As regular readers know, I try to review the lesser known but awesome Aussie crime dramas on TV. I do this as comparative storytelling and as research into Tassie Outback Noir. Today I present you with a twist! There’s the usual crime dramas, but also a non-fiction criminology/stand-up combo 🤯 Sounds weird, but it’s awesome! something every mystery and detective aficionado should watch.

Read on, and discover some truly phenomenal shows.

Bay of Fires – season 2

I’ve loved the first season of Bay of Fires – witty and zany and absolutely twisty. The second season picks up a few months after the end of season 1. The criminal inhabitants of Mystery Bay have settled into a life of crime out of their middle-of-the-rainforest half-derelict weed-growing town.

This couldn’t last, of course, and criminal overlords throw their weight around and knock the cushy criminal life off kilter. Nerve-wracking hilarity ensues.

While this season doesn’t have the sheer surprising WTF-ness of the first one, it’s still highly enjoyable and recommended for those who love black humour and out in the woods settings. It certainly keeps you on your toes with rapid twists, and never quite guessing what’s coming next.

Black Snow

Found this on a “you might also liked” – and they were right, I liked it. James Cormack is a detective in QLD’s cold case unit, and gets called to out-of-the way towns when new evidence surfaces. He also… has issues. Like any good noir detective.

The series has some Troppo vibes (another good series), and the progression shows both the current investigation and the lead up to the girls’ disappearances 20+ years ago. It’s a great example of gritty Outback noir, a psychological thriller with excellent storytelling and acting. Not an easy watch, but then noir crime thrillers aren’t meant to be. If you like the genre and want something in an out of the way location, this is highly recommended.

Produced and released through Stan in Australia, and the Wikipedia page lists the international releases. It’s an excellent example of robust cold-case story-telling techniques.

Mystery Road

There are two series: Mystery Road (2 seasons), and Mystery Road: Origin (another two seasons), as a spin off of two movies: Mystery Road (2013) and Goldstone (2016). So rather a successful franchise. I watched them in chronological order.

Mystery Road is Outback Noir (with Neo-Western vibes) at its best. The shows are certainly on the slow side, compared to the others. Jay Swan is an Aboriginal Australian, in a setting rife with racism and historical injustice, investigating murders, disappearances, and drugs in outback Queensland. The show provides a view into the cultural tensions in rural Australia.

Unlike the humour of of Bay of Fires or the intimacy of Black Snow, the two movies are harsh. The stories take place in Australia’s red centre, a dry and inhospitable place. Hard land, hard people. The photography is breathtaking, and carries the story’s atmosphere.

The TV series are a bit more personable, a broader canvas with space to get to know the characters more intimately (and occasionally wonder how his ex-wife keeps appearing in all the two-bit towns he’s investigating 😂). As you can imagine, the ‘Origins’ series are about Swan’s early career, using a younger actor (who very much looks like he could be the same man), but still preserving the same vibe of Australia’s dusty and occasionally racist centre. Overall, the photography is just as stunning, the stories engaging, and the whole franchise is worth a watch.

Crime Night!

Now for the thing you’ve been waiting for! Julia Zemiro hosts two distinguished criminologists and two (changing) stand-up comedians, and explores the various aspects of crime each episode.

From the unreliability of eye-witness testimony to modern forensics, from scams to the power of conformity, the insights and jokes flow. It sounds weird, but it works in a most entertaining way. It was really interesting to hear the experts talk about evidence, police procedures, and juries’ reactions both for writing stories and in comparing to my own recent experience on jury duty.

Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates true and fictional crime, and freely available on the ABC iView.

Honourable mention: Deadloch – season 2

Filming for season 2 has finished, but there’s no release date. I’m eagerly waiting! I was hoping it would be out by the time I publish this collection (hence the large backlog), but it seems I’m destined to wait. At least they’ won’t ‘re unlikely to cancel it, now that filming has been completed.

If you haven’t seen season 1 — you should! It’s available on Amazon Prime. You can watch the trailer for season one if you need more convincing, but it was the blackest of black humour and a “it could only happen in Tassie” vibe.

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What do Jack and Felix think of these shows?

Felix had a right time enjoying the shows, especially with his looser attitudes towards law and order. Wrongs were righted through grit and perseverance, with the detectives (or criminals, in the case of Bay of Fires) doggedly working through evidence. Extra points for doing it without magic, but from his perspective forensic sciences are not far off from the more traditional incantations at his disposal. At the end of the day, it’s the detective’s smarts and persistence that solve the case, not a flashy spell.

Jack had mixed feelings. Being a current member of Australian police forces, he tends to find the portrayal of police in fiction occasionally problematic. From the corrupt (or just inept) police trope which he rejects, to the depictions of rampant racism (which he grudgingly admit are common in remote places, but quickly adds that there are many good cops trying to fight it from within). While his background and remit in the force is the ‘Unusual Crimes’ of of the metamundane world, he appreciate the varied Australian scenery — from rainforests to deserts — and the general interaction of police and community.

Both Felix and Jack enjoyed Crime Night! for its approachable and entertaining packaging of tough criminology insights with stand-up comedy. Certainly a few laugh-out-loud moments.

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That’s it for now. Sadly nothing set in Tassie (The Survivors was the last one I watched set here), but very awesome TV series nonetheless — at least if you love dark crime drama. I tend to watch these at the gym, and there’s nothing that gets you running faster than a killer coming up behind you 🤣 And the sounds tracks tend to be exceptional as well. It’s hard to put a single label as they tend to cover multiple genres, but certainly enjoyable and appropriately atmospheric.

As mentioned, I watch a lot (cause I aim to keep fit) which includes better known UK (mostly) and US (occasionally) series, but on this blog I try to cover the lesser-known good shows for noir connoisseurs. Something that’s both familiar enough and different enough to be intriguing. It’s also fun to see how many actors appear across series, and where they might have appeared in international shows (Australia being a small market). So not does every show has at least one actor you’ve seen on the others, international readers might see familiar faces from anything from Dune to Wheel of Time.

I’ll just leave you with this, which should be funny no matter which side of the pond you’re on. If you’re curious how Australia maps to US temperaments, you can’t beat this Terrible Map: