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alias_sqbrHave you ever watched a gritty murder mystery set in a small town and thought "this is great, but I wish it had more jokes and lesbians"? Then Deadloch is the show for you!
An uptight workaholic lesbian cop is teamed up with a slap-dash chaotic female detective from the big city (of Darwin, lol) to figure out a murder in a little Tasmanian country town.
It does a great job of combining classic tropes (like the odd couple detective team) with subversions of the usual heterosexist murder mystery cliches, eg the show opens on a full frontal nude male corpse, and the town has a queer friendly arts festival happening instead of being all conservatives (though it definitely has those too).
If you have seen it and want to leave a spoilery comment here is my spoilery post.
(I am in a truly EXCESSIVE amount of pain today so hopefully this all makes sense)
Content notes:
There's a lot of swearing and some gore, nudity, drug use, vomiting and menstrual blood. There's references to off-screen statutory rape and sexual abuse, and domestic violence. There's a fair amount of on-screen sexism, homophobia, and racism, generally from characters the narrative is overtly condemning.
Cam and I found some parts of the first three episodes dull/annoying and think they would have been better compressed into two, but otherwise it's a very enjoyable mystery-drama-comedy miniseries. I haven't seen Broadchurch but it's apparently a big inspiration. Unlike Broadchurch there's no significant onscreen child harm.
And while the eventual resolution wasn't unimpeachably Unproblematic I overall liked it and didn't end angry and upset like I do with most murder mysteries involving queer people.
The writing is sometimes a bit heavy handed but felt grounded in a combination of real life experience and feminism/queerness. The jokes were generally funny, the cast engaging, the character arcs enjoyable, and the murder mystery fun to try and puzzle out. There's a good natured, empathetic optimism under the dark humour.
It does critique the wider police force but you just have to roll with These Cops Being Good (if flawed in very human ways).
I don't know how the writers identify but it felt a bit white cis lesbian: there's a bunch of lesbians, a few gay men, and no mention of bisexuality etc, while trans and non-binary people are only really brought up in a "TRANSPHOBIA IS BAD, MOVING ON" sort of way. Which is certainly better than most other murder mysteries, and it was nice they were overtly Not TERFy, but given that the show's themes explore gender and queerness I think it would have benefited from having more trans characters around. EDIT: Turns out one of the sympathetic characters who doesn't die/turn out to be a murderer is played by a trans actor and this is just never mentioned! Which doesn't change my point about the themes, I guess, but it's still nice.
Still, white cis lesbian is a step up from white cis straight dude! I am middle-aged-Australian-lesbian adjacent enough to have picked up a few amusing in-jokes but suspect there were more which went over my head. And all the pretty but not prettied up 40ish women being emotionally messy and sometimes topless are A+.
There are a few female Aboriginal characters and other WOC characters, and I (as a well meaning white Australian) thought the treatment of racism was middling to good if a bit 'written by well meaning white Australians'. I do wonder if they avoided any significant male POC characters to avoid having to deal with that specific intersection of racism and sexism, but they definitely poked at White Lady Racism.
Disability isn't generally a focus, and when it is it's...ehh. Not the worst?
It was very Australian, which I enjoyed, but I don't know if foreigners might find that a bit alienating? Some relevant geography: Hobart is the capital of Tasmania, Sydney is The Big City, Darwin is Weird and hot, and Perth is Boring and Unimportant (I'm from Perth and found the jokes around the very idea of being excited to go to Perth very amusing and entirely fair, and am mainly just happy someone remembered we exist)
An uptight workaholic lesbian cop is teamed up with a slap-dash chaotic female detective from the big city (of Darwin, lol) to figure out a murder in a little Tasmanian country town.
It does a great job of combining classic tropes (like the odd couple detective team) with subversions of the usual heterosexist murder mystery cliches, eg the show opens on a full frontal nude male corpse, and the town has a queer friendly arts festival happening instead of being all conservatives (though it definitely has those too).
If you have seen it and want to leave a spoilery comment here is my spoilery post.
(I am in a truly EXCESSIVE amount of pain today so hopefully this all makes sense)
Content notes:
There's a lot of swearing and some gore, nudity, drug use, vomiting and menstrual blood. There's references to off-screen statutory rape and sexual abuse, and domestic violence. There's a fair amount of on-screen sexism, homophobia, and racism, generally from characters the narrative is overtly condemning.
