities of family, business, love and modern feminism.
Multiple Cynthia Erivos and Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face.
POKER FACE
THURSDAY, STAN
Wicked fans can see a whole lot more Cynthia Erivo – playing five different roles – in the series return of Rian Johnson's (Knives Out) hugely entertaining, star-studded murder-of-the-week comedy drama that tips its hat knowingly to classics of the genre from Columbo to Murder, She Wrote. With Natasha Lyonne's ex-cocktail waitress Charlie Cale still on the run from the mafia and speeding around the country taking odd jobs and avoiding hit men, she pitches up at an apple farm, where she makes friends with a former child star, one of a set of quintuplets. When their nasty mother and former manager dies, Charlie becomes tangled up in the squabble for her fortune, using her uncanny ability to know when someone is lying to unravel an outlandish and hilariously complex plot.
Georgie Tunny narrates House Hunters Australia.
HOUSE HUNTERS AUSTRALIA
SUNDAY, 8.15PM, CHANNEL 10
There's nothing especially new or startling about this real estate reality TV series narrated by the lively Georgie Tunny, but anyone looking to break into the property market – or partners who recall the stress and bickering of finding the perfect pad – will relate to the lighthearted, brisk viewing. In this first episode, new parents Billy and Bronte are exploring Sydney's Shire to find a property that will cater to the needs of their growing child as well as balancing his taste for a vintage, lived-in look with her demands for something clean and low maintenance. The show then shifts to a regular home at 7.30pm on Fridays, with older Central Coast couple Bridget and Paul looking to downsize after growing tired of stairs and cleaning three levels.
Sam Pang, Tom Gleisner and Ed Kavalee from Have You Been Paying Attention.
HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION
MONDAY, 8.40PM, CHANNEL 10
With six Logie Awards in a row and a reputation for celebrating and giving exposure to some of Australia's best stand-up talent, comedy-news quiz show Have You Been Paying Attention has become an absolute powerhouse from its humble beginnings. Now in its 13th season, quiz master Tom Gleeson and his reliable team captains Sam Pang and Ed Kavalee are back to pick apart the events of the previous week for maximum laughs and possibly even some accidental learning. In the wild media world of 2025, there will be no shortage of material.
Tina Fey as Kate and Will Forte as Jack in The Four Seasons. Picture: Netflix
THE FOUR SEASONS
NETFLIX
As creator, star and co-writer, the brilliant Tina Fey is the driving force behind this outstanding eight-part remake of Alan Alda's (who also makes a fitting cameo) 1981 movie of the same name. It follows three couples who have been friends for three decades as they catch up for their regular holiday getaways over the course of a year. There's uptight Kate (Fey) and her affable but slightly hopeless husband Jack (Will Forte), suave architect Danny (Colman Domingo) and his flamboyant Italian husband Claude (Marco Calvani), and mega-rich Nick (Steve Carell), who is about to dump his wife Anne (Kerri Kenney-Silver) for the much younger Ginny (Erika Henningson) and throw the tight-knit group into chaos. As it explores the changing nature of love, marriage and friendship it's by turns laugh-out-loud funny and heart-wrenching, but ultimately a deeply satisfying and uplifting experience. More please!
Claudia Karvan finds some family surprises in Who Do You Think You Are.
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE
TUESDAY, 7.30PM, SBS
Logie-winning actor Claudia Karvan is the first celeb delving into the past for the return of this emotional and rewarding genealogy documentary. With her unconventional childhood – her parents split before she was born and she was raised by her bohemian mother and stepfather in Sydney's Kings Cross – she says she knew little about her forebears and wasn't especially interested, but changes her tune as she travels to England, Cyprus and New Zealand to track down records from both sides of the family. There are tears and gasps as she uncovers sad and moving stories of ancestors raised in orphanages, another who was tortured by WWI PTSD with tragic consequences, a trailblazing feminist and the black sheep who was shunned after bringing the family into disrepute.
The behind-the-scenes staff for the super rich in Billion Dollar Playground.
