sacha_brady First of all, what I'm writing relates to series 2 only. I haven't seen series 1 so cannot say if it's any different.The cast features a great many excellent actresses and actors. So for the life of me, I cannot understand why the performances are so weak or so wooden. Elizabeth Moss seems like she needs someone to give her firmer direction; Nicole Kidman, who I really like, overacts and seems to be on a different wavelength to the others in her scenes. The characters lost me as they are so psychitzophrenic. Robin can decide if she's a mean, ruthless detective or a meek victim from scene to scene, Mary is much the same and it's really hard to understand what the point of Miranda is. Some of the scenes feel like they've just been thrown in and the whole thing lacks coherence. The characters don't develop much and it takes a long time to not go very far. Spoiler ALERT: there is a scene where Robin is in a huge room but manages to get cornered by a disabled man in an electric wheelchair that has a speed of about half a mile an hour.. Not exactly the car chase from"Bullet".The last thing that bothered me is that it seemed to portray all the main male characters bar Pike as leches, abusers, cheats or chauvinists. I could live with that if there was a point behind it--even if I didn't enjoy it, but it just seems a cheap way to make Robin and Mary appear sympathetic despite them having few redeeming features.

keith-williamson-650-728416 I'm talking about season 2 here , it's so bad it cant be serious ? The terrible acting is quite funny , is it a comedy ? I hope that was the intention of the writers ? The exaggerated stereotypes ,it's ridiculous , they are like pantomime characters.

matthijsalexander Great show, great backdrop, great cast, great story, great acting, great cultural elements, great characters.This is what a TV show should be. Well thought through, a solid storyline, diverse characters, some deeper story and characters that speak to the imagination.Top of the Lake is an excellent, high quality, show. Absolutely worth watching.

rowie55 I have only watched the second series, having done some research on the first series. This started out with a lot of promise ended up farcical. Elisabeth Moss lacks credibility as the lead and also as a police Detective. Her boss oozed being a real cop while the two females were a bit of a joke. Nicole Kidman plays the tree hugging gay mum with startling accuracy as far as a stereotypes go, but she was one shining light in what dragged on to become very average entertainment. Having surrounded ourselves with televisions shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Narcos, Ray Donovan, Ozark, Get Shorty this offering from Jane Campion was very very weak. It amazes me what peoples expectations of gritty drama is, when reviewers on here rate Top of the Lake so highly, when it is clearly in a much lower category than the example of shows I have just listed. In concluding, a few hours of my life I have wasted.