Dustfall ★★★★★
At a glance, this new Australian drama feels familiar: a horrifying crime against a young woman occurs in a small town, with the investigation being led by an on-edge police detective who has returned to the community where they grew up.
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they → feel → community
But once you experience Dustfall – and it’s a series you experience on a visceral level – any sense of the archetypal is banished.
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sense → experience → archetypal
There is an unflinching level of detail, the story’s procedural momentum is matched by harsh, necessary themes, and the performances – beginning with Anna Torv’s wrenching headline role as Detective Sergeant Antigone “Tig” Pollard – have a raw-nerve specificity.
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performances → be → specificity
The praise for this show, which should be ranked among the finest the ABC has produced, comes not just with superlatives, but an acknowledgment of the responsibility displayed: to not turn away, to not offer easy reassurance.
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ABC → rank → reassurance
You’ll be enthralled, you’ll be gutted.
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you → enthral → ?
When we first see Edie Kelly (Zoe Phillips), the 18-year-old high school student is nervously letting down her friend and hopeful suitor Finn Morrison (Theo Haitana) in the front bar of the Royal, a pub in the Queensland town of North Gap.
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student → see → Gap
Annoyed, he walks out.
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he → walk → ?
Then the barflies circle Edie.
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barflies → circle → Edie
The next morning she’s found sitting naked in a cane field, bloodied, bruised and without a memory of what transpired.
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what → find → memory
Edie’s been drugged and raped.
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Edie → drug → ?
Take note of how Tig encounters Edie, because this is storytelling where the granular touches are both heartbreaking and telling.
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touches → take → Edie
There is tender empathy in Tig’s voice, which also has a note of resignation that another young woman has had her life brutally upended, and a shot – one of many rightfully unyielding compositions from director Emma Freeman – that starts at Edie’s face and tracks down to her hands clenching her ankles as if she’s trying to literally hold herself together.
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she → be → herself
Dustfall was adapted from The Unbelieved, a 2022 crime novel written by Vikki Petraitis.
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Dustfall → adapt → Petraitis
The six-part series was created by Dianne Taylor, the New Zealand writer behind After the Party, a startling Kiwi drama about assumption and recrimination.
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series → create → assumption
Dustfall has a more recognisable genre outline, but there’s a similarity in the emotional charge that never dissipates.
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that → have → charge
It explores how the everyday can be fraught and how truths get ignored because acknowledging them pulls away necessary foundations.
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truths → explore → foundations
Even as a procedural, where the police work is incremental, this show doesn’t cut the usual corners.
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show → cut → corners
There is a long sequence in the first episode in which Edie undergoes a forensic exam with Shayna (Alice Ansara), a nurse who must gather crucial evidence at a terrible time.
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who → be → time
The distance, made by bitter circumstance and impersonal laws, between those who need help and those trying to help them is a recurring element.
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who → make → them
Nothing comes easily, be it answers, healing or change for the better.
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it → come → better
The show doesn’t sideline Edie – she’s never just “the victim”.
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she → sideline → Edie
And at each junction, threads are woven in – whether it’s Tig being visited by her mother, Olivia (Juliet Stevenson), a gender studies professor whose coercive charm can’t bridge the unspoken chasm with her daughter, or awkwardly encountering Andy (Peter Fenton), an older musician she had a crush on as a teenager.
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she → weave → teenager
You see the lives of suspects, foundering relationships and official intransigence.
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You → see → suspects
The economy and effect lodged in the narrative is masterful.
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economy → lodge → narrative
What it all coheres as is a view, taken from both intimate and official levels, of the realities behind sexual assault and a culture where it takes root.
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it → cohere → root
Many of the women in Dustfall, including Tig, are aware of the repercussions in even minor encounters; some of the men are oblivious to them.
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some → include → them
Dustfall premieres at 8.20pm Sunday, October 11, on the ABC and ABC iview.
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Dustfall → premier → ABC
We’ve got you.
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We → get → you
Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
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Watchlist → get → ?
- Carrie is back: Stephen King didn’t want another remake.
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King → want → remake
This is what convinced him.
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what → convince → him
- East of Eden review: Is the new Netflix adaptation worth watching?
- 70 Up:
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adaptation → watch → Eden
TV’s most fascinating experiment comes to an end.
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experiment → come → end
Meet the man who inspired the show.
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who → meet → show
The Aporia
