. . . . After dinner on February 28th, I had no idea I was moving to New Zealand, particularly as I was already living in New Orleans due to NOLA Reconnect 2. But I opened the first season of Brokenwood Mysteries then, and went for the second episode on March 1st. And there I've been all month every night after dinner. What follows are snapshots of how that happened while it happened. Emphasis on is on snapshots. This is a fresh set of eyes, from an entirely different part of the world, landing upon a 7 year old television series purely by the happenchance of subscribing to AcornTV.
Season 1 (2014) New Zealand.
The series centers "Senior" (title of address at the police station) Mike Shepherd, a detective in possession of the, by now, overly familiar shticks of the quirky detective. He’s got a music genre fixation – Mike's is Country (Rebus’s a certain subset of 1960’s rock; Bosch’s is jazz, etc.), coupled with love of good wine (instead of whiskey, Scotch, Irish or beer).
He’s got the out-of-date car, that auto aficionados admire, a 1971 Holden Kingswood, but which, notably does not impress Detective Kristen Simms and Detective Constable Breen, Mike's distinctly much younger, fitter, more attractive and more down-to-earth, second and thirds. They don't like Country music either. Mike’s an out-of-shape, rumpled mess with multiple ex-wives, whom most women still find very attractive, plus he has a dislike of contemporary technology.
Just off the top of one’s head, how many variations of this detective character can I come up with in 60 seconds, starting with Rebus and Longmire and Vera Stanhope (though sans the music and ex-wives, but she does like her Scotch)? Even Midsomer Murders’ Barnaby, when it comes to tech. Such a contrast with CBC’s Murdoch’s Mysteries Murdoch's fascination with all new technology.
BM has beautiful, soothing, o so gazeable, rural locations that one never gets impatient seeing, shot in the series’s location in New Zealand’s greater Auckland region (North Island),
including Helensville, whose post office stands in for Brokenwood’s small, but astonishingly resourced with tech and manpower (unexplained), police station. The closest city, Hamilton, is about 2 ½ hours by car from the fictional Brokenwood. Hamilton is a very minor though significant player in Brokenwood life, referred to constantly as a comparison to tiny (pop. 5000) Brokenwood, as well as a destination -- but we never break screen wall and go there ourselves.
Gotten through season 2 (2015). Into season 3 (2016) now. Got a kick from the good-natured poking of fun at the crazy fans of the LOtR’s franchise who come to Brokenwood to tour Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth (that this isn't possible is part of the plot!), especially the big felt and foam spider, in the first ep, “The Black Widower.” Impressed also by its pro environmental and endangered species protection message, for spiders, fresh water sharks, and the forests and the fragile habitats of shore lines. Another clever episode of season 3 was the Christmas episode, “A Merry Bloody Christmas.” which had seasonal, touching bits by Mike as to the belief in Santa as real. It turns out his nephew is an adult Down’s syndrome person, who receives tremendous joy from Santa, true joy, not commercial, not made-up or delusional, but true joy. This is the season the series revealed itself more clever in its writing than might perhaps be expected from the previous seasons. And sensitive too, but never ever sentimental, which isn’t possible even for Mike, who seems to possess a bit of second sight and romantic viewpoint, due to younger, thus more cynical, and down-to-earth, Simms and Breen.
Into season 4 (2017) now. We’ve already recycled domestic abuse and in-the-closet stories, and now we are here again. I’m getting the sense this show isn’t in the least concerned with consistency of tone, or attitude. It seems focused far more on character, which, increasingly, as the minor regulars re-appear in the episodes, and characters from past episodes return, seems to remind the viewer that ultimately character is fixed. Once a murderer – be prepared, s/he will murder again -- particularly she.
Season 5 (2018) They are going for episode fill-ins around the main plot, having Kristin sort- of-intrigued-by, but not interested by the courtship of Kahu, a gorgeous and smart young Maori, -- and somewhat of a playa. He is not the Maori character, Jared. (played by Hema Taylor) from earlier seasons, who was the only “cool” character on the show. The website for the series says nothing about Jared’s disappearance, or the sudden arrival of his ‘cousin,’ Kahu Taylor (played by Rawiri Jobe). Jared’s character reappears at the end of the season; the website says nothing about the reappearance either. I was glad to see his return. Throughout, the season also turned more bonkers, because so many of the characters are classified out-and-out as, ah, um, mentally disturbed, shall we say. Some of these are seen in other episodes too. The most deranged of this season’s episodes is #4, “Dark Angel,” the plot of which centers the derelict Brokenwood Institution for the Insane.
Season 6 already! (2019) Over the last two – three seasons, re-inserting characters from previous episodes into storylines of the later episodes. It’s a good plan. It makes BM more of a ‘village’ mystery series. But it's also darker even if more cosy than ever. First episode of 6th season is set within Brokenwood’s steampunk community, “The Power of Steam” – PLUS – we have an incel. Holy cow. Is this the first depiction of Steampunk culture – as opposed to attempts to make movies, etc. from it? on screen? This isn’t a pleasant view due to quite unpleasant characters. Certainly, inclusion, despite the trumpeting the the big point of the steampunk community is inclusion for the excluded, is not (always) the point, as depicted in the community's cast. or in the story line . . . . Woo -- the final episode, “Dead and Buried,” brings back three female characters, all murderers, from past seasons. They are in the private, for profit, Brokenwood Women’s prison, which isn’t like any prison one is going to encounter in the US – and maybe not in New Zealand either. Yoga classes? Knitting classes with real knitting needles? Shouldn’t this population -- as we know the characters from previous episodes -- be in an asylum for the criminally insane? The female warden wears 5 inch stilettos, form fitting, sexy, yet elegant fashionable outfits – this seems more like a subset of porn that was once and maybe still is, of women in prison. Plus, we got a lot of butch going on. But then, BM has had many episodes that include teh gay, one of whom is the minor, but recurring pharmacist character, who in the course of the series, becomes Brokenwood’s mayor.
This is an odd series, maybe we could use ‘quirky’ to describe it? It didn’t seem to start that way, but somewhere in season 3 it started to make a turn to gothic and bonkers, while also, starting with the fake Peter Jackson locations for the LOTR films, getting in, sub rosa, comments about diversity and inclusion, the evils of raping the environment and destroying creatures generally, and endangered ones, particularly. These are the moments that have kept me watching, because while embedded entirely plausibly, they always come unexpectedly. One almost wonders if these 'message' moments are so deliberately composed that unless one already has gotten the message the watcher won't notice? But I still appreciate them.
Most of all, because without them, one wouldn’t keep watching at all, it's the chemistry among the cast of characters that keeps one watching. The writers never made the dreadful error of attempting to manufacture chemistry or interest in the characters’ interactions via that exhausted “Will the male and female detectives finally recognize how hot they are for each other and DO IT!” Brokenwood Mysteries doesn’t Do That. Thank goodness.
I looked forward to spending time after dinner every night with Superior Mike Shepherd, Detective Krista Simms, Detective Constable Sam Breen and Medical Examiner, Gina Kadinsky, and the chemistry among them manufactured by their shared work. I like these people! I liked getting to know a lot of the other, minor characters too, not least Frankie “Frodo” Odos, as the guy for whom nothing ever quite works out, and Mrs. Jean Marlowe, who really does know everything about everyone in Brokenwood, without whom Shepherd would never solve a single murder.
Season 7 (2020) of Brokenwood Mysteries begins on Acorn Tv on March 29th. Then it will all really be over.
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