# Faraway Downs (2023)

> An English aristocrat inherits an Australian cattle ranch and teams up with a drover to defend it from powerful rivals.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/127742

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 38 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, western, romance
- Network: Hulu, Disney+
- Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, David Gulpilil, Brandon Walters, David Ngoombujarra
- TMDB rating: 7.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21158320/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: sweeping, melancholic, romantic, epic

## What critics say

Audience reception is mixed, with viewers praising the sweeping outback scale and the lead performances while finding the romance and melodrama uneven.

## Synopsis

Faraway Downs (2023) is an Australian, British and American co-production limited series created for Hulu and Disney+. Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits a large cattle ranch in the Australian outback after her husband dies, and Hugh Jackman plays the Drover, a cattle hand whose alliance with her becomes the story's engine. Their partnership is tested by cattle barons such as King Carney (Bryan Brown) and Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), who plot to seize her land, while the wider world presses in through the shadow of the Second World War. Across six episodes of roughly 38 minutes each, the series moves through droving runs, station politics and frontier danger, building a slow romance out of shared labour and hard choices. Its tone is sweeping and melancholic, with a strong sense of landscape and an epic scale that recalls Baz Luhrmann's Australia and the frontier sagas of Lonesome Dove. Fans of Australia and Lonesome Dove will find resonance in its blend of romance, land struggle and rugged western atmosphere, set in 1940s outback Australia.

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