General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Gloaming

The Gloaming is an Australian eight-part crime drama television series created and written by Victoria Madden, which premiered on the streaming service Stan on 1 January 2020. Set and filmed in Tasmania, it follows Detective Molly McGee (Emma Booth) and Detective Alex O'Connell (Ewen Leslie), former lovers who reunite to investigate the murder of an unidentified woman and find that the evidence links to a 20-year-old unsolved crime, with political corruption, occult practices and ghosts of the unsettled dead woven into the plot.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Eight episodes of roughly 50 minutes each; one season, completed 2020²
Premiere	1 January 2020, all episodes on Stan (Australia)¹
Creator	Victoria Madden, showrunner and writer, also creator of The Kettering Incident³
Lead cast	Emma Booth (Molly McGee), Ewen Leslie (Alex O'Connell), Aaron Pedersen, Rena Owen, Martin Henderson, Matt Testro, Josephine Blazier²
Directors	Michael Rymer, Greg McLean, and Sian Davies³
Production	Sweet Potato Films and 2 Johns Productions, co-produced with ABC Signature; filmed entirely in Tasmania³
Reception	90% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes (10 reviews); 6.6/10 on IMDb from about 3,000 votes; three AACTA Award nominations⁴^•⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Premise and structure

The story opens when an unidentified woman is found brutally murdered, and evidence at the scene links the killing to a 20-year-old unsolved crime. Detective Molly McGee must partner with Alex O'Connell, a fellow cop with whom she shares a tragic past, and the two have not spoken in twenty years.¹^•⁷ A seemingly ordinary inquiry opens the door to darker forces, with corrupt politics and questionable commercial interests becoming entangled with macabre offenses and occult activity.¹

Screen Australia's synopsis describes the series as entwining three narrative strands: a character-driven story about two past lovers overcoming tragedy and betrayal, a crime story that leads the detectives into the past, and a strand of social commentary touching on the housing crisis and social marginalisation.² The AACTA handbook entry frames the show as a "Whydunit" rather than a whodunit, involving a crime stretching back decades and an occult religious order whose origins stem from transported Scottish convicts; Molly is also locked in a cat-and-mouse game with the powerful Gareth McAvaney (Martin Henderson), a man she believes got away with murder.⁸

The title refers to a Scottish term for twilight, "the dying of the light," and in the series' mythology names the liminal space between light and dark, life and death, where the unsettled dead linger.⁹^•¹⁰ Episode titles follow this imagery, from the premiere "The Dying of the Light" to the finale "The Night of the Mothers."¹

Cast and production

Casting. AACTA Award-winning performers Emma Booth (Glitch, Hounds of Love) and Ewen Leslie (The Cry, Safe Harbour) lead the cast, announced in April 2019 when production commenced in Tasmania. Aaron Pedersen (Mystery Road), New Zealand actress Rena Owen, Matt Testro and newcomer Josephine Blazier joined them, with Martin Henderson later confirmed as Gareth McAvaney.¹⁰^•³ According to IMDb trivia, Booth and Leslie underwent vocal training before filming to cover their Western Australian accents, since the series is set in Tasmania.¹¹

Directing and crew. The director lineup pairs Michael Rymer (Hannibal, Battlestar Galactica, American Horror Story), Greg McLean (Wolf Creek, Jungle), who also serves as an executive producer, and Sian Davies (Reef Break, Wentworth). Marden Dean was director of photography, and the series was delivered as a 4K HDR drama.³^•¹²

Financing and companies. The series is a co-production of Madden's Sweet Potato Films and John Molloy's 2 Johns Productions with ABC Signature, a Disney Television Studios company. Production funding came principally from the Tasmanian Government via Screen Tasmania and Screen Australia, working alongside Film Victoria, while Stan helped finance the series.³^•¹³

Release and distribution

All eight episodes premiered on Stan in Australia on 1 January 2020.¹ Starz, the Lionsgate-owned US network, picked up the series and debuted it on all its platforms on 21 March 2021.¹⁴ Screen Australia lists ABC Studios International as the international sales agent.² In April 2020, Screen Tasmania approved $25,000 in development funding for a second season of eight 50-minute episodes.¹⁵

Reception

Critical response favored the series' atmosphere over its plotting. On Rotten Tomatoes the miniseries holds a 90% Tomatometer from 10 reviews, with a critics consensus praising its "sumptuous aesthetics" and creeping mystery, while the audience Popcornmeter sits at 50%.⁴ Luke Buckmaster, reviewing for The Guardian, compared its fog-swamped look to Twin Peaks and credited cinematographer Marden Dean, while noting that the personal connections between the detectives and some stilted dialogue gave the show a whiff of familiar contrivance.¹⁶ Mel Campbell of ScreenHub gave it 3.5 stars, placing the series in the tradition portraying Tasmania as Australia's gothic heartland.¹⁷ On IMDb the series holds a weighted 6.6/10 from about 3,000 users, with individual first-season episodes rated between 7.2 and 7.7.⁵ The series received three AACTA Award nominations, including Best Telefeature or Mini Series.⁶^•¹⁸

Tassie noir

Commentators group The Gloaming with Madden's earlier series The Kettering Incident (2016) under the label "Tassie noir," a Tasmanian variant of the noir crime genre inspired partly by Scandinavian noir. An academic study by Rebekah Brammer in the Australian Journal of Popular Culture examines Madden's two series against Forbrydelsen and Bron | Broen, arguing that Tasmania's climate and topography, its looming mountains, treacherous coastlines and cold, rainy weather, lend themselves to the gothic-noir style and to crime narratives set in remote or marginal places.¹⁹ Madden herself has said she wants to keep moving the noir style forward by bridging a strong crime story with other genres.²⁰

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) › Science fiction, horror, and supernatural

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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