BILLION DOLLAR PLAYGROUND
TUESDAY, BINGE
Fans of the Real Housewives and Below Decks franchises – and anyone looking for a weirdly voyeuristic glimpse into the life of the uber-rich and entitled one-percenters – will get a kick out of this new reality show about mega-mansions for rent and the people who service them. These week's first episode serves as an introduction to the crew as they prepare for the arrival of the wealthy guests at a harbour-view pad in Sydney's Rose Bay who expect to have their every whim catered too, no matter how ridiculous. There's fiery lead concierge Salvatore, who's created a rod for his own back by appointing two rival deputies, JB the outrageously French butler, 'good-looking brothers who can cook' George and Matthew, and Jay, the Fabio-esque pool guy who has a side hustle as a model for romance book covers. With caviar bumps, missing Dom Perignon and pampered pooches, these are first-world problems of the highest order – but the views are nice.
Mark Coles Smith returns to his childhood home in ABC doco The Kimberley.
THE KIMBERLEY
TUESDAY, 8PM, ABC
Award-winning Mystery Road star and Nyikina man Mark Coles Smith is the perfect guide for this stunning three-part nature doco that spotlights the startlingly varied seasons in some of Australia's most spectacular, inaccessible and unforgiving terrain, the 400,000 sqkm Kimberley Region in northwest Australia. In this week's first episode, he retraces his childhood steps on the Martuwarra/Fitzroy River to uncover the incredible array of wildlife – some of which doesn't live anywhere else – from the dangerous, stealthy and ancient saltwater crocodiles to majestic white bellied sea eagles and how they adapt to the harsh conditions. He also explains the river's deep spiritual connection to the many Indigenous nations along its length, and their ongoing vigilance to protect it from invasive and potentially destructive mining, water extraction and fracking.
Seth Rogen get his hero moment in The Green Hornet.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT …
THE GREEN HORNET
Streaming on Tubi
As far as unlikely superheroes go, they don't come more unlikely than Seth Rogen. Known for playing loveable louts in films such as Knocked Up and Superbad, Rogen puts his signature wisecracking and dishevelled spin on the superhero genre in this 2011 film. He plays Britt Reid, a wealthy publisher who dreams of crime fighting and so enlists his mechanic, Kato (Jay Chou), to become his karate-kicking sidekick. Thankfully, none of this requires Rogen to don Lycra because Reid's alter ego, the Green Hornet, is more a fedora and three-piece-suit-wearing sort of good guy. And, in typical Rogen style, he's secured a love interest who would normally be well out of his league, in the shape of Cameron Diaz.
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Originally published as What to watch on TV this week: Cold Chisel rocking hard at 50; Asher Keddie back in more Strife
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Man of Many
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Charlie Vickers on ‘The Survivors', Building Character and Coming Home
By Dean Blake - News Published: 6 June 2025 |Last Updated: 4 June 2025 Share Copy Link Readtime: 10 min Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here. Charlie Vickers is on the rise. After an impressively devilish rendition of Middle-Earth's Sauron in Rings of Power, the Aussie actor is returning home to star in Netflix's The Survivors: an adaptation of Jane Harper's novel of the same name that focuses on the small, coastal town of Evelyn Bay and a series of deaths that echo through the years. In some ways, The Survivors was a particularly personal project for Vickers, who saw his own echoes in the show—a big-town man returning to his small-town roots—and who connected with the inherent Australianness of it all. Since studying acting at the College of Speech and Drama in London, Vickers has been largely living overseas, and the opportunity to return home, especially for a script he felt excited by, was too good to pass up. We caught up with Vickers ahead of The Survivors launch on Netflix on 6 June to talk though what drew him to the project, how he got started in acting, and what it was like coming back to Australia. Charlie Vickers in 'The Survivors' | Image: Netflix To start with, I wanted to get an idea of what it was about The Survivors that got you excited. What sold you on being a part of it? I love shows that adapt novels, really. The Survivors is a novel that I hadn't read, but I'd read a few other books by Jane Harper and this just sounded like a really fun adventure to be able to go on. So when I had the opportunity to potentially do it, I thought, 'It's in Tasmania, I grew up in Melbourne, but I'd somehow never been to Tasmania,' and being able to work with