Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Darby And Joan’ Season 2 On Acorn TV, Where Two Newish Friends Continue To Drive Their RV And Solve Mysteries In Australia

So many British and Australian mystery shows ride on the charm of their main characters. Sometimes the mysteries being solved are decent, but for the most part, the relationships built between the recurring characters are what matters. This is absolutely the case with Darby And Joan, starring screen veterans Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi.

DARBY AND JOAN SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As “One Way Or Another” plays, an RV drives across some lush Australian scenery.

The Gist: Jack Darby (Bryan Brown) and Joan Kirkhope (Greta Scacchi) are driving in that RV; the newish friends are pursuing leads that will clear Jack’s name in a case where, when he was still a police detective, his partner and an informant were killed. The person he wants to see is Anna Bairnsdale (Debra Lawrance), who was the mother of the informant that died; the informant’s sister Sophie is the key to clearing Jack’s name, but she disappeared after her brother died 18 years ago.

Of course, Anna doesn’t exactly welcome Jack with open arms; she uses a shotgun instead. Jack and Joan decide to go into town, and they see a drunken ranch hand named Lachlan Malcolm (Tom Wilson) riding and falling off a horse. They bring him back to his family’s cattle ranch, run by his uncle Doug (Martin Sacks); Lachlan’s father Ellory (Gary Sweet) has been helping out since Doug suffered a stroke.

There are some disputes in the family, with Doug’s wife Penny (Jeanette Cronin) finding herself playing peacemaker. Ellory wants to open the ranch up to tourists; Doug objects, and thinks that Lachlan has squandered whatever talents he’s had as a rancher. In addition, Ellory seems to be facing charges of race fixing.

When Doug is thrown off a horse and has to go the hospital, Jack finds that someone planted a shocking device in the saddle. Ellory admits to it, but both Jack and Joan think he’s covering for someone else.

In the meantime, Jack asks his daughter, DI Liz Darby (Jolene Anderson), to follow up on a lead about Sophie; that not only gets her in trouble with her boss, but he calls in an internal affairs detective. That detective, Miranda McNeil (Sigrid Thornton), not coincidentally is also Liz’s mother.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Name an Acorn TV mystery series, and you’ll find a show that’s similar to Darby And Joan: Agatha Raisin, My Life Is Murder, The Madame Blanc Mysteries, The Chelsea Detective, etc.

Our Take: As we mentioned before the show’s first season two years ago, Darby And Joan rides on the easygoing chemistry between screen veterans Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi, and that continues to be the case in the second season. Despite the familiarity Joan and Jack have with each other as the second season opens, they’re still relative strangers to each other, having lived entire lives before literally running into each other when they met.

It seems that the overall arc of Season 2 will be the pair trying to clear Jack’s name in the shooting of his partner and the informant, but they will also be solving mysteries big and small along the way. This time around, the mystery is somewhat low stakes; it’s not a murder, just the case of a grumpy rancher being thrown from a horse that doesn’t normally act that way. It’s more of a placeholder to introduce Jack and Joan to this ranching family and their difficulties, and a way to keep them in the area to keep figuring out how to find Sophie.

Perhaps the mysteries will get stronger as the season goes along, or the overriding arc will overtake those mysteries. But Brown and Scacchi continue to be so charming together that we don’t seem to mind that the mysteries they try to solve aren’t all that engaging.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The RV drives off through more lush scenery, but are chased by a blue car that they almost ran into earlier; in the car is someone who threatened Anna earlier that day.

Sleeper Star: In this episode, Jack’s dog Diesel is only played by one canine actor, Kobe. That just means that he isn’t in as many scenes as he usually is. We still wonder what happens to him as Jack and Joan are off doing their thing.

Most Pilot-y Line: There’s a scene where Jack tries to pull someone up after they slip off a rock ledge, and the use of a stunt double is more obvious than it normally is.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Darby And Joan works because of Bryan Brown and Greta Scacchi. The mysteries themselves are “meh,” but they don’t have to be strong because the show’s stars work so well together.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.