You know the drill: a protagonist with a complicated past returns to their home town, drawing old tensions to the surface. This town, of course, is riddled with mysterious deaths and disappearances, like every second rural location in Australian film and television. Such settings and plot scenarios lure our storytellers like moths to the flame. And they’re dusted off once again in Savage River, a six-part series crafted with some atmospheric elegance by veteran director Jocelyn Moorhouse that lacks oomph and invokes a serious case of deja vu.
Given the familiarity of the premise, which returns Miki (Katherine Langford, of 13 Reasons Why fame) to her home town after serving 10 years in prison, the screenwriters (Giula Sandler, Belinda Bradley, Franz Docherty, Angie Fielder and Polly Staniford) needed to work especially hard to come up with something fresh. However, the show gorges on formula and boxes itself into an unfortunate rhythm whereby each new plot development feels, well, old and contrived to advance the narrative in particular ways.