a whole bunch of new, amazing people and having Tony in charge of the whole project got me really excited. Also, just being able to be part of an Australian story. It's quintessentially Australian. I live in the UK now so I want to do as many Australian projects as possible, and this was such an enticing opportunity, really. The character of the town, although it's fictional, its kind of its own character in this story, and being able to film so much of it on location got me really excited. I also thought the story was interesting, and the way the script adapted the novel made me quite interested. It's quite cool seeing small-town Australia highlighted—I wanted to ask about that. Was that part of the charm for you? Is that something that reminds you of your childhood in Australia? In a way, it is . There are a huge amount of similarities between Tasmania and Victoria, and I grew up in a small coastal town exactly like . It's funny, the character of Kieran is still quite far away from who I am but he's also returning from a big city, in his case Sydney, to his childhood town, and there was a bit of familiarity there for me. I live overseas in a big city and often find myself coming back to my small, coastal town, and I think my son was about 6 months old when I was filming this, and he has a 4 month old, so there was a lot of 'world's colliding'. Having the opportunity to tell a story set in a coastal town, and you have all the dynamics . I was watching the show with my brother the other day, and he said 'god, some of these characters feel like they could be from our home town', it's crazy. Charlie Vickers in 'The Survivors' | Image: Netflix I wanted to get an idea of what you look for in a role? There's no shared characteristics of any roles , I often look for something that when I read it I get inspired, or I get excited by the idea of doing it. These roles can be completely different, but the thing they share is that I think I can bring something to the project: it has to ignite my imagination, reading it. Those kinds of jobs are few and far between, that make you excited, and this was one of those jobs. I've played quite a lot of villains in my career so far, but that's just coincidental and because of the material I've been given. How do you find your characters? When you're given a script or a treatment, how do you go about turning those words into action? For me, I try to keep it as simple as possible. I don't properly believe in the idea of 'character'. It's useful to use it in terms of referring to the character of Kieran, for example, but his 'character' is just the sum of a whole bunch of little moments. So I try not to look at things through a wide-angle lens, you know? And sometimes I watch the final product of things and find that 'oh wow, he's an entirely different person to how I had imagined him', because I tend to approach it from a moment to moment basis, and react to the circumstances he's in, and try to play to each moment truthfully, and then that paints a bigger picture of this character's life during the time period on screen. The only thing you have to be mindful of, I guess, is to think of the journey of the character throughout the show, but the specificity of each moment we see creates the 'character', I think. Charlie Vickers in 'The Survivors' | Image: Netflix Beyond being able to come back to Australia, what was the highlight of the filming process for The Survivors? There were so many. I loved being able to be in a really special place, Tasmania, that I'd never been to, with a whole bunch of amazing actors and creatives. To be able to work with these people made it an amazing experience: Actors that I've watched since I was a kid on screen. People like Damien or Robyn or Catherine and then there's this whole other amazing generation of actors like Yerin , Jess , Thom and George , and I think that's what I really love about projects. I've been really fortunate in my career in that you can just kind of go somewhere for six months and work on something and be fully immersed in the world of whatever you're doing, and then you get to move on and some of the relationships endure. That's the lasting memory of working in Tasmania : the combination of the location and the people. It was probably really good to have that filming location be somewhere you'd never been but also being very familiar in a way. Exactly, I don't know why I'd never been to Tasmania, but it really does feel different. There's an atmospheric quality to that place that is inherent, just when you're walking around. The energy there can be heavy, and I'm sure that's what Jane was trying to tap into when she wrote the novel. You mentioned earlier that you've enjoyed doing adaptations of novels, and you've done quite a few of them at this point: is there any book adaptations that you'd love to work