# One Lane Bridge (2020)

> An ambitious young detective in Queenstown must wrestle with a reawakened spiritual gift that threatens the murder case and his own life.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/85730

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 16
- Episode runtime: 52 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Philip Smith III, Pip Hall
- Network: TVNZ 1
- Cast: Dominic Ona-Ariki, Joel Tobeck, Toby Sharpe, Mia Blake, Alison Bruce, Aidee Walker, Nathalie Morris, Sara Wiseman
- TMDB rating: 6.6/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10901134/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: brooding, tense, melancholic, atmospheric

## What critics say

Audiences rate One Lane Bridge as a mixed but watchable New Zealand detective drama, with its Queenstown setting and supernatural twist drawing steady interest.

## Synopsis

One Lane Bridge (2020-2022) is a New Zealand television crime drama created by Philip Smith III and Pip Hall for TVNZ 1. Across three seasons and sixteen hour-long episodes, it follows an ambitious young detective, Ariki Davis (Dominic Ona-Ariki), whose career is built on tenacity and procedure until a spiritual gift he has long suppressed begins to resurface during a murder investigation in Queenstown. The engine of the show is the tension between his professional ambition and an intuition that his colleagues cannot verify, and every case threatens to expose him or cost him his standing. Senior figure Stephen Tremaine (Joel Tobeck) anchors the investigative world around him, adding pressure and friction to each inquiry. Each season unfolds as a serialized mystery in which individual investigations feed a longer arc about belief, responsibility and the cost of hidden truths. The setting is a scenic southern New Zealand town whose beauty contrasts with the grim crimes at its center. The atmosphere is brooding and tense, with a quietly melancholic register and moments of unsettling dread. Fans of Mystery Road and Hannibal will find resonance in its moody crime texture and its detective wrestling with an inner gift that complicates the chase for justice.

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