If you like detective television, AcornTV is the best bingeing you can get, says Dan Slevin.
Photo: ITV TV
The streaming service AMC+ has two sub-brands that you get when you subscribe. We’ve looked at AMC+ – the headliner – here before, and at Halloween we kicked the tires of the horror and suspense section of the site, Shudder.
Arguably, the most attractive of the options that AMC+ offers for Kiwi viewers is AcornTV, a streaming portfolio that is laser-focused on quality serialised drama from the UK and Australia.
(And, if you are a North American subscriber, New Zealand. AMC+/AcornTV is one of the international destinations for Kiwi content like The Gulf, One Lane Bridge and Far North.)
I picked a quick sampler of three shows to see if it was worthwhile and ended up having a great time.
Photo: Mark Mainz
Shetland
AcornTV’s parent corporation is also a major shareholder in the company that owns the Agatha Christie estate, so detective stories and whodunnits are very much part of their DNA.
As a proud descendant of the Shetland islands, I was always curious about the long-running crime drama set in that locale and, thanks to Acorn, I can watch all eight seasons.
The first season – a kind of pilot, I suppose – was really a two-part TV movie, based on the novel Red Bones by Ann Cleeves. An elderly woman is killed with a shotgun on one of the remote islands and detective Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) takes the short ferry ride from Lerwick to investigate. He uncovers a family feud going all the way back to World War II and that story sets the tone for a well plotted and easy to watch show with an excellent sense of place. Although, I was disappointed to discover that much of the show is filmed on the mainland and they only go to Shetland for important exteriors and atmospherics.
Henshall is an appealing lead as Perez, a recent widower with a teenage daughter and a paternalism for his team that warms the heart. He left the series after season seven and the most recent season – broadcast in the UK at the end of last year – now stars the great Ashley Jensen (Extras).
Shetland is one of the most popular shows on AcornTV and its easy to see why. With 44 episodes in the can, it represents great value for your streaming dollar.
Photo: Joss Barratt
National Treasure
When the great Robbie Coltrane passed away in October 2022 at the age of 72, we lost one of the greatest comic actors of our time but also one of the most underestimated dramatic actors.
His last great screen role was in the limited series National Treasure, made for Channel 4 in 2016, and it is a brilliant testament to the man’s ability to play charming, vulnerable and self-defeating at the same time.
The story is inspired by the real-life criminal investigation Operation Yewtree, which threw British showbusiness into disarray for a number of years following the posthumous unmasking of the monstrous Jimmy Savile in 2012. Coltrane plays Paul Finchley, a beloved entertainer – formerly part of a comic double-act and now the host of an afternoon quiz show – who is accused of a historic rape.
Over four gripping episodes, as Finchley’s life unravels and he then fights back, we get to see a physically frail Coltrane at the peak of his performing powers. He is matched by a brilliant supporting cast including Julie Walters as his long-suffering wife Marie, the flinty Andrea Riseborough as daughter Dee and Tim McInnerny (Blackadder) as Karl, Finchley’s former performing partner and now a much bigger and more artistically respected star.
Photo: ABC TV
Total Control
When I started this project, I thought I was going to just dip my toes into the AcornTV pond and then cancel before my free trial was up, but the first episode of Total Control was so good that it immediately had to go into the standard rotation until all three seasons were done.
Originally titled Black Bitch (understandably not followed through), the show is an Australian political drama with a brilliantly effective indigenous point of view. Star of The Sapphires (and several other dinkum Aussie classics), Deborah Mailman plays a Queensland woman who, after an inspiring moment of bravery goes viral, is tapped to take a vacant senate seat by an embattled Liberal prime minister (played with aplomb by Rachel Griffiths).
Having Mailman’s character join the right-wing coalition, despite her political instincts being further left, creates excellent tension and the show – like Secret City – is particularly astute about the Australian tendency towards political factionalism.
But it’s the drama that we have come for and there is plenty of it, from an all-too-rarely seen perspective. All three seasons are directed by indigenous Australians. Rachel Perkins is best known for Bran Nu Dae (2010) and fellow director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires), also has a role in the series as a Labour politician.
Australia does this sort of political thriller/drama really well – when was the last time we tried it here? – and Total Control is a great example.
AcornTV comes with your AMC+ subscription which starts at $7.99 They have a seven-day free trial. For reasons that escape me, the AcornTV content is only in standard definition rather than HD but it matters little.
