One of the occupational hazards with writing this column is that the first episode of a series, especially a thriller, might be really generic. The characters are flat, the situation isn’t really new, there are no big story twists. But because the first episode is setting up the story, sometimes it can’t help but be generic. That’s the issue with a new Australian thriller on Netflix.
Opening Shot: A stormy ocean. One teenage boy is struggling to stay above water. Two others are on a boat, trying to rescue him, but the boat is capsized by the churning waves.
The Gist: In that accident in 2009, Finn Elliot (Remy Kidd) and Toby Gilroy were killed; Finn’s brother Kieran (Ned Morgan), who the other two were coming to rescue, survived. We hear in voice over that another teen from Evelyn Bay, Gabby Birch (Eloise Rothfield), disappeared without a trace the same day, and has been largely forgotten.
Fifteen years later, Kieran Elliot (Charlie Vickers) and his partner Mia Chang (Yerin Ha) arrive in town from Sydney with their infant daughter. They’re there to visit with Kieran’s parents, Verity (Robyn Malcolm) and Brian (Damien Garvey), the latter of whom has been suffering from dementia. It also happens to be the anniversary of Finn and Toby’s deaths.
Kieran doesn’t know how welcome he is in town, but he’s warmly greeted by his old friends Ash Carter (George Mason), Toby’s brother Sean (Thom Green), and his old flame Olivia (Jessica De Gouw), who is now dating Ash. He also meets Bronte (Shannon Berry), who is working on a project that turns out to be a documentary about Gabby Birch. When Kieran and Mia go to the bar owned by Toby’s father Julian (Martin Sacks) and Olivia, Bronte, a waitress there, asks Mia if she can ask her questions about Gabby. Back in the day, Gabby and Mia were good friends.
Busting into the bar is Toby’s son Liam (Julian Weeks), who was a toddler when the accident occurred. He is not happy to see Kieran. As Kieran and Mia walk back to the Elliot’s house, they almost get hit by a wild-driving car.
Then a body is found on the beach near Olivia’s house; Kieran happens upon the scene while going on a morning run. He stays with Olivia until Ash gets there, but the police, including DSS Sue Pendlebury (Miriama Smith), who has come over from Hobart to lead the investigation, questions everyone at the Gilroys’ bar. This is when Kieran finds out that his mother has been a surrogate parent for Liam since Toby died, and that Mia might have more insight into Gabby than he ever thought.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Because the show reaches back to the past for a lot of its story, The Survivors, created by Tony Ayres and based on Jane Harper’s novel, reminds us of The Tourist. This show also reminds us of any number of Harlan Coben adaptations that Netflix has produced.
Our Take: There’s a lot about The Survivors that’s pretty standard noir fare, from the main character coming back to their small town years after a tragic incident to various townspeople who aren’t happy to see that person there to lots of mysteries swirling around various people in this main character’s life. It’s all well-done here, but there isn’t a whole lot about the story that’s engaging us and inviting us to keep watching.
Much of the generic feeling we have about the show is because Kieran’s backstory hasn’t been fully established yet. We see him drowning in 2009, at Toby’s funeral a few days later, then we see him 15 years later with Mia and their daughter. We hear that both he and Mia left town for Sydney soon after the incident, and that he’s rarely been back, but we’re not 100% sure about what happened then or how much the guilt he has over it has affected him in the time since.
Mia is actually the more interesting character, especially when she has offhanded lines “just don’t let me turn back into that meek little Asian girl” in the presence of his parents. When Bronte asks her about Gabby, the look on her face tells us that she knows more than she’s letting on. And then we find out that she told police that Liam was driving the car that almost hit them. So, while it seems at first that Mia is there to just be the supportive SO who’s taking on all of Kieran’s mixed emotions about returning to town, her character ends up having even more layers than Kieran does.
We wonder if some of the other supporting characters will get some of those layers as the series goes along, or if they’ll basically stay in the “friends of Kieran” category. Perhaps we’ll get some thing deeper out of Olivia, given her history with Kieran. Perhaps we’ll find out that Kieran knows more about Gabby’s disappearance than he’s told anyone about, including Mia. But the first episode doesn’t really give us any indication that things are going to proceed in a straightforward, somewhat boring manner.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: More scenes from Bronte’s movie about Gabby, with her voice saying, “I’m going to find out” what happened to her. “I won’t let her be forgotten.”
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Jessica De Gouw as Olivia, because we hope her character has more to her than just being Kieran’s former squeeze.
Most Pilot-y Line: Verity yells at Mia, telling her to “keep your stupid mouth shut!” and Kieran weakly defends his partner with a not-very-forceful “don’t talk to her like that.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite a very generic start, we have hope that The Survivors gets more twisty and layered as the fresh murder is investigated and Gabby’s death in 2009 is reexamined.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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