The first episode of Stan’s new Sydney-set crime drama contains various title drops –almost enough to warrant a drinking game. You can forgive repeated use of the phrase “critical incident”, given that it’s spoken by members of the jargon-y police force, but it becomes a little annoying when the show insists on telling us about said incident while delaying the revealing of it, creating an inconsistent stop-start energy that remains an issue across its entire six-episode arc.
Referring to the titular event through dialogue and cutting around it emphasises its significance, really applying the highlighter pen. Created and co-written by Sarah Bassiuoni, the show explores how the effects of a single event can ricochet across various people’s lives – like the ABC’s adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas’s novel The Slap, though that series was far more effective.
