ross-hastings

I'm rarely sold by ad campaigns but this one got me early, and I'm grateful. Clea's rendition of Crimson and Clover played dreamily over glowing lights and floating moths as the traliers expanded over the weeks until we glimpsed some of the nightmare to come last night. Woods and Krawitz exploit the Twin Peaks mountains and forest locations, the camera rolling at magma pace over a gorgeous slate-filtered Tasmanian backdrop. There's even something of the early X-Files atmosphere to this, made modern and Australian as a deeply intelligent script drip-feeds character and back-story in creepy and surreal flashes. As good as it is, this show belongs to Elizabeth Debicki, who is on career-making form as the disheveled and twitchy Dr. Anna Macy. A far cry from her American-accented turn as the Bond-girl-like Jed in the Night Manager, Debicki's nuanced Thin White Duchess performance pitches perfectly between vulnerable and unsettling. Delivering her lines in low, cultured tones and frequently shot as an unmoving silhouette framed in door or window frames, or in centre close-up (that scream is a visual and auditory shock) this is compelling stuff indeed. 9/10.