Characters are sketched so thinly prior to the incipient murder that their grief washes over viewers, leaving hardly a mark. It could all add up to something compelling, but One Lane Bridge is let down, as so many local productions are, by its writing and pacing. Joel Tobeck and Alison Bruce as Stephen and Lois Tremaine. As Ariki begins to investigate, he’s confronted by strange visions that suggest his special powers go further than just policing. There are long-simmering resentments, dark secrets and many clandestine romantic entanglements. The victim is from an old local family with a failing farm and money troubles their neighbours are wealthy and glamorous, beneficiaries of the transformation of Queenstown into a playground for the rich. A dead body is found an ambitious young Auckland detective, Ariki Davis (Ona-Ariki), teams up with a gruff, set-in-his-ways local officer, Stephen Tremaine (Tobeck), to solve the case.
After that bravura opening set-piece, the story falls into a predictable rhythm. One Lane Bridge’s main issue is that behind the natural set-dressing is a drama that fails to land. The natural beauty is something of a scene-stealer, in fact, constantly drawing the viewer’s attention out the window or over a character’s shoulder to the spectacular landscapes beyond. The immensity of Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables give One Lane Bridge an air of brooding inevitability, reminding us that these people and their problems are tiny blips in an environment that counts its age in millennia. Smith, the CEO of screen production powerhouse Great Southern, lives in Queenstown, and his hometown’s jaw-dropping landscapes take pride of place in the series. Members of the farming family at the centre of One Lane Bridge’s mystery, played by Jared Turner, Dean O’Gorman, Peter McCauley and Sara Wiseman. This show is the brainchild of Pip Hall and Philip Smith, two of the country’s most experienced TV creatives they previously worked together on Jonah and co-wrote the 2017 Dance Exponents biopic Why Does Love Do This To Me?. Well, what happened here? That’s the question at the heart of new TVNZ drama One Lane Bridge, a six-part supernatural murder mystery starring Joel Tobeck, Michelle Langstone, Sara Wiseman, Aidee Walker, Alison Bruce and Dominic Ona-Ariki, who appeared in Filthy Rich and played All Black Eric Rush in last year’s Jonah.
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