Tara Ward reviews a new psychological thriller co-produced by Sky and BBC Scotland.
Dr Mia Beaton is having a terrible day. The Scottish anaesthesiologist may have just accidentally killed one of Glasgow’s biggest crime lords while he was under the surgeon’s knife, and in Mia’s desperation to flee the fallout, she jumps on a plane to fly halfway across the world to attend the wedding of her estranged sister Cassy. But just as Mia’s Antipodes Airlines flight to New Zealand prepares to take off, Mia receives a mysterious voice message from Cassy, containing only two desperate words: “help me”.
So begins The Ridge, a new psychological thriller series made by Sky NZ and BBC Scotland and filmed in both Scotland and Aotearoa. Like other recent New Zealand co-production dramas The Gone and A Remarkable Place to Die, The Ridge follows a troubled soul who arrives from overseas to solve a mysterious death in a small town filled with untrustworthy New Zealanders. When Mia (Lauren Lyle) finally lands in New Zealand, her fears for her sister’s safety are warranted: Cassy has gone missing during a walk on Te Koi Ridge, and her dead body is soon found at the bottom of a cliff.
So begins the unravelling of Mia, a troubled addict who falls into a jet-lagged, grief-stricken spiral as she tries to find out what really happened to Cassy. There are mysteries everywhere, and not necessarily the ones The Ridge wants you to notice. Did Cassie fall to her death, or was she pushed? Who was blackmailing her by videoing her skinny-dipping with a man who wasn’t her fiance? Did Mia learn to abseil at medical school? Why are all these New Zealanders so weird, and most important of all, who is setting fire to all the tractors in town?
Mia struggles to make sense of this South Island community filled with smouldering farm machinery and odd locals who hate “shit-stirring tourists”. Nearly everyone on The Ridge is connected, and all of them are hiding something: Cassy’s fiance Ewan (Jay Ryan) is behaving weirdly, his sister Libby (Florence Hartigan) is the local cop who’s quick to declare Cassy’s death an accident, while Libby’s teenage daughter Chloe (Sadie Grimes) lurks in bushes to watch Mia slap on hormone patches at the local car yard. Ewan’s hostile ex-girlfriend talks about New Zealand native trees, while his mother suffers from dementia and alludes to another mysterious death on the ridge years earlier.
Photo: Neon
There’s some impressive talent behind The Ridge, which is directed by BAFTA-winning Scottish director Douglas Mackinnon (Line of Duty, Sherlock) and Emmy-nominated New Zealand director Robyn Grace (Sweet Tooth). While the rugged beauty of The Ridge will appeal to international audiences, the story itself doesn’t feel unique to Aotearoa. In episode one at least, it seems like Cassy’s death could have taken place in any country or in any murder-mystery drama series. The shaky hand-held camera work and constant zooming in and out is distracting (although it settles down as the episode goes on), but Lyle (Karen Pirie, Outlander) anchors the show with her compelling portrayal of the unpredictable, traumatised Mia.
With each episode only around 40 minutes long, The Ridge is a well-paced, watchable thriller, but it’s also more of the same. It ticks all the familiar murder-mystery boxes without pushing any boundaries, and offers little new in New Zealand storytelling. Don’t be surprised if by the final episode, the mad old woman holds the key to the truth, the moody teenager is the unexpected hero, and the handsome fiance is not who he seems. We’ve got six episodes to find out what everyone on The Ridge is hiding, even if poor old Mia is the only one interested in discovering the truth. Let’s hope she’s a better detective than she is an anaesthesiologist.
The Ridge streams on Neon and screens on Sky Open on Tuesdays at 8.30pm.