Black Snow

In 1994 seventeen year old school girl Isabel Baker, a member of the South Sea Islander community, was murdered in Ashford, a small town in northern Queensland. Twenty five years later a time capsule containing letters written by school children is opened and read. Isabel's letter talks of serious issues in the town and fears that it could get her killed. James Cormack, a cold case detective asks to be put on the case. When he arrives in Ashford he gradually uncovers secrets and lies. Friends and family are amongst the suspects.

I thought this was a really interesting series. It has a great central mystery where just about everybody could be considered a suspect of the murder or possibly covering it up. The effective use of flashbacks means that we see the events of 1994 around the time the truth becomes exposed in the present. The location is great with vast sugar cane fields dominating the landscape creating a fine atmosphere. The cast does a fine job; this includes members of the local South Sea Islander community who aren't trained actors. The story also highlights the history of this community; something I was entirely unaware of before. Overall I'd definitely recommend this to fans of murder mysteries.

I needed something to fill the "walking dead" gap in my life and since none of the spin offs or other series are currently airing, I thought I'd give this one a shot. So basically, I watched it because nothing else better was on.

This show explores a 1994 unsolved murder of a high school girl in Australia, after the time capsule is opened in 2019 and new evidence of her murder is uncovered. A troubled cold case FBI agent (Fimmel) asks to be assigned to the case and the show follows him re-opening the investigation and some old wounds in the process.

I'm American and wasn't familiar with the plight of the Australian South Sea Islanders and had to look up how to refer to that group of people to not be offensive or insensitive. Compelling stuff to learn about and interesting that the U. S. isn't the only nation that had a past with nefarious dealings when it comes to capitalism.

I wasn't familiar with any of the actors, though I had caught glimpses of Travis Fimmel when my family watched Vikings, (I didn't watch). The way Fimmel portrays the troubled agent is weird at times. He or the character vacillates between awkward and annoying to dark and troubled. He does this eye bug thing and moves his head in a weird way sometimes when he's being intense, that conveys the emotion but makes me think he's drunk.

Some of the acting is good, some not, I do find that I'm starting to like the Izzy Character and the teens from the 90s more than the adult versions. The kid who plays Hector as a child reminds me of me when I was that age so I added him to my favorite actors list

I say, if you liked "Twin Peaks (seasons 1 and 2), murder mystery and don't have any other shows to watch right now, get into this one. It may pan out to be more interesting for now, it's worth watching even though it's a little "made for TV" in appearance and acting and there are a bit too many bomb shells and red herrings for me to believe anything that starts to show up as a lead. We'll have to see.

UPDATE: This resolved nicely and came together. I liked it more as it went on. Go ahead and watch this knowing there are some issues with acting but the story resolves nicely.

This series, at times, moves at an absolutely glacial pace, which was not aided by the fact that I figured out whodunit, in both seasons, very early on.

But this is Travis Fimmel's (Det James Cormack) show from start to finish. Fimmel is a compelling actor who makes very unusual and surprising acting choices. In this regard, he reminds me very much of James Dean.

Fimmel gets help along the way from Renee Lim (Senior Sergeant Angie Zhang), Gulliver McGrath (Constable Dale Quinn), Jemmason Power (Hazel Baker), Megan Smart (Samara Kahill) and Jana McKinnon (Zoe Jacob's).

It also features some stunning Australian landscapes, especially in Season 2.

I was fairly worried at the start. The first scenes of Izzy were as unsympathetically shot as possible. Then the introduction of Travis Fimmel's character had me thinking uh oh this is going to be over the top.

Fortunately it got better pretty quickly once the action moved to the North Queensland location.

There were still some quite annoying flaws in the depiction of the characters over the 25 year timeline. Some of the actors seemed to have aged about 5 years tops. While others like Hazel were realistically completely different.

Maybe got a bit too "Broadchurch" in the middle episodes. But the resolution wasn't awful.

BTW. Couldn't help noticing in an extended scene in the video shop where the victim worked in 1994 that there were numerous unrented copies of Elaine Paige's Cats film. Perhaps it was because that film wasn't released until 1998.

Everything about Black Snow rings true: the dialog, the acting and the setting, which means if you are looking for Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan go elsewhere. But, if you start this series all you will want is more story and watching will quickly become binging to see what story is just over the hill or on the other side of the sugar cane field. This is a cold case drama set in Australia among native peoples which unfold in the present about the past. The screen loves all the actors but two stand out: Travis Fimmel, as Cormac, the very slow talking and walking cold case detective driven by other demons, and Talijah Blackman-Corowa as Izabel Baker, the victim. Talijah Blackman-Corowa as the young Izzy owns the eye of the camera with her acting skill and beauty.

If I compared this story to anything I'd compare it to the writings of Sally Rooney but with more things that go bang.

Highly recommended.