# Top of the Lake (2013)

> A haunted detective returns to a remote New Zealand lake town to untangle a child abuse case that the community would rather keep buried.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/42254

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 13
- Episode runtime: 49 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Jane Campion, Gerard Lee
- Network: SundanceTV, BBC Two
- Cast: Elisabeth Moss, David Wenham, Peter Mullan, Holly Hunter, Lucy Lawless, Thomas M. Wright, Skye Wansey, Geneviève Lemon
- TMDB rating: 7.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103085/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: bleak, brooding, atmospheric, unsettling, tense, melancholic

## What critics say

Critics acclaim the atmospheric direction, Elisabeth Moss's lead performance and the unsettling, morally fraught crime investigations, though some viewers find the pacing slow.

## Synopsis

Top of the Lake (2013-2017) is a New Zealand-set crime mystery miniseries created by Jane Campion and Gerard Lee for SundanceTV and BBC Two, a prestige crime drama with an unsettling, slow-burning register. Elisabeth Moss stars as Detective Robin Griffin, a woman haunted by her own past who takes on complex and unsettling cases in a remote lakeside community. David Wenham plays fellow detective Al Parker, and Peter Mullan plays Matt Mitcham, a patriarch whose family sits at the center of the mystery. Across two seasons of thirteen episodes in total, the engine of the series is a stubborn investigation into a missing child that runs into a town determined to protect its own secrets. Season two shifts the setting and the crime to Sydney, Australia, where a suspected murder ties back to sex trafficking. Holly Hunter and Lucy Lawless round out the principal cast. The tone is bleak, atmospheric and morally murky, with misty landscapes and a tense, deliberate pace that rewards patient viewers. Fans of Broadchurch, The Killing and True Detective will find resonance in its brooding small-community dread and its wounded, determined female lead.

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