This story was originally published on The Spinoff.
Small towns can be deadly, and nobody knows that better than the residents of Brokenwood. For 11 dramatic seasons, the endangered folk of the sleepy bucolic community have been drowned in vats of wine, poked to death by pitchforks or murdered on the ghost train at the annual A&P show. Despite all those homicidal hijinks, The Brokenwood Mysteries has become one of our most popular television exports (the show screens in over 150 countries, with over three million French viewers watching each episode), and New Zealand audiences can’t get enough of the dry wit and dark humour that comes with carking it in a small country town.
