Winter Warmer Watchlist - Playing Gracie Darling - Miniseries

Filmed across New South Wales, from the scenic Hawkesbury River region to the rugged south coast, Playing Gracie Darling is set in a town where everyone knows each other, secrets are tightly held, and being different is impossible to hide. The Paramount+ miniseries commenced streaming last Thursday. It was a very easy watch, with me finishing it over the weekend.

The six episodes follow the events of Gracie Darling and her friends who haven't seen Gracie since a séance went wrong 27 years ago. Joni, her friend feels like she failed her and when she receives a mysterious call saying another Darling sibling has disappeared, Joni's haunted by the events of the past catching up to the present. 

From Curio Pictures (The Narrow Road to the Deep North, The Artful Dodger) led by New Zealand powerhouse Morgana O’Reilly (The White Lotus Season 3, Friends Like Her) as Joni, Dame Harriet Walter (Succession, Ted Lasso) as Pattie, and Rudi Dharmalingam (Wakefield, The Lazarus Project) as Jay.

ABC favourite Celia Pacquola (Love Me, Rosehaven) also stars as Ruth, with Annie Maynard (Colin From Accounts, Upper Middle Bogan) as Anita, Dan Spielman (The Code, New Gold Mountain) as Peter, and screen icon Anne Tenney (The Castle, A Country Practice) as Moira.

Can an Aussie series actually pull off a small town gripped by the unknown? An Australian horror series? Really? Surely not...

Horror is a hard genre to get to work on the small screen.

When Joni was 14 her friend Gracie Darling disappeared after séance went wrong, she harbours guilt and hasn't been the same since. Joni, now a child psychologist, is still haunted by her past and when she gets a call from a local cop that another Darling has gone missing after a séance all the guilt of the past comes to the present.

I'm not sure if I was 100% in on this one. The Family Next Door set the bar high for Aussie content of late. This was the first local series on Paramount+ since the shared US NCIS: Sydney concluded a couple of months back.

We are also still awaiting word on a final or another season of The Last King of the Cross. At least in October the local NCIS version returns potentially for a longer third season.

Playing Gracie Darling had potential, the Hawkesbury is as gorgeous as ever, however this just didn't 100% suck me in. Even though it was an easy watch, you were left thinking, was that it... No epic conclusion, just the end credits rolling. Oh well. At least The Twelve has returned and Mystery Road is incoming next month for another Origin series.