on? I love Tim Winton's novels, and I read The Shepherds Hut recently, and also The Riders, and Eyrie, which is about a retired climate worker that lives in Freemantle, and I just think his stories are so evocatively written and I'd love to be a part of an adaptation of one of those novels on screen. I think they're pretty rarely adapted, though, and the adaptation process to take a novel to screen is often a really complex one. Those novels, when I read them, I really connected to a few of the characters and thought it'd be really cool to be a part of. I love imagining the world, that's part of the amazing thing about reading books. Charlie Vickers in 'The Survivors' | Image: Netflix You've worked in a few genres so far – is there anything you'd want to do that you haven't been given the chance to yet? It's quite a boring answer, but I'm lucky that I've been given the chance to work on bigger productions and smaller productions and things that are in pretty wildly contrasting genres that I don't really have that itch to do anything in particular. I just kind of want to work on stories that are exciting, the genre could be anything, really. If it's something that creatively inspires me, I'd be keen to do it, but there's no particular world I want to jump into anymore: which is nice, it's a nice place to be. How did you get started in acting? I did a lot of plays at school. I remember being in year 12, and I was playing Richard the 3rd in our school production of it, and it was the same year it was being done by the Melbourne Theatre Company, and Ewen Leslie was playing Richard the 3rd, and I remember going to see it and just thinking 'wow, that's so much better than what I'm doing', and thinking 'I'd love to be able to do that one day'. I remember that moment of 'wouldn't it be cool to be an actor', but then I never found it to be an accessible path. I think I was afraid. I knew you could go and audition for drama school, it just didn't seem to be a thing that was in my world, it didn't feel possible to me: getting in to a drama school and then going on to be an actor, so I didn't do it for a few years after school finished. In those intervening years I was studying a music/business degree, and while I loved uni and being around my mates and that whole period of my life, but I was really just treading water. I had no idea what I was doing, and throughout Uni I was doing amateur theatre productions. Melbourne Uni has this amazing theatre called the Union Theatre, so I did a lot of work there. Eventually, I drummed up the courage to do it, and that changed my life. I thought, maybe I should just have a go at trying for a drama school because I really didn't know what I was doing. The school I went to, the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, they come and do audition weekends in Sydney, and I decided I was going to go to it. I flew up and didn't tell anyone because I was afraid of telling people I auditioned and I didn't get in, so I did the audition over a weekend and then found out six weeks later that I'd got in, and then had to decide whether I wanted to uproot my life or did I want to wait until the end of the year and maybe try some of the Australian schools. But when you get into a drama school, it's so unlikely in the first place that I just thought I have to take this opportunity – it might not happen again. So yeah, I moved to London, and that was really the moment the direction of my life changed. The Survivors launches exclusively on Netflix on 6 June.
The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Grief and secrets resurface in new Jane Harper adaption on Netflix
The further south along the east Australian coast, the darker, denser and twistier the trees and plants become. The arcing wide beaches of the Pacific shore to the north are fewer and further between, replaced by small, closeted coves. It makes an ideal location for a murder mystery that explores the people who have chosen to make their lives there, and the visitors it receives. The natural setting here suggests a labyrinth of secrets to unravel. The latest page-to-screen adaptation from crime novelist Jane Harper is set on the gorgeous coast of Tasmania, from which, as we now expect in her work, the human drama she portrays draws meaning. The landscape analogy doesn't always work. Beautiful as they were, the Otways and Dandenongs locations as clue to meaning in Force of Nature didn't work as effectively as locations they did in The Dry, the author's immensely popular first book. Landscape as character has become a clichéd term for how the Australian films set in our sprawling outdoor spaces deliver. The British outsider perspective that best-selling and award-winning author Harper brings to her Australian home may just enhance this attribute. Like The Dry, The Survivors concerns a homecoming. It