I watched "Goldstone" a year and a half ago and was underwhelmed - not that it was bad, just ... dark and depressing and not good enough for me to tolerate the darkness. I later found out that "Goldstone" was actually a movie sequel to a TV series: "Mystery Road." A good friend highly recommended the series, so I watched the first season. It's fairly dark as well, but quite good. Reading over my notes on "Goldstone," I'm thinking this was done by the same cinematographer. The style is similar, and some of the shots are just dazzling.

On to the story (six episodes of ~50m each). Two young men have vanished from an outback cattle station, and Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) has been sent in to assist the local head of police Emma James (Judy Davis) with the investigation. In classic detective story style, the town turns out to have a lot of dirty little secrets. Swan has his own problems (a wild daughter who's followed him into town, and a bad habit of going rogue). James tries to get rid of him, but finds the higher-ups won't let her ... and while he doesn't tell her as much as she'd like, it's clear he really is quite good at his job.

The series wasn't just about the disappearance of the two boys, or even the several more mysteries that stemmed from it, but also about what Canada is calling "reconciliation," as we try to come to terms with a shitty history of colonialism and oppressing the natives ... which appears to be pretty much exactly the same in Australia.