Cam and I found some parts of the first three episodes dull/annoying and think they would have been better compressed into two, but otherwise it's a very enjoyable mystery-drama-comedy miniseries. I haven't seen Broadchurch but it's apparently a big inspiration. Unlike Broadchurch there's no significant onscreen child harm.
And while the eventual resolution wasn't unimpeachably Unproblematic I overall liked it and didn't end angry and upset like I do with most murder mysteries involving queer people.
The writing is sometimes a bit heavy handed but felt grounded in a combination of real life experience and feminism/queerness. The jokes were generally funny, the cast engaging, the character arcs enjoyable, and the murder mystery fun to try and puzzle out. There's a good natured, empathetic optimism under the dark humour.
It does critique the wider police force but you just have to roll with These Cops Being Good (if flawed in very human ways).
I don't know how the writers identify but it felt a bit white cis lesbian: there's a bunch of lesbians, a few gay men, and no mention of bisexuality etc, while trans and non-binary people are only really brought up in a "TRANSPHOBIA IS BAD, MOVING ON" sort of way. Which is certainly better than most other murder mysteries, and it was nice they were overtly Not TERFy, but given that the show's themes explore gender and queerness I think it would have benefited from having more trans characters around. EDIT: Turns out one of the sympathetic characters who doesn't die/turn out to be a murderer is played by a trans actor and this is just never mentioned! Which doesn't change my point about the themes, I guess, but it's still nice.
Still, white cis lesbian is a step up from white cis straight dude! I am middle-aged-Australian-lesbian adjacent enough to have picked up a few amusing in-jokes but suspect there were more which went over my head. And all the pretty but not prettied up 40ish women being emotionally messy and sometimes topless are A+.
There are a few female Aboriginal characters and other WOC characters, and I (as a well meaning white Australian) thought the treatment of racism was middling to good if a bit 'written by well meaning white Australians'. I do wonder if they avoided any significant male POC characters to avoid having to deal with that specific intersection of racism and sexism, but they definitely poked at White Lady Racism.
Disability isn't generally a focus, and when it is it's...ehh. Not the worst?
It was very Australian, which I enjoyed, but I don't know if foreigners might find that a bit alienating? Some relevant geography: Hobart is the capital of Tasmania, Sydney is The Big City, Darwin is Weird and hot, and Perth is Boring and Unimportant (I'm from Perth and found the jokes around the very idea of being excited to go to Perth very amusing and entirely fair, and am mainly just happy someone remembered we exist)
no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 11:35 am (UTC)I hope you enjoy it!
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Date: 2023-08-11 07:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 11:36 am (UTC)I hope you enjoy it! I spent ages on the fence and so tried to answer the questions past me had when deciding.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 11:36 am (UTC)I hope you have fun!
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Date: 2023-08-11 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 10:06 am (UTC)Excellent :)
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Date: 2023-08-11 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 11:37 am (UTC)Yeah absolutely. I enjoyed the show, but that aspect did bug me, and I can totally see it being a dealbreaker for other people, which is one reason I mentioned it.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 11:22 am (UTC)The writing quality definitely picks up. But...the copganda-y-ness is unfortunately pretty constant. There's episodes where it's less visible, and times the show digs slightly into how Some Cops Are Bad, but overall it has zero interest in questioning Good Police Officer Who Saves Lives And Helps The Community as a basic concept. At best the improved writing quality might do a better job of distracting you from that. But if not, fair!
no subject
Date: 2023-08-11 02:49 pm (UTC)So far I have no idea who is being murdery dsklafjas but I have a long way to go!
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Date: 2023-08-15 10:08 am (UTC)I totally missed that they are non-binary! That is cool!
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Date: 2023-08-11 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 10:06 am (UTC)Pain is much improved hence me moving on to video games :D
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Date: 2023-08-13 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-08-14 02:56 am (UTC)Entirely understandable, Australian English can be a Lot.
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Date: 2023-08-29 12:33 am (UTC)I just watched this and enjoyed it a lot! I laughed so much.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 01:30 pm (UTC)That's great, I'm glad to hear it!