Three Australian crime dramas where location drives the story — A mystery can happen anywhere. In Mystery Road, Deadloch and The Tourist, however, the place changes the way the mystery feels.
Each production used a real Australian setting for its first season: the East Kimberley in Western Australia, southern Tasmania and South Australia’s outback. The landscapes are not interchangeable postcards. One brings distance and buried history, another makes secrets hard to keep, and the third turns open country into a pursuit.
All three first seasons are currently listed for Australian viewers: Mystery Road on ABC iview, Deadloch on Prime Video and The Tourist on Stan. Availability can change, but those live programme pages make this a watchable feature rather than a purely nostalgic list.
Mystery Road: the East Kimberley holds the past
In the first Mystery Road television series, detective Jay Swan arrives at a remote cattle station to investigate the disappearance of two young workers. The inquiry gradually exposes an injustice that the community has not resolved.
The production filmed in Western Australia’s East Kimberley. ABC reporting named Carlton Hill Station, the Kununurra Rodeo Grounds and Wyndham among its locations. The production also brought in local crew, extras, horses and stock riders, rather than treating the region as an anonymous landscape.
That specificity matters to the story. Wide roads and distant settlements make Swan’s investigation feel exposed, while the region’s communities and histories give weight to what the detective uncovers. The result is crime drama rooted in a place, not simply crime drama with a scenic background. The second series used other Kimberley locations, including the Broome area; it should not be confused with the East Kimberley first-season shoot.
Deadloch: a small Tasmanian town cannot hide much
Deadloch takes the opposite visual approach. A body turns up in a fictional Tasmanian seaside town just as its Winter Feastival approaches. Local senior sergeant Dulcie Collins must work with Eddie Redcliffe, an investigator arriving from Darwin.
Ausfilm says the production based much of its filming in Cygnet, using the town’s streets and shops. That helps sell the show’s central pressure: people know one another, rumours travel quickly, and the murder interrupts a community preparing to put itself on display.
The series mixes a genuine whodunit with pointed comedy. Its compact town makes even ordinary encounters feel loaded, which is a very different kind of tension from Mystery Road‘s long distances. Prime Video currently lists the eight-episode first season for Australian viewers.
The Tourist: nowhere to disappear in South Australia
The first season of The Tourist begins with a man pursued through the Australian outback. After surviving a crash, he wakes without a memory and has to discover who he is while danger follows him.
According to Ausfilm, the season was filmed entirely in South Australia. The Flinders Ranges and towns including Quorn, Hawker and Orroroo provide much of the outback setting. Adelaide-area locations also doubled for places overseas, showing how varied the state’s terrain can be on screen.
Here, open space offers no comfort: the pursuit feels more frightening because a vehicle can be seen coming from far away, yet help may be distant. That exposure gives the amnesia plot physical urgency. Stan currently offers both seasons in Australia, but the second season moves the story to Ireland; this South Australian reading concerns season one.
Three places, three different mysteries
These shows do not use location in the same way. Mystery Road connects investigation with community and history. Deadloch turns a close-knit town into a pressure cooker. The Tourist makes distance and exposure part of the chase. Watching them together is a reminder that Australian crime television has more than one landscape—and more than one way to make a place matter.
Watch the official Deadloch trailer
For more TV Central Australian streaming coverage, head here. ABC iview’s Mystery Road page is a public starting point for the first series.