The Gulf

I don't normally like kiwi tv, but this was very good and under rated on here. Would recommend.

PLEASE can we have a detective with no baggage, just good at the job?

Best NZ thriller ever, well worth the watch. As good as anything the BBC makes.

The Gulf is a contemporary police drama set ostensibly in Auckland, New Zealand's largest city. But in fact most of the action takes place on Waiheke, an idillic island about 50 minutes ferry ride in the Hauraki Gulf with about 10,000 inhabitants comprising artisans, hippies, wineries and wealthy folk who often commute to Auckland. The three main police officers are brooding middle aged Detective SS Jess Savage (Kate Elliot) and her handsome 30 something assistant DS Justin Harding (Ido Drent). Jess lives on the Island (as it is usually called), Justin in an inner city Auckland apartment and Senior Sergeant Denise Abernathy (Allison Bruce) holds down the fort at the Waiheke police station. Jess reports to her boss at Auckland Central Police Station and the show features many stunning shots from the frequent ferry rides Jess and Justin must take.

The Gulf cleverly weaves an ever more gripping developing plot line across all episodes and series but the bulk of episode time is taken up with excellent two-episode local crime story lines. In the ongoing story, Jess survives a near fatal accident that killed her husband and she now lives alone with her 18 year old daughter Ruby (Timmy Cameron) who gets pregnant to her older boyfriend AJ (Dahnu Graham). The exact circumstances of the accident unfold gradually as do the consequences for Jess and how she deals with them and it is a compelling and tense underlying storyline that augments the attractiveness of the ongoing policing work stories.

Now I'm a biased observer on the location being a kiwi expat but the setting is simply superb and the show beautifully captures many endearing and attractive aspects of kiwi culture and life: the stunning scenery of Auckland's Gulf region, the plethora of beautiful 100+ year old restored wooden villas on the Island, the casual laid back style of interpersonal relations in NZ, the slang, the way Maori culture and words are neatly interwoven into modern white NZ society and down to the little things like iconic fish and chips in the squad room and Marmite on toast for breakfast. All in all a fabulous and quite unique police drama. It is more dark and has a harder edge than the more genteel and slow pace of The Brokenwood Mysteries, another NZ police drama.

I like the format of this quite a bit. Tandem episodes that resolve a particular case, but a narrative through line runs through all of them with a mystery component with the lead. She's been in an accident of which she's the lone survivor, her husband dead. And this has given her some selective, short term memory loss that is being resolved as she goes back to work.

I think it actually works quite well. The writing is better than expected overall, with a couple rough patches. Probably because they go through a lot of murders. It's like watching a BBC crime show, but much tighter. Sometimes it's more contrived but it's also not meandering in the least. It's a trade off.

Performance wise, all 'round competent. I _think_ the lead is cast as at LEAST odd, but I think also neurodivergent-perhaps trying to evoke the popular detective from Bron/Broen. It's never explicit though, so it's hard to say. But she is a bit standoffish and takes a bit getting used to, but when you do I actually like her quite a bit. And everyone else is just as fine. No truly excellent people, though.

The through line really brings together the plot in a satisfying way. It has a plot arc and character arc in-built, plus it's way more interesting than it initially seems. Relationships are fairly complex and dynamic. Characters are well realized. Gorgeous NZ scenes and shot compositions. Definetly deserving of a solid rating, in my mind. And I have watched an unhealthy amount of procedurals, Scandinavian noir, and peripheral shows from all around the world, for what it's worth.