SummaryThe disappearance of three girls and a teacher from the Appleyard Ladies College in 1900 leads to an investigation that includes English headmistress Mrs Hester Appleyard (Natalie Dormer) in this drama series based on the Australian novel by Joan Lindsay and inspired by Peter Weir’s 1975 film of the same name.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Season 1 Premiere:
May 6, 2018
Metascore
Generally Favorable
62
User score
Mixed or Average
5.7
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All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
62
53% Positive
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
40% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
7% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
May 24, 2018
83
Picnic at Hanging Rock is lush, gorgeous, Gothic and at times plotted tighter than a corset.
May 29, 2018
80
The mystical elements of Lindsay’s book remain, but Mrs. Appleyard’s more detailed biography adds more tangible, flesh-and-blood danger to the mix. ... The question in the series becomes less about how the girls disappeared than why. Whether they’re vaporized by a shift in the magnetic field, transformed into animals, or something more mundane, their vanishing feels deliberate--a way to reject their prescribed futures for a different, freer path.
Apr 30, 2018
80
The base premise is familiar to fans of crime series, but this is no ordinary drama; it’s eerie and haunting. It’s less dreamy (a quality frequently ascribed to the film) and more of a nightmare that you’ll be eager to dive into.
May 25, 2018
67
It’s a lot, but it’s the right kind of a lot, and like Dormer’s performance, these choices skirt right up to the line of the ridiculous without ever crossing over. Had the writers and directors of this series been better at walking that line, Picnic At Hanging Rock might be more than a decent series with rich production values and a performance that blows the doors down.
May 25, 2018
50
In the end, neither the lush looks nor committed performances are enough to overcome the balance issues and general bloat.
May 24, 2018
40
Ms. Christian and Ms. Addison have taken every latent idea, every veiled suggestion, in the material and made it explicit. Every piece of subtext has been dredged up so that it can be turned into banal commentary on the benighted attitudes of the provincial patriarchy toward gender, race, class and sexuality. ... All that’s left is a fairly threadbare, clichéd melodrama.
May 25, 2018
30
Kondracki’s portrait of these girls is at once too sketchy to make them three-dimensional, and yet too literal to make them beguiling--which makes them come across as grating bores. ... There’s almost no reason for this version to exist.
User score
Mixed or Average
5.7
39% Positive
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
43% Mixed
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
17% Negative
4 Ratings
4 Ratings
Jan 8, 2020
5
Why does this exist? The original is a classic that still holds up today.
This version adds two good elements. It is truly gorgeous to behold. And Mrs. Appleyard's backstory is more fleshed out and gives a better sense of her as a character. However, it all falls apart in the last episode. The ending was painfully unsatisfying. It did not capitalize on any of the new material. There are more loose ends than a rope factory without knots. I liked the journey but not the destination
Production Company:
- Amazon Studios
- FremantleMedia Australia
- Screen Australia
Initial Release Date:May 6, 2018
Number of seasons:1 Season
Rating:TV-14
Awards
Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards
• 3 Wins & 8 Nominations
APRA Screen Music Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Australian Production Design Guild Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
