But bobbing up ominously amid all these local luxury property shows, not unlike a scary bloated carseat cover floating in an abandoned swimming pool, comes Good Bones. A new local black comedy written by Dan Musgrove, Shoshanna McCullum and Peter Salmon, the series follows millennial couple Sal and Meghan (Josh Thomson and Aidee Walker), who, with the arrival of their first baby looming, panic-buy a deceased estate unaware of the property\u2019s troubled past.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s weird they just gave us the keys on the spot,\u201d Meghan says as they stand beneath their dilapidated love nest. \u201cYeah, I didn\u2019t know they did that,\u201d responds Sal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aidee Walker and Josh Thomson in Good Bones (Photo: Three)<\/p>\n
The haste becomes clearer as they walk through the doors \u2013 there\u2019s blood spatter on the walls, dishes piled sky-high, and something scary under the house that really resembles human remains. \u201cNeeds a bit of a wipe,\u201d says Sal, in the understatement of the century. Alas, it\u2019s going to take a bit more than Jif to clean up the house\u2019s history, soon revealed to be the last place Olympic hopeful Linda Peach was seen before her mysterious disappearance decades ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Combining an unfolding murder-mystery with the comedy of a hapless home renovation, Good Bones gets to the dark heart of our obsession with property ownership in a subversive and surprising way. It\u2019s hard to tell what is a scarier prospect for Thomson\u2019s buttoned-up risk analyst Sal \u2013 the nightmarish visions of bloodshed and screaming haunting him every night, or the potential delays and budget blowouts of the house becoming a bona fide crime scene.<\/p>\n
Josh Thomson in Good Bones (Photo: Three)<\/p>\n
Walker\u2019s wide-eyed crime junkie Meghan is a different story, as she pores over old news articles and reads Peach\u2019s old diaries. The pair are perfect foils for each other, propped up by a sublime supporting cast including Sal\u2019s sharp-tongued office mate Sima played by Janaye Henry and Meghan\u2019s well-meaning boomer parents played by Stephanie Liebert and Paul Norrell (\u201cIt\u2019s not like he murdered you and buried you in the garden like the last owner,\u201d her mum shrugs).\u00a0<\/p>\n
A special shout out goes to Wesley Dowdell aka Wavy Davey, the \u201csemi-certified\u201d handyman who weasels his way into the renovation by offering his free (questionable) labour skills in exchange for board. \u201cNabbed myself a rat king,\u201d he says at one point. \u201cI think I can sell it.\u201d Over fish and chips, he also dispenses sage renovation wisdom to Sal: \u201cthere will be times when your self-worth is so tied up in this place you\u2019ll feel like you are doing up yourself\u2026 and you will be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wesley Dowdell in Good Bones (Photo: Three)<\/p>\n
The script is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but that doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t some quite spooky sequences and a genuinely intriguing mystery at the centre of the show. Made by the same creative team behind award-winning television exports like After the Party and Inside, there\u2019s a sense of ambition and freshness that feels in keeping with other bold local series to emerge on Three this year like Crackhead and Ms X.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Melding true crime and comedy, Good Bones not only works but reaches a place that actually feels much closer to the horror of the first home buyer experience in New Zealand than anything you are likely to see hosted by Phil Spencer, Matt Gibb, or Tom Webster. Reminiscent of genre benders with similar concerns like Housebound and The Ungrateful Tenant, it deftly reveals how chasing the Kiwi home ownership dream can also be the stuff of nightmares.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Good Bones airs Thursdays on Three and ThreeNow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Casey reviews Good Bones, a new comedy-murder-mystery from the creative team behind After the Party.\u00a0 Aspirational property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,111,139,69,72270,1066,1529],"class_list":["post-603480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-nz-tv","tag-pop-culture","tag-three"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}