General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Darby and Joan

Darby and Joan is an Australian television mystery drama series in which widowed English nurse Joan Kirkhope (Greta Scacchi) travels to Australia to investigate the mystery surrounding her husband's death and teams up with retired police officer Jack Darby (Bryan Brown), an ex-detective on the road to escape his own past.¹^•² The two collide in the Australian outback and become an unlikely investigative duo, solving a string of local mysteries while the largest puzzle they face is each other.³ The series was created by Glenys Rowe and Phillip Gwynne, produced by CJZ, and commissioned by Acorn TV as that service's first Australian original commission.⁴

Key fact	Detail
Format	Series 1: eight episodes of about 45 minutes (344 minutes total), completed 2022; Series 2: six episodes, 266 minutes, produced 2024³^•⁵
Lead cast	Bryan Brown as Jack Darby, Greta Scacchi as Joan Kirkhope; the dog Diesel is also a series regular²^•⁶
Creators	Glenys Rowe and Phillip Gwynne⁴
Production	CJZ, with major investment from Screen Australia and support through Screen Queensland's Screen Finance Program⁴
Premieres	Series 1 on Acorn TV from 8 August 2022; Series 2 from 30 December 2024⁷^•⁸
Ratings	Classified M (mature themes and violence) in Australia; TV-14 in the United States¹^•²
Reception	IMDb 7.6/10 from about 2,900 user ratings; Rotten Tomatoes average Tomatometer 74%⁹^•⁷

Spoilers

Premise and title

Series 1 follows Joan, a recently widowed English nurse who has been traveling the outback alone in an RV looking for clues about the death of her husband Ian (John Waters in flashbacks), and Jack Darby, a retired Australian homicide detective traveling with his dog Diesel. After a vehicular collision throws them together, they investigate a series of self-contained mysteries across Queensland, from an apparent drowning at a beachside resort to a cache of stolen guns at a banana plantation.¹^•¹⁰

The title borrows an English phrase. "Darby and Joan" denotes a loving, virtuous married couple, a usage traced to Henry Woodall's 1735 song "The Joys of Love Never Forgot", which referred to "Old Darby, with Joan by his side".¹¹^•¹² The name choice signals the direction of the two leads' relationship, which reviewers and the show's own marketing frame as a slow-building romance between two people of a certain age.¹²

Production

The series was commissioned by Acorn TV and produced by the Australian company CJZ, with major production investment from Screen Australia and support from the Queensland Government through Screen Queensland's Screen Finance Program.⁴ At announcement in August 2021, the Queensland Premier estimated the production would inject $6.6 million into the local economy and generate approximately 95 jobs for Queenslanders.¹³

Filming. Series 1 was shot across Queensland, including the Gold Coast, Scenic Rim, Redland City, North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah), Mount Isa and Cairns, with scenes on North Stradbroke Island filmed in September 2021.¹⁴^•¹⁵ Series 2 returned to the island in June 2024, using the Headland Foreshore and Cylinder Beach.¹⁵

Crew. Series 1's directors were David Caesar, Ben C. Lucas, Mairi Cameron and Jovita O'Shaughnessy; its writers included David Hannam, Beck Cole, Andrew Anastasios, Giula Sandler, Ainslie Clouston, Adam Zwar, Paul Bennett and Keith Thompson, with Pino Amenta as series producer and Claire Tonkin, Matt Campbell, Bea Tammer and Catherine Mackin as executive producers. The composers were Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall.³ Series 2 added Grant Brown and Rachel Ward as directors, with Elisa Argenzio as producer.⁵

Series 2

Series 2 premiered on Acorn TV on 30 December 2024 and ran six weekly episodes to 27 January 2025.⁸ A year after the events of the first series, the story shifts from Joan's grief to Jack's history: the pair search for the truth about Jack's mysterious past as he tries to clear his name of the unexplained cloud hanging over his career, while still solving episodic mysteries along the way.⁵^•¹⁵ The season's finale has Jack and Joan racing to a remote hiding spot for a gun that can clear Jack's name while being pursued.¹⁶

Broadcast and reception

The series streams on Acorn TV in Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand, and also airs on ABC in Australia; it is additionally available for purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV.¹⁵^•⁷ The Australian Classification Board rated Series 1 M for mature themes and violence on 7 September 2022, citing themes of loss, infidelity, car accidents and contemplation of suicide alongside moderate violence; Series 2 received the same classification on 6 February 2025.¹^•⁵

Reception. On IMDb the series holds 7.6/10 from about 2,900 user ratings; Rotten Tomatoes reports an average Tomatometer of 74%.⁹^•⁷ Critics have generally credited the two leads: a Decider review of Series 2 judged the mysteries themselves modest but wrote that the show works because of Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi's chemistry.¹⁷ Scacchi has described the series as a vehicle in which people in their sixties and seventies are shown from their own point of view rather than through a younger gaze.¹⁸

Future

As of late 2026, Acorn TV has announced neither a renewal nor a cancellation for a third series; its official title page lists only Series 1 and Series 2, and Greta Scacchi said in a 2025 interview that writers were working on a third series without confirming production.¹⁹^•²⁰ Third-party trackers differ: epguides lists the show as canceled/ended after 14 episodes, while NextSeasonTV labels a potential Season 3 as pending.⁸^•¹⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Police and detective procedurals

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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