RightWingDeathBogan

Nobody Does Crap TV Like New Zealand.

I'm about to hit the sack, but before I do, I can heartily recommend avoiding this crapfest at all costs.

I've seen a lot of bad television. Hell, I've made some really godawful television. (No names, I'm trying to live to be 100).

This, however, has got to be scraping the bottom of the barrel*. From the Portman Films site:

The story begins when a mass grave is uncovered in Bosnia revealing the decomposed bodies of Serbian soldiers. Sophie Morgan, a beautiful and dedicated prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, is given the job of finding those responsible.

Her investigations and a media leak in London take her to New Zealand and to a small band of soldiers who had been seconded to Bosnia ten years earlier.

Through flashbacks we begin to learn what happened and who is concealing a devastating secret – a secret that may very well be taken to the grave.


Key to this secret is Lucas Crichton, a tough no-nonsense NCO in the New Zealand Army. As the net closes, Lucas is forced to track down the disparate band of men who served under him. Now scattered throughout New Zealand, their only common bond is a shared experience of horror in Bosnia.

When Lucas reappears in the lives of his former squaddies, he comes like a spectre from a past most of them seem desperate to forget.

Because now they’re successful businessmen, restaurateurs, policemen, criminals and social misfits – burying themselves in the present to avoid the threats of the past.

His quest takes him through the restaurants and up-market addresses of Auckland, down into the nightclubs of Wellington, and into the dense bush of the South Island’s West Coast, and beyond. Into the mountains around Queenstown, and on down into Dunedin, where the unravelling threads of this shared past finally begin to make sense.

And as the climax of this story is played out in the vast back country of Central Otago, Lucas the hunter becomes the hunted; Sophie discovers what really happened in Bosnia.

And while Lucas finds that betrayal and redemption live in close proximity, Sophie finds that knowing the truth means sharing the secret.

And both learn that love can be found in the most surprising places.

This dreck is so bad that a 6 part series got axed half way through it's run.

This is ridiculous. Our own Aus tv and film industry is a complete dog's breakfast, with very little of quality to offer (unless you consider 'reality' and quiz shows to be quality) and we're bringing this stuff across to fill our airwaves?

I knew there was a reason not to watch commercial telly. Unless the cricket's on, of course.



*please note, having made some dreadful stuff myself, I am well aware of exactly how much bloody hard yakka goes into the making of the product. I don't hold the actors or the production crew responsible - they can only work with the material they are given. I hold the EP, the producer, director and writer responsible.

Guys, the idea might have been okay, but I reckon that room full of monkeys with typewriters could do better.

sotto voce: i wonder if anyone can tell i'm a bit pissed about this waste of airtime and the expense for all involved? grrrrrr.

posted by Nilk @ 11:16 PM