One Lane Bridge (2020)

Genre

drama

Country

New Zealand

Length

3 seasons, 16 episodes

Rated

16

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 79 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Ariki Davis, a newcomer detective, investigates a series of deaths on a one-lane bridge near Queenstown, New Zealand. The case is intertwined with Maori spirituality and the concept of matakite, or divination.

mysteriousslow-burnsomberatmosphericspiritualtensebroodingsuspenseful

What happens

One Lane Bridge is a New Zealand crime drama television series, premiering on TVNZ 1 in 2020. The series stars Dominic Ona-Ariki as Ariki Davis, a newcomer detective, Joel Tobeck as Stephen Tremaine, his superior, and Alison Bruce as Tremaine's wife, Lois. The show follows events around the latest in a mysterious chain of deaths which have occurred on a one-lane bridge near the town of Queenstown. The series is also notable for its inclusion of aspects of Māori spirituality as a core part of the plot, such as the notion of matakite, roughly equivalent to divination. The series was filmed primarily in Queenstown and its surrounding area, with the eponymous bridge located over the Dart River / Te Awa Whakatipu near the township of Glenorchy, approximately 45 kilometres (28 mi) northwest of Queenstown. Other filming locations include the Queenstown waterfront and areas around the nearby town of Arrowtown. One Lane Bridge premiered in April 2020 on TVNZ 1, in the middle of New Zealand's first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. The show was met with mixed reviews, with Stuff's Malcolm Hopwood describing the characters as "tight-lipped, charmless, one-dimensional people" and the Spinoff's Catherine McGregor saying that the writing of the series "fails to live up to the drama of its breathtaking location". Stuff's James Croot was more positive, describing season 1 as "an engrossing, evocative, supernatural-tinged detective drama, a Central Otago-set Kiwi answer to Scandi-Noir complete with terrific performances from a well-assembled ensemble." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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