was long ago when Kieran (Charlie Vickers) moved away from Evelyn Bay, the fictional name of his hometown in Tasmania, but not quite long enough to put a safe distance between him and the tragedy that occurred at that time during a wild storm. As he and his partner Mia (Yerin Ha), also a former local, rapidly discover 15 years later. Despite the joys of having a baby daughter, the hurt, injured and confused feelings within families and the community rise to the surface as a sombre anniversary of young lives lost approaches. The deaths that Kieran seems somehow responsible for, that of his brother and family friend Toby, are to be marked with a memorial clubhouse and a game of Aussie Rules. The two young men died when they attempted to rescue Kieran near treacherous rocks when their boat was overturned during the storm. The event coincided with the unexplained disappearance of a local 14-year-old girl. The body of Gabby (Eloise Rothfield), who is seen in flashback, was never found. The mystery has captured the investigative spirit of visitor to town, Bronte (Shannon Berry), a bold and assertive young woman. When Bronte's body is found on the beach, the police arrive to conduct an investigation that implicates several suspects. Intensity of feeling focuses on Kieran. "You come back here and all this happens," says an old friend accusingly. Another old friend, Olivia (Jessica De Gouw), is grateful for Kieran's support though it takes a while to understand why. Moreover, gentle Kieran is unfairly put upon by his mum (Robyn Malcolm as feisty as ever) who claims that she is a natural mother of sons. She has punished Kieran over the loss of his brother by withdrawing her love. His father Brian (Damien Garvey) is battling Alzheimers. While the passing of time has not brought closure, it has seen a shift in community attitudes. The lively, thoughtful writing maintained across the episodes touches on many things that were acceptable once, but have in recent times become unacceptable. Were the young men on the boat who drowned "heroes or pedos"? What is acceptable male behaviour attracts a laser focus, while other issues crop up as well. Like distrust of outsiders, the perils of a lack of impartiality in police investigations, and the number of unsolved disappearances of women and girls. Despite the critique of masculine attitudes and behaviour, the through-line is relatively even-handed, nonetheless. We return at regular intervals to the rugged headlands outside Evelyn Bay. Battlements of striated cliffs with deep caves that could prove deadly to those who don't keep on eye on the changing tides. They also hold dark secrets that are, until the closing moments of this stylish and engrossing drama, tightly held. The further south along the east Australian coast, the darker, denser and twistier the trees and plants become. The arcing wide beaches of the Pacific shore to the north are fewer and further between, replaced by small, closeted coves. It makes an ideal location for a murder mystery that explores the people who have chosen to make their lives there, and the visitors it receives. The natural setting here suggests a labyrinth of secrets to unravel. The latest page-to-screen adaptation from crime novelist Jane Harper is set on the gorgeous coast of Tasmania, from which, as we now expect in her work, the human drama she portrays draws meaning. The landscape analogy doesn't always work. Beautiful as they were, the Otways and Dandenongs locations as clue to meaning in Force of Nature didn't work as effectively as locations they did in The Dry, the author's immensely popular first book. Landscape as character has become a clichéd term for how the Australian films set in our sprawling outdoor spaces deliver. The British outsider perspective that best-selling and award-winning author Harper brings to her Australian home may just enhance this attribute. Like The Dry, The Survivors concerns a homecoming. It was long ago when Kieran (Charlie Vickers) moved away from Evelyn Bay, the fictional name of his hometown in Tasmania, but not quite long enough to put a safe distance between him and the tragedy that occurred at that time during a wild storm. As he and his partner Mia (Yerin Ha), also a former local, rapidly discover 15 years later. Despite the joys of having a baby daughter, the hurt, injured and confused feelings within families and the community rise to the surface as a sombre anniversary of young lives lost approaches. The deaths that Kieran seems somehow responsible for, that of his brother and family friend Toby, are to be marked with a memorial clubhouse and a game of Aussie Rules. The two young men died when they attempted to rescue Kieran near treacherous rocks when their boat was overturned during the storm. The event coincided with the unexplained disappearance of a local 14-year-old girl. The