Culture

Netflix Just Announced Its First Original Australian Series… And It’s Set In Queensland

'Tidelands' will begin production next year.

by Matilda Dixon-Smith  16 May 2017

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Netflix landed in Australia two years ago, providing us with legal access to buzzed-about US shows like Orange Is The New Black, House of Cards, Stranger Things and the maple-syrup murder madness of Riverdale. Which is great and all but it’s also raised the question of when were we going to see an Aussie original Netflix series?

Cue Tidelands, Netflix’s brand spanking new original Australian commission, which is slated to begin production in Queensland in 2018. The massive news dropped this morning, along with a tantalising little video from the people at Netflix, who are clearly just as excited as we are to be bringing us a homegrown original series.

The teaser accompanied a statement from Netflix’s vice-president of international series production, Eric Barmack, who said, “We’re proud these strong Australian storytellers are bringing their vision to the first Australian Netflix original series.”

According to Netflix, Tidelands is a supernatural crime drama produced by Hoodlum Entertainment, and the gang who created the Network Ten series Secrets & Lies, which ran on Aussie screens in 2014 (and was remade for American television in 2015). The ten-part series will be written by creator Stephen M. Irwin.

And, look, I love wacky-sounding TV, and let me tell you Tidelands sounds Peak Wacky. It follows a former criminal returning to her hometown, Orphelin Bay, a small (fictional) fishing village in Queensland. Once there she is embroiled in a criminal investigation (and some long-buried town secrets) when the body of a local fisherman washes ashore. Amid the investigation, she must contend with the town’s strange new arrivals, dangerous half-humans half-Sirens, called ‘Tidelanders’. I mean, spooky stuff.

This is desperately exciting news, not just because more Aussie TV means more great stuff to go on our “to-watch” lists. Netflix also pours considerable amounts of money into their TV series; British costume drama The Crown and Baz Luhrmann’s delightful hot mess The Get Down are two of the most expensive series in television history. Needless to say, it’s pretty exciting to see that sweet Netflix dough going into Australian production after two years of us bingeing on foreign imports.

Although Netflix co-produces a number of Australian shows, including the marvellous and under-watched Glitch, Tidelands is the streaming giant’s first foray into commissioning and producing a series in Australia from scratch.

Netflix is following in the footsteps of local streaming competition Stan, which has already aired original comedy series No Activity, and will air Matt Okine’s brand-new series The Other Guy later this year. Considering how long Netflix has waited to jump into the local content production game, it feels like Tidelands is going to be an investment that’s considerably worth our time.