Halifax f.p.

This was an amazing character based series with the twist that she was a forensic psychiatrist . Haven't seen it in 20 years ! It's Morse level quality gonna be amazing to retro to this intense serious character drama it should be a cult some how it was under the radar when shown late on BBC 2 . Given how dire TV is in 2022 don't even have one - this is pure gold .

Here is an Australian crime mystery thriller series to stand alongside "Morse" (and "Endeavour" and "Lewis", also), "Inspector Frost", "Vera", "Inspector Lynley Mysteries", "D.C.I Banks", "Shetland", "Foyle's War", "Midsomer Murders", "Colombo", "Jesse Stone", "Wallender", "Poirot", "Miss Marple", "Silent Witness", "Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries", … you get the picture. Jane Halifax is a Forensic Psychiatrist, often working for lawyers (attorneys) or their client, or as a psychological profiler or police. She is an expert, highly professional, beautiful, single, and complicated. (Brilliantly acted by Rebecca Gibney). The series is created by one of Australia's great television series and mini-series production team, Simpson, LeMesurier, and others. The script writers and directors are some of Australia's best. The cast, varying across successive episodes, but with plausible sequential life-story development centred (naturally) around Jane Halifax (Rebecca Gibney), includes a pantheon of the best Australian film and television actors, such as Hugh Jackman, Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, Robyn Nevin, Steve Bisley, Colin Friels, Ben Mendelson, Gary McDonald, Essie Davis, William McInnes, Sophie Lee, Deborah Lee-Furness, Bruce Spence, Richard Roxburgh, Frankie J. Holden, Kerry Armstrong, Brett Climo, Damian Walshe-Howling, Lewis Fiander, Vince Colosimo, Angela Punch McGregor, Asher Keddie, Marta Dusseldorp, Michael Veitch, Rhada Mitchell, Alan Hopgood, … The stories are strong, and well-written. Through each episode we meet the new team Jane Halifax is working with, and the investigation, and possible suspects. The mystery, and drama develops slowly, but with increasing tension as red herrings are progressively dismissed, and the target criminal eventually comes into view, … leading to a rapid, dramatically striking climax, and the a finale, sometimes ambiguous, sometimes consolatory. Each episode was given a substantial budget, and the stories are colourfully set in and around Melbourne, the state-capital of Victoria, in the south of Australia. The cinematography is flawless. The sets and landscapes are vividly convincing. Mood music sets off characters and developing events and tension. Narrative themes include undiscovered twin brother, serial rapist, psychologically damaged serial sex-murderer, psychopathic mass murderer, suicide of a parent, … From 1994 to 2002, twenty-one episodes of 90 or 102 minutes were produced – clearly a substantial body of work! Halifax F.P. is a classic series that deserves to be much better known. John Gough – Deakin University (retired

I watched Halifax Retribution and thought it was a very good show so I thought I would look at this. After watching the first episode, I thought it was rather so-so. So I decided to just watch the next highly-rated episodes of the series. I ended up watching 7 or 8 of the most highly rated episodes (as rated on IMDB, which I have found to be a good way of determining if I really want to spend my time watching a show, among other factors,) including the last 2 episodes.

Even watching the best episodes of the series, it seemed to be missing something in the way of well-developed and believable and exciting plots. The acting and sets, etc, were fine, but the writing was a disappointment to me.

We have watched just a few episodes so far and have enjoyed them. One thing is puzzling me though. When I first moved from Wales many years ago, a place where the accent changes every 10 miles or so, I was really surprised that most Canadians could not tell the difference between an SE English accent and Australian. When I first started watching this , I was puzzled where it was filmed. Most of the characters seemed to have a light Australian accent or British, with just a few 'real Australian'! Was this how shows were made back than or is this how it is now. I thought Australia only had three accents, and none which are geographical?