body of Gabby (Eloise Rothfield), who is seen in flashback, was never found. The mystery has captured the investigative spirit of visitor to town, Bronte (Shannon Berry), a bold and assertive young woman. When Bronte's body is found on the beach, the police arrive to conduct an investigation that implicates several suspects. Intensity of feeling focuses on Kieran. "You come back here and all this happens," says an old friend accusingly. Another old friend, Olivia (Jessica De Gouw), is grateful for Kieran's support though it takes a while to understand why. Moreover, gentle Kieran is unfairly put upon by his mum (Robyn Malcolm as feisty as ever) who claims that she is a natural mother of sons. She has punished Kieran over the loss of his brother by withdrawing her love. His father Brian (Damien Garvey) is battling Alzheimers. While the passing of time has not brought closure, it has seen a shift in community attitudes. The lively, thoughtful writing maintained across the episodes touches on many things that were acceptable once, but have in recent times become unacceptable. Were the young men on the boat who drowned "heroes or pedos"? What is acceptable male behaviour attracts a laser focus, while other issues crop up as well. Like distrust of outsiders, the perils of a lack of impartiality in police investigations, and the number of unsolved disappearances of women and girls. Despite the critique of masculine attitudes and behaviour, the through-line is relatively even-handed, nonetheless. We return at regular intervals to the rugged headlands outside Evelyn Bay. Battlements of striated cliffs with deep caves that could prove deadly to those who don't keep on eye on the changing tides. They also hold dark secrets that are, until the closing moments of this stylish and engrossing drama, tightly held. The further south along the east Australian coast, the darker, denser and twistier the trees and plants become. The arcing wide beaches of the Pacific shore to the north are fewer and further between, replaced by small, closeted coves. It makes an ideal location for a murder mystery that explores the people who have chosen to make their lives there, and the visitors it receives. The natural setting here suggests a labyrinth of secrets to unravel. The latest page-to-screen adaptation from crime novelist Jane Harper is set on the gorgeous coast of Tasmania, from which, as we now expect in her work, the human drama she portrays draws meaning. The landscape analogy doesn't always work. Beautiful as they were, the Otways and Dandenongs locations as clue to meaning in Force of Nature didn't work as effectively as locations they did in The Dry, the author's immensely popular first book. Landscape as character has become a clichéd term for how the Australian films set in our sprawling outdoor spaces deliver. The British outsider perspective that best-selling and award-winning author Harper brings to her Australian home may just enhance this attribute. Like The Dry, The Survivors concerns a homecoming. It was long ago when Kieran (Charlie Vickers) moved away from Evelyn Bay, the fictional name of his hometown in Tasmania, but not quite long enough to put a safe distance between him and the tragedy that occurred at that time during a wild storm. As he and his partner Mia (Yerin Ha), also a former local, rapidly discover 15 years later. Despite the joys of having a baby daughter, the hurt, injured and confused feelings within families and the community rise to the surface as a sombre anniversary of young lives lost approaches. The deaths that Kieran seems somehow responsible for, that of his brother and family friend Toby, are to be marked with a memorial clubhouse and a game of Aussie Rules. The two young men died when they attempted to rescue Kieran near treacherous rocks when their boat was overturned during the storm. The event coincided with the unexplained disappearance of a local 14-year-old girl. The body of Gabby (Eloise Rothfield), who is seen in flashback, was never found. The mystery has captured the investigative spirit of visitor to town, Bronte (Shannon Berry), a bold and assertive young woman. When Bronte's body is found on the beach, the police arrive to conduct an investigation that implicates several suspects. Intensity of feeling focuses on Kieran. "You come back here and all this happens," says an old friend accusingly. Another old friend, Olivia (Jessica De Gouw), is grateful for Kieran's support though it takes a while to understand why. Moreover, gentle Kieran is unfairly put upon by his mum (Robyn Malcolm as feisty as ever) who claims that she is a natural mother of sons. She has punished Kieran over the loss of his brother by withdrawing her love. His father Brian (Damien Garvey) is battling Alzheimers. While the passing of time has not brought closure, it has seen a shift in