The Kettering Incident
Into the Antipodes
And now for something a bit different.
The Kettering Incident is not quite the normal fare for (Mostly) British Detective Mysteries. It does include murders, and there are police involved. But it really centers around the disappearance of a young girl in unexplained circumstances in a forest in Tasmania. And there is a distinct whiff of Twin Peaks in the air. The action unfolds over eight episodes, filmed around Kettering Forest in Tasmania and first shown on Australian TV in 2016.
The show opens with two young girls biking through the Forest. They hear strange sounds and see lights in the trees. (Kettering – and Tasmania – have been the site of various UFO sightings and one disappearance.) Gillian, the younger girl, runs into the forest – in her bright red jacket – while 14 year old Anna watches her disappear into the trees. Skipping forward 15 years, Anna is now a doctor living in London. She suffers bouts of lost time, waking up, when we next see her, lying in an ally with a bobby asking if she needs help. The next day something unexpected happens and the next thing she knows, she wakes up sitting in a car – with her passport and wallet on the seat – back in Kettering. Somehow she arranged travel and flew to the other side of the earth with no memory of anything.
To say more would be to ruin the experience of immersing oneself in a hauntingly beautiful setting and a dense, complex plot. There are a few moments when things seem to move a little slow but it is a pleasure to watch Anna – played with lissome grace by Elizabeth Debicki – keep moving toward the strange light. (Warning, large moths also figure.)
The series first ran in the US on Showtime and can be found on Amazon Prime (presumably with those annoying commercials). But I watched on Kanopy, a free streaming serice offering many excellent movies and shows that you may be able to access by using your local library or university card.
Not rating this as it may be mostly a matter of taste. But I enjoyed it.