"Top of the Lake" Episode 4 review - some spoilers

A town full of nasty secrets

The Twin Peaks of the antipodes, avoid the South Island lakes area, dear reader. Robin was gang-raped after a school dance when she was 15 and believes Tui might have met the same fate. The criminal pathologist believes there is a giant cover-up by the local police. Very nasty bit about a 13 year old girl walking in front of a speeding car and the reason she may have done it. This is getting murkier than the fog shrouded lake. How come the detective can afford such a million dollar pad when everybody else seems to be living in 1960's era accommodation? Yes, I know it is New Zealand.Where have all the NZ accents gone to? Everyone sounds Australian. Queenstown was even mentioned in this episode.

Elizabeth Moss shows that she can act her pants off - which she does in Al Parker's (David Wenham) bed. Wenham is underplaying his part, he is almost comatose at times. In contrast to Peter Mullan (Matt Mitcham) who goes ballistic with poor Anita for not putting his coffee cups back (handles out) then proceeds to give her a fun ride on the farm gate with his speeding SUV. This could be the next extreme sport for NZ after bungey jumping and zorbing.
Holly Hunter was absent in this ep, probably buying a winter quilt because it is going to get mighty chilly in those containers now summer is over.
Despite the glacially slow pacing at times, I am now hooked.

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 3 review

More drawn out drama from Jane Campion.  At least the episode was only 48 minutes.
Poor Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss), looking like Scully from "The X-Files" in some shots, has a dying mum and a stagnant relationship with her guy back in Australia. So things look up at the local pub, after a bit of impromptu oral sex in the ladies loos.
Robin must have been thinking about her fling with Johnno Mitchum because she does a crap search of Mitchum Manor (missing the drug factory on the lower level).
Holly Hunter (G. J.) is having fun with her intense prophet/nutbag role. She seems to be channelling Stan's sister Shelley from "South Park".
Old farts trippin' out in the wilderness nearly turned my stomach, concluding with drug lord papa Mitchum's self-flagellation by his mum's grave.
Hope Episode 4 gets somewhere.

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 1, Episode 2 review

I have watched the first two hours of "Top of the Lake". I've avoided reviews. I have seen only one Jane Campion film. I thought "The Piano" (1993) was beautifully filmed, impeccably acted, but full of unsympathetic characters and a bit of a moody wank.
"Top of the Lake" so far is .... beautifully filmed, impeccably acted, but full of unsympathetic characters and a bit of a moody wank. No wonder ABC did not want to buy it for Australian free to air.

Granted the first scene with Arthurian tones, Tui silently gliding into the lake, was mesmerising. The Queenstown lakes district of New Zealand's South Island lends itself to this atmospheric stuff. In the NZ's South Island, even a crap photographer like myself, CANNOT take a bad photo. See above, this was out the hire car windscreen. It is so picturesque (or in Kiwi speak "Pucturisque").
Elizabeth Moss ("Mad Men") does a passable Australian accent, but the production is littered with Australian accents and only a few distinctively Kiwi ones. How come? Many of the actors are Australian, David Wenham, Robyn Nevin. The wonderful Peter Mullan (scary Scottish head of the crime family in Channel 4’s "The Fear") plays a scary Scottish head of a dodgy family.

'Paradise', the women’s refuge lead by head nutbag, Holly Hunter, provide much needed comic relief.  One women lived with a chimp, another one ploughs into the local pub, plonks $NZ 100 (about $A 80) on the bar with the line: “I need a f**k, I’ll be in Room 6, 7 minute job and I’m timing it”.

There was also a throwaway line about the local Austrian paedophile, some card chimes in “Does he have a cellar?

Ever been to the South Island? It is frigging cold, even in Summer. Yet the locals gents walk around bare-chested. We have hippy crones streaking in the meadows.

I will stick with this show because I want to find out where Tui is and who got her pregnant.

Another 5 episodes to go, no more naked old birds, please.