community attitudes. The lively, thoughtful writing maintained across the episodes touches on many things that were acceptable once, but have in recent times become unacceptable. Were the young men on the boat who drowned "heroes or pedos"? What is acceptable male behaviour attracts a laser focus, while other issues crop up as well. Like distrust of outsiders, the perils of a lack of impartiality in police investigations, and the number of unsolved disappearances of women and girls. Despite the critique of masculine attitudes and behaviour, the through-line is relatively even-handed, nonetheless. We return at regular intervals to the rugged headlands outside Evelyn Bay. Battlements of striated cliffs with deep caves that could prove deadly to those who don't keep on eye on the changing tides. They also hold dark secrets that are, until the closing moments of this stylish and engrossing drama, tightly held. The further south along the east Australian coast, the darker, denser and twistier the trees and plants become. The arcing wide beaches of the Pacific shore to the north are fewer and further between, replaced by small, closeted coves. It makes an ideal location for a murder mystery that explores the people who have chosen to make their lives there, and the visitors it receives. The natural setting here suggests a labyrinth of secrets to unravel. The latest page-to-screen adaptation from crime novelist Jane Harper is set on the gorgeous coast of Tasmania, from which, as we now expect in her work, the human drama she portrays draws meaning. The landscape analogy doesn't always work. Beautiful as they were, the Otways and Dandenongs locations as clue to meaning in Force of Nature didn't work as effectively as locations they did in The Dry, the author's immensely popular first book. Landscape as character has become a clichéd term for how the Australian films set in our sprawling outdoor spaces deliver. The British outsider perspective that best-selling and award-winning author Harper brings to her Australian home may just enhance this attribute. Like The Dry, The Survivors concerns a homecoming. It was long ago when Kieran (Charlie Vickers) moved away from Evelyn Bay, the fictional name of his hometown in Tasmania, but not quite long enough to put a safe distance between him and the tragedy that occurred at that time during a wild storm. As he and his partner Mia (Yerin Ha), also a former local, rapidly discover 15 years later. Despite the joys of having a baby daughter, the hurt, injured and confused feelings within families and the community rise to the surface as a sombre anniversary of young lives lost approaches. The deaths that Kieran seems somehow responsible for, that of his brother and family friend Toby, are to be marked with a memorial clubhouse and a game of Aussie Rules. The two young men died when they attempted to rescue Kieran near treacherous rocks when their boat was overturned during the storm. The event coincided with the unexplained disappearance of a local 14-year-old girl. The body of Gabby (Eloise Rothfield), who is seen in flashback, was never found. The mystery has captured the investigative spirit of visitor to town, Bronte (Shannon Berry), a bold and assertive young woman. When Bronte's body is found on the beach, the police arrive to conduct an investigation that implicates several suspects. Intensity of feeling focuses on Kieran. "You come back here and all this happens," says an old friend accusingly. Another old friend, Olivia (Jessica De Gouw), is grateful for Kieran's support though it takes a while to understand why. Moreover, gentle Kieran is unfairly put upon by his mum (Robyn Malcolm as feisty as ever) who claims that she is a natural mother of sons. She has punished Kieran over the loss of his brother by withdrawing her love. His father Brian (Damien Garvey) is battling Alzheimers. While the passing of time has not brought closure, it has seen a shift in community attitudes. The lively, thoughtful writing maintained across the episodes touches on many things that were acceptable once, but have in recent times become unacceptable. Were the young men on the boat who drowned "heroes or pedos"? What is acceptable male behaviour attracts a laser focus, while other issues crop up as well. Like distrust of outsiders, the perils of a lack of impartiality in police investigations, and the number of unsolved disappearances of women and girls. Despite the critique of masculine attitudes and behaviour, the through-line is relatively even-handed, nonetheless. We return at regular intervals to the rugged headlands outside Evelyn Bay. Battlements of striated cliffs with deep caves that could prove deadly to those who don't keep on eye on the changing tides. They also hold dark secrets that are, until the closing moments of this stylish and engrossing drama, tightly held.
