I liked the original movie. Thought Goldstone the sequel was even better. Season 1 of the TV series was quite good, which brings us up to Season 2.
It looks great. The location scenery in Broome and around the Dampier Peninsula is just stunning. The acting is by and large good. But what's happened to the story this time around? Things frequently just don't add up.
We get constant aerial shots of Gideon. It's a decent-sized town with a quite large hospital. Yet we're supposed to accept it only has a police station with 2 officers; Owens and Fran! Even the exterior shots of the station has it looking too large for just 2 officers. No civilian staff manning the counters? No one else! It just doesn't ring true. 2 officers to look after a fairly large town 24/7? Pull the other leg. Then after the bodies keep piling up, the only support to rock up, is an internal affairs guy who stays around for one episode and then leaves, exhorting Jay to be careful, whilst he tries to organise some reinforcements to come some time in the future.
It was great seeing Swedish actress Sofia Helin - famous for her iconic role as Saga in The Bridge - playing Professor Claire Sims, the Swedish archeologist. But again, nothing seemed credible about her character and back story. It seemed she was on an official dig. But where was her team? Archeologists don't just wander on to sites of indigenous spiritual significance in this day and age and start digging. Yet seemingly this is what the series wanted us to believe. In the first couple of episodes Amos appeared to be some sort of indigenous liaison person for her, but that soon got swallowed up by other events. She finds evidence on site of a possible murder and then doesn't report it to the police. Just crazy! She waits to tell us in Episode 6, she was scared to do the obvious. Wow!
Editing/continuity ... what happened? There are so many loose ends happening in this storyline, in an otherworldly effort to recreate a "western frontier" atmosphere, it just seems no one bothered to oversee whether things were continuing to make sense. Some brief examples to follow.
Did we ever find out who pointed the gun at Shevorne's head back in Episode 3 or 4? She's then (assumedly) forced to make a call to Jay, drawing him into aa ambush, from which he escapes. That's it! Jay never seeks out Shevorne to find out what was going on and viewers are left head-scratchingly, none the wiser too. Just move forward!
In Episode 5 Jay and Fran climb into his vehicle , pull rifles out, bravely stating that they're going to rescue Mary, who we know is in danger. But then they're shown going to Amos and later to Jimmy? Rescuing Mary was clearly a low priority on the to do list.
In the final episode Fran is shown busting up Owens's boat's engine, for very justifiable reasons. However we also find out that Simon needs it to escape, which prompts a 3 way shoot out between Simon, Mary and Owens. Simon takes off, pursued by Jay shortly thereafter and then we find out, that Simon has already, whilst on the run, been able to organise a new boat with a new driver to attempt a fresh getaway. Laughable! This is kids' stuff.
I don't really know what the problem was. Perhaps the 2 directors, Warwick Thornton and Wayne Blair, failed to establish with the left hand, what the right hand was doing. But plenty of TV series have multiple directors, though this was the first time for Mystery Road.
It surely must be time now after 2 movies and 12 TV episodes to develop Jay Swan's character further. Aaron Pedersen has bucket loads of charisma, but one feels he's spinning his wheels in the same rut, because the script's aren't doing him any favours, by insisting he plays an aboriginal modern day equivalent of Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name, whose dialogue generally consists of a varied range of grunts, groans and 1 word sentences. Similarly Tasma Walton's ex-wife Mary, seemed to be in a re-run of Season 1's narrative, even going as far as to give her a "new" daughter, Shevorne, in Season 2, to substitute for Crystal from Season1. A real positive was Jada Alberts' Fran, who played a completely different side-kick, to that of Judy Davis's character from Season 1.
Mystery Road has the fundamental resources there to continue to be an entertaining, even thought-provoking series. But based on the what we saw in Season 2, is in dire need of some stronger scripts and more pro-active editing and direction. My score of 7 should be seen as a collective score for the movies and TV series.
It looks great. The location scenery in Broome and around the Dampier Peninsula is just stunning. The acting is by and large good. But what's happened to the story this time around? Things frequently just don't add up.
We get constant aerial shots of Gideon. It's a decent-sized town with a quite large hospital. Yet we're supposed to accept it only has a police station with 2 officers; Owens and Fran! Even the exterior shots of the station has it looking too large for just 2 officers. No civilian staff manning the counters? No one else! It just doesn't ring true. 2 officers to look after a fairly large town 24/7? Pull the other leg. Then after the bodies keep piling up, the only support to rock up, is an internal affairs guy who stays around for one episode and then leaves, exhorting Jay to be careful, whilst he tries to organise some reinforcements to come some time in the future.
It was great seeing Swedish actress Sofia Helin - famous for her iconic role as Saga in The Bridge - playing Professor Claire Sims, the Swedish archeologist. But again, nothing seemed credible about her character and back story. It seemed she was on an official dig. But where was her team? Archeologists don't just wander on to sites of indigenous spiritual significance in this day and age and start digging. Yet seemingly this is what the series wanted us to believe. In the first couple of episodes Amos appeared to be some sort of indigenous liaison person for her, but that soon got swallowed up by other events. She finds evidence on site of a possible murder and then doesn't report it to the police. Just crazy! She waits to tell us in Episode 6, she was scared to do the obvious. Wow!
Editing/continuity ... what happened? There are so many loose ends happening in this storyline, in an otherworldly effort to recreate a "western frontier" atmosphere, it just seems no one bothered to oversee whether things were continuing to make sense. Some brief examples to follow.
Did we ever find out who pointed the gun at Shevorne's head back in Episode 3 or 4? She's then (assumedly) forced to make a call to Jay, drawing him into aa ambush, from which he escapes. That's it! Jay never seeks out Shevorne to find out what was going on and viewers are left head-scratchingly, none the wiser too. Just move forward!
In Episode 5 Jay and Fran climb into his vehicle , pull rifles out, bravely stating that they're going to rescue Mary, who we know is in danger. But then they're shown going to Amos and later to Jimmy? Rescuing Mary was clearly a low priority on the to do list.
In the final episode Fran is shown busting up Owens's boat's engine, for very justifiable reasons. However we also find out that Simon needs it to escape, which prompts a 3 way shoot out between Simon, Mary and Owens. Simon takes off, pursued by Jay shortly thereafter and then we find out, that Simon has already, whilst on the run, been able to organise a new boat with a new driver to attempt a fresh getaway. Laughable! This is kids' stuff.
I don't really know what the problem was. Perhaps the 2 directors, Warwick Thornton and Wayne Blair, failed to establish with the left hand, what the right hand was doing. But plenty of TV series have multiple directors, though this was the first time for Mystery Road.
It surely must be time now after 2 movies and 12 TV episodes to develop Jay Swan's character further. Aaron Pedersen has bucket loads of charisma, but one feels he's spinning his wheels in the same rut, because the script's aren't doing him any favours, by insisting he plays an aboriginal modern day equivalent of Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name, whose dialogue generally consists of a varied range of grunts, groans and 1 word sentences. Similarly Tasma Walton's ex-wife Mary, seemed to be in a re-run of Season 1's narrative, even going as far as to give her a "new" daughter, Shevorne, in Season 2, to substitute for Crystal from Season1. A real positive was Jada Alberts' Fran, who played a completely different side-kick, to that of Judy Davis's character from Season 1.
Mystery Road has the fundamental resources there to continue to be an entertaining, even thought-provoking series. But based on the what we saw in Season 2, is in dire need of some stronger scripts and more pro-active editing and direction. My score of 7 should be seen as a collective score for the movies and TV series.