Just watched the first episode of Deadloch. Um. I avoided it because I thought it's like Top of the Lake or Savage River. Instead it's closer to Creamerie or even Utopia.
Not quite Utopia funny, but close. They sure are committing to the Darwinian stereotype though.
As a massive fan of Magilou, can I just say I absolutely cannot stand Eddie Redcliffe. I found a lot of it is Velvet deserved all the trolling from Magilou, but Dulcie hasn't really.
Plus, other reasons.
I just looked up and realised there is a second season of Creamerie and my life is now so much better. I'd love to have access of it on DVD instead of streaming though.
Creamerie is like, what Deadloch would be but with scifi flavour. Also raging brilliant Asian women leads. Also utterly absurd. And dare I say, Tasmania and NZ backdrop can look very similar on screen too. We are just really muddy people.
I swear that Festival vs Feastival is made to trap the NZ-Aus trans-Tasman crowd specifically.
Yup. I fell for it.
Well, James just went from irritating but I see his point, to a completely irredeemable bastard.
Finished Deadloch. While I liked it less than Utopia (a somewhat less crass but way more vicious show), as well as less than Creamerie (pretty much the only show I can think of comparable to Deadloch), it's still good enough to be a solid watch. It's as close to an Anglo Saxon Swery work as it gets.
My main complaint is regarding to Eddie. I suspect in the beginning the writers tried to make an as memorable character as they can, and Eddie fell into an odd position. I found the first three episodes Eddie was so over the top, that it's impossible to imagine that anyone could retain a paid position while being like that. Episode 4 and onwards is more a believably incompetent asshole shit, which dare I say for the ones of us who worked with people like that it's entirely unfun. My possible argument is she only sobered up by episode four. Even then, Eddie's hardselling of Oh So Eccentric was way past a satire and just took away rest of the show's cleverness. "Yeah but Creamerie's Alex was also nuts", yes and she's a civilian in a post apocalyptic world. That matters. Having said that, given that Asian women as hot mess in western shows are so rare, I resent myself for feeling a filling of a void even if it's in the form of Eddie.
Abby aka Elena Turk was awesome, except she's literally a competent Katie from Utopia. Sven is my cinnamon bun, and I legit adored Miranda. Out of the entire cast, it's Cath who I can't stand at all. Just so controlling and manipulative, and unlike say Skye and Nadiya, I honestly struggled to understand why Cath and Dulcie were even together, except as a ownership thing. For all the "I love you"s they say to each other, they behaved more like performing an unconvincing dance routine of love while opening resenting each other.
I figured out the killer way early, not because I'm clever but because he had this leering smile that was so creepy that it brings up all my gross memories of the men who ever did this to me.
Not super keen on the gender absolution either. The whole female serial murder vs male serial murder thing was so pigeonholing it was bizarre to watch. Sure I'm here for a feminist show from 2023 doing a Women from Venus Men from Mars? Why?
As much I liked the satire of the feminist ally, imo the whole approach regarding to how to not be a feminist/ally is incredibly weak compared to Creamerie. A lot of it is Creamerie is comfortable enough with humanising women to completion: including letting women to be villains. Creamerie was also clearly made by WoC in that they understand the racial power imbalance, though let's be real I don't really expect that bar to be common enough to hold that as expectation.
Overall still a fun show, really funny at times, and while the mystery aspect isn't good it's still way better than say The Dry, Top of the Lake, or Savage River. Considering the latter three were selling itself as anything but a mystery, it is something.
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