The year is young but has already seen some top Australian series. Here’s our selection of the best so far (and one that snuck in at the end of 2023). Enjoy!
High Country, Binge – dark and potent crime drama
Premiered 19 March 2024.
This eight-part Victorian-shot mystery thriller series stars Leah Purcell as Andie Whitford, a city detective hoping for safety and a change of pace when she takes on a job in Broken Ridge in Victoria’s high country. Instead, she’s thrust into a baffling mystery of five missing persons who have vanished into the wilderness. Through an edge-of-your-seat investigation, Andie uncovers a complex web involving murder, deceit and revenge. Also starring internationally acclaimed actor Ian McElhinney and celebrated actors Sara Wiseman and Aaron Pedersen.
Writing for ScreenHub, Anthony Morris says: ‘What makes this series really stand out from the increasingly crowded rural murder pack is the sense of place. Broken Ridge quickly feels authentically shady, with a plausible mix of upright locals and stuck-in-their-ways cops keeping the lid on a rotten underbelly. Around that there’s the high country itself; Andie’s newcomer status provides more than one opportunity for her to just stand in front of a majestic view and just take it all in.
Read the full review, or watch on Binge.
Apples Never Fall, Binge – a big twist inward
Premiered on 14 March 2024.
Red herrings, ticking mysteries and fluffy tennis balls combine in the series adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s bestselling novel.
Reviewing the show for ScreenHub, Anthony Morris, wrote: ‘With Apples Never Fall, Sydney author Liane Moriarty (Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers) gives her formula a big twist inward. It’s still a mystery set in the homes of the well-off, but this time the focus is almost entirely on one family where everyone knows each other well enough to suspect – but not quite believe – the worst of each other. In dinner table chat they all know the best place to stick the knife: the question then becomes, could one of them have done it for real?’
Read the full review or watch on Binge.
Population 11, Stan – a comedy-mystery winner
Premiered on 14 March 2024.
Stan’s new 12-part, WA-shot series is beautifully paced and extremely bingeable.
In her ScreenHub review, Mel Campbell wrote: ‘… rather than lampooning rural Australians as ocker caricatures, Population: 11 seems primarily interested in roasting the Yanks. Indeed, it leans in to stereotypes about outback serial killers and deadly fauna – Andy survives a kangaroo, a dingo, a venomous snake and a saltwater crocodile in just the first few episodes …
‘Rather than pulling against each other, the comedy and the mystery push the show forward… It helps that the show is beautifully paced and very bingeable. Each episode is only half an hour long and always ends on a key revelation; the next episode picks straight up afterwards. Luckily, Stan is releasing all episodes at once – this is definitely a show you could tear through over a weekend.’
Read the full review or watch on Stan.
Prosper, Stan – a brew of blackmail and betrayal
Premiered on 18 January 2024.
The family behind an Australian evangelical megachurch has its faith put to the test in this fast-paced thriller.
In his ScreenHub review, Anthony Morris wrote: ‘The big hook with Stan’s new eight-part series Prosper isn’t that it’s a look at a dynasty that might be crumbling before the next generation can even take the reins. It’s that the dynasty bears more than a passing resemblance to Australia’s own controversial Hillsong church, the religious powerhouse that’s had troubles of its own in recent years …
‘Roxburgh is always completely convincing as a charming salesman who’s bought his own product. His public persona is of a man completely convinced he’s doing good, and that conviction convinces those around him. Which is why the rest of the Quinn family are increasingly nervous when he starts to show signs of doubt (or worse, believing a little too much) …’
Read the full review or watch on Stan.
Total Control, Season 3, ABC iview – dynamite
Premiered on 14 January 2024.
Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths excel in the political thriller’s final run.
As ScreenHub’s Stephen Russell wrote: ‘… in the third and final season of the ABC’s engrossing political drama Total Control, ferociously honest politician Alex Irving has learned a thing or two about popping the games played within the Canberra bubble.
‘Personal sacrifices have to be made to get things done. They cut deep, especially within the fatally compromised two-party system that favours nothing but entrenched power and the self-centred interests of the big money it backs up. And yet Alex must, because she refuses to lose sight of the bigger picture, fighting for First Nations peoples’ rights, above all, and the good of her constituents/ all Australians.’
Read the full review or watch on ABC iview.
Triple Oh!, SBS On Demand – short and sweet and wryly funny
Premiered on 8 February 2024.
Episodes in this new Australian comedy show about ambulance paramedics are short and punchy – and when the jokes appear they’re worth the wait.
Our critic, Anthony Morris, wrote: ‘It’s smartly written (by Erica Harrison) and engagingly directed (by Poppy Stockwell), but perhaps its most obvious strength is that there’s a lot packed into each episode.
‘There’s the ongoing – sometimes charming, sometimes awkward – relationship between Tayls (Brooke Satchwell) and Cate (Tahlee Fereday), plus the medical emergency that sometimes turns out to be a real emergency, plus some deftly sketched supporting characters (the angsty firefighters were a personal favourite). Not bad for seven-to-eight minutes.’
Read the full review or watch on SBS On Demand.
Paper Dolls, Paramount+ – a musical roller-coaster ride
Premiered on 3 December 2023.
Five young Australian women try to make it in the music business at the turn of the century – prepare to be entertained.
For ScreenHub, Anthony Morris wrote: ‘Paper Dolls isn’t so much lifting the lid on the inner workings of celebrity as giving audiences a more polished and twist-heavy reboot of what Pop Stars was serving up 20 years ago. Turns out the music business is sleazy, exploitative and heartless – I guess that’s what makes it so entertaining.’
Read the full review or watch on Paramount+.
The Tourist, Season 2, Stan – a riveting return
Premiered on 1 January 2024.
Jamie Dornan and Danielle Macdonald head to Ireland in search of answers, cranking up the tension and chills.
As Stephen Russell wrote for ScreenHub: ‘So is The Tourist worth another spin? While it’s not quite as sharply plotted as the original outing, it still adeptly balances its cranking muscular tonal shifts between exasperated wryness to actual violent chills and back.
‘Macdonald and Dornan are spot on again and though they might not share much screentime in the opening eps, directed by Fergus O’Brien, they still spark, both together and apart.’
Read the full review or watch on Stan.
Australian series coming soon
White Fever, ABC iview, 10 April
Read: White Fever: ABC rom-com series – first look
HeartBreak High – Season 2, Netflix, 11 April
Read: Heartbreak High season 2 on Netflix: everything we know so far
