The high-concept premise of this rollicking Aussie drama from creators Ben Davies and Timothy Lee is “Succession in the outback”. Or for those partial to cowboy hats and Kevin Costner: “Yellowstone, in Australia”.
Director Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) brings power jostling and fraught family dynamics to the Top End in Territory, the majesty of the landscape perhaps suggesting that all the human conflict bubbling away on the surface makes a teeny imprint in the ancient scheme of things.
Not that it doesn’t resonate: the stakes feel intensely personal and high at Marianne Station, the world’s (fictitious) largest cattle station. Its future is thrown into doubt when heir apparent Daniel (Jake Ryan) is killed off in a way rarely seen on screens – by dingo! Daniel is attacked by a group of ravenous canines in a scene that reminded me of a moment from Joe Carnahan’s great film The Grey, when Liam Neeson straps broken glass to his fists and prepares to bash a bunch of wolves.
Poor Daniel is tough but not Liam Neeson tough, and is reduced to kibble. His death sparks a “who’s next in line?” conundrum for the Lawson family, who own the station. Grumpy patriarch Colin (Robert Taylor) – the Logan Roy character – doesn’t like his options, which include his alcoholic son Graham (Michael Dorman); Graham’s wife, Emily (Anna Torv), who is related to a rival business family; and their children Marshall (Sam Corlett) and Susie (Philippa Northeast). Everybody wants the top job apart from Marshall, a free spirit more interested in adventure than power and inheritance.
In the first episode Lee (also the screenwriter, with subsequent episodes written by himself, Kodie Bedford, Steven McGregor and Michaeley O’Brien) links the family trade to emperors and dynasties. “Cattle stations aren’t democracies – they’re kingdoms,” says Colin, who provides a handy overview of the characters when he grumbles about how he has “a hopeless alcoholic for a son, a daughter-in-law whose family have been stealing my cattle for generations, a dropout granddaughter, and a runaway grandson who hates us all”. Lines like this can be highly effective if used in moderation and deployed naturalistically.
All the Lawsons are headstrong and a bit dangerous; part of the dramatic intrigue comes from not knowing what they’re capable of. The cast very effectively capture this. Torv has a steely and sorrowful glint in her eyes; the look of someone who is prepared to fight but would prefer not to. Dorman is powerful and yet vulnerable as Graham, who makes bold moves while battling the demon drink. Corlett brings spunk and attitude as a young man still finding himself, and Northeast very persuasively inhabits Susie, who is tougher to read – calmer than the rest of her family and playing the long game.
The supporting cast impress too – particularly Clarence Ryan, playing Nolan Brannock, an Indigenous station owner and cattleman caught up in politics and brouhahas. Ryan has real fire in his belly and a dynamic presence, raising the voltage. Hamilton Morris has a small role as Indigenous elder Uncle Bryce, but geez it’s good to see him: it’s Morris’s first screen appearance since his stunning performance in 2017’s Sweet Country, in which he played a farmhand pursued across rugged terrain by Bryan Brown’s police sergeant.
The aforementioned dingo scene is the first in a series of unpredictable bursts of wild spectacle that erupt like claps of thunder, scattered across the run time (this review encompasses the first five episodes available to the media, of six total).
I love how Territory aspires to be appointment television while inviting the ghosts of the Ozploitation movement to come in and monster the drama every once in a while. McLean knows how to bring genre thrills and spills to the table, having made his name with Wolf Creek and helming various other down’n’dirty productions, including “giant croc” thriller Rogue and the pulpy Daniel Radcliffe survival movie Jungle.
In Territory, injections of explosive action enliven all that bickering and jostling; before you know it, Torv is jumping into a helicopter in order to break up a gunfight. And it works surprisingly well: these moments are perhaps not entirely realistic but they don’t cross into outright implausibility either. Do we call this elevated action? Prestige drama, with its head blown off? Either way it’s a sensationally heady mix.
Territory premieres on Netflix on 24 October
