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REVIEW: “Let’s settle down…where the dogs don’t have rabies
Let’s settle down…and make us some babies.
If you could, you really should, live in Brokenwood.”
Yes, as the ninth season of The Brokenwood Mysteries (debuting tonight, Sunday, July 23, at 8.30pm on TVNZ 1) opens, Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Shepherd (Neill Rea) and Detective Kristin Sims (Fern Sutherland) are “enduring” The Brokenwood Playhouse Theatre’s biggest event in years.
Billed as the history of the town – that’s home to the Porky Pigeon Pizzeria, Snake and Tiger Pub and one of the worst murder rates in New Zealand – told through song, it’s as much a homage to Broadway musicals, as it is to the founding of this place that around 5000 citizens call home.
However, the opening night reception is decidedly cool, an already wary Sims describing it more like “the next Ashburton” than the Aotearoa answer to Hamilton, while the only praise others can manage is that “the costumes are excellent”.
The real drama though occurs as the performance reaches its climax. As the show’s creator Terry Weaver (Simon Leary) emerges as the Statue of Liberty, a light falls squarely on his head, stopping him – and the musical – dead in their tracks.
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Who killed Terry Weaver? That’s the question at the heart of tonight’s opening episode of The Brokenwood Mysteries.
Quickly ruling out an accident, it isn’t long before Shepherd and Sims have compiled a list of potential suspects. Could it have been Sue (Susan Brady), the former “off-Broadway and around the West End” star, concerned at how this “dog’s breakfast” of an amateur production was ruining her reputation? Was it “cultural advisor” Missy Tohoroa (Roimata Fox), upset at how “people were being sold alternative facts about Brokenwood’s past, when it’s hard enough to get them to know the real ones”?” Or did the recently paroled convicted murderer and former thespian Ralph St. John (Peter Hambleton) do it simply out of professional jealousy?
The latter’s presence represents a nice callback to this now almost decade-old series’ own history (he featured in the 2015 second-series episode To Die or Not to Die), as this first of six, new, feature-length adventures demonstrates that Kiwi TV’s version of Midsomer Murders (but with Castle, Bones and CSI-style character dynamics) still has plenty of life in it yet.
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The Brokenwood Playhouse Theatre plays host to a Hamilton-esque musical about the town’s history in the first feature-length instalment of the new season of The Brokenwood Mysteries.
As Sims and Shepherd winningly attempt to solve the mystery via solid detective work and more than a few pithy observations and one-liners, regular series writer Tim Balme seems to revel in this first instalment’s world of amateur dramatics, Shakespearian and Roman mythology allusions and ill-conceived musicals.
You know there will be a teary confession before bedtime, but there are also be plenty of subversions of expectations, red herrings – and laughs – along the way. It’s easy to see the show has become a cult hit with audiences from Bulgaria to Belgium and Bloomington, Indiana, even if we now have to criminally wait three months after its Acorn TV debut in North America to see it here.
True, it’s not exactly cutting-edge drama, but it offers “gentle” twisty mysteries and entertaining, comfortable viewing.
Season 9 of The Brokenwood Mysteries debuts on TVNZ 1 tonight, Sunday, July 23 at 8.30pm. Episodes will also be available to stream on TVNZ+.
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