Production design from "Deadloch" © Amazon Prime Video
"Deadloch" is an Australian crime comedy format with strong feminist and queer traits, which presents an exciting case, but wears out quickly, especially in terms of comedic interludes. In addition, one or the other approach to gender roles is likely to provide material for discussion.
One thing you certainly can't deny "Deadloch" is the courage to be peculiar. The Australian crimedy with drama elements presents itself in the first three episodes unusually and sometimes almost a little stubborn. These are fundamentally good qualities, if you don't overdo it. However, this is exactly what the showrunner duo Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, who are not unknown in their home country, tend to, which sometimes spoils the fun of the thing considerably in the course of the first three episodes.
The pilot episode with the meaningful title "Lingua amputo" (to German something like: "cut off my tongue"), is still quite entertaining. Two teenagers are walking drunk on the beach when they accidentally stumble upon a naked male corpse. Football player Tammy (Leonie Whyman) drops a cigarette out of her hand, which lands on the "best piece" of the dead man, of all things, and thus makes for an awkwardly funny extinguishing action. So the show doesn't take itself too seriously, as it becomes clear from this introduction. The bizarre gags, which always put the audience in a good mood, are juxtaposed with the level-headed and intelligent policewoman Dulcie Collins, who serves the audience as an anchor of reason as well as a whodunnit tension driver. It is she who takes up the investigation, draws the right conclusions and, in the third episode, finally convinces the "man-woman" Eddie, who is at her side, of her theory. You can read a detailed review at Serienjunkies.de. (Reinhard Prahl)
