I’m never on the ball for finding all the new stuff, but this isn’t too bad, reviewing a show that’s a year old, but hey, it’s only a year old. I don’t remember where I found Deadloch, a series from Australia that’s a mix of detective show, comedy, drama and mystery. IMDB describes it as a “dark comedy” and they’re right.
The TLDR of this spoiler free review is yes, you should watch it. Here’s the trailer for you to check out.
I think the most fun part of the show is that there is actual character development. It sounds silly, but for example the detective character introduced in the first episode (in the Hawaiian shirt in the poster above) you hate. Like a visceral “this is a horrible person why is she here” reaction. By the end of the show you love her. Almost no character doesn’t get interesting development. Hell, some characters you love when you start watching you hate by the end (and vice versa).
You can also tell this is a show written by people who care. A lot of the time women in tv shows are fairly one dimensional, or at most two dimensional. In Deadlock, the two stars (Kate Box and Madeleine Sami) are fully fleshed out, flawed and interesting characters. The side characters are fully fleshed out. It’s not a “men suck” show, or a “the men are one dimensional” show either. It’s just nice to see a female led tv show that the leads are real people.
Also, it’s possible I’m in love with Madeleine Sami’s character. It’s not a spoiler to say that she absolutely chews the scenery for the entire show. I’m not an actor and never have been (other than pretending to be a functional adult) but you can tell when someone is having a blast playing a character, and I’m 1000% sure that Madeleine is loving every second of being detective Eddie Redcliffe. Loving it.
I’ve had to go through and look up other shows that some of the characters are in to see what sort of characters they play because they feel so “real” that I had to see if they were just being themselves or being amazing actors.
Long version short, a great series that you should figure out where it’s playing (or if it’s not around you, you know, year), and watch it ASAP.