Why is it always murder, and why is the heroine always a detective? It’s a common complaint, with so much TV obsessed with crime — from cosy period mysteries to gory urban serial killer rampages.
And the answer is simple, as the New Zealand domestic thriller After The Party proves. Even with strong writing and a solid cast, all dramas need a compelling hook to hold their viewers. Mere feuds and resentments aren’t enough.
In fact, After The Party does open with a corpse, floating in the water off a picturesque small town, for a few seconds in the title sequence. But there’s no other mention of a death throughout the first episode.
Who the body is, we can’t be sure. Her face is in shadow and one hand is all we can see clearly. She seems to have wavy blonde hair, but that could be a trick of the light.
Might the victim be Penny Wilding (Robyn Malcolm), who teaches biology at the local boys’ college? She’s a fiery feminist and eco-activist, at loggerheads with everyone from ex-husband Phil (Peter Mullan) to the trawlermen breaking fishing regulations.
Without an identity, the corpse in the water is forgotten in the first five minutes of this six-part serial. Instead, we get lost in the countless frustrations and irritations of Penny, a woman who is perpetually angry with everything.
Christopher Stevens reviews New Zealand crime thriller ‘After the Party’
For a self-professed crime thriller, there is a distinct lack of death, writes Christopher Stevens
Christopher Stevens ‘can’t see much reason’ to struggle on watching past the first episode of this new series
The first time we meet her, she has confiscated a student’s phone in the classroom and is projecting images from a porn tape she found on it. Haranguing the teens with explicit language, she tries to embarrass them into never downloading sex videos again — they’ll be mentally scarred for life, she warns.
Then she orders them to gather round while she dissects a rat she trapped in her garden. If anything’s going to scar a boy for life, it’s discovering your teacher knows so much about porn, before seeing her slice open and disembowel a bleeding carcass. That’s enough to keep any therapist busy for years.
Penny proceeds to humiliate the parents of the pupil caught with the smutty movie, cornering them at a sports match and blaming them for failing to put a child lock on his phone.
A moment later, other parents have to intervene as she confronts her ex. And before the week is over, she has threatened her daughter and grandson with eviction, put her own mother in a care home, vandalised a fishing boat, and stormed out of a cheese-and-wine do because a neighbour dared to say that not every man accused of sexual assault is automatically guilty.
That last row clearly touched a nerve — something to do with an allegation she’s made against Phil, though the details are obscure.
Penny lives on red wine and hunks of cheese straight from the packet. Despite this, we’re supposed to see her as the archetypal Strong Woman. I certainly don’t want to see her murdered, but I can’t see much reason to spend another hour in her company.