"Winter" is an odd one - the cinematography shows occasional spots of brilliance, but is, mostly, simple and functional; the acting is on the spot, with each actor playing their characters efficiently, not missing a beat; the direction is crisp, and so is the editing; this is one of those shows where everything except the plot is good.Twists abound in the end, and the finale is one to be watched, because it is just so good. However, the red herrings thrown in here and there were never convincing enough - the ideal red-herring is one that is well-justified, but not for the reason we think it to be, and masks the hints that foreshadow the real fact; in this case, though, there are no hints whatsoever to be masked, and some reveals are just like "Uh huh. Ok." instead of "How did I not see that coming??"In addition, the characters are actually nothing so special. Take Castle. Castle himself is quirky, has a sense of humor, loves adventures, and is basically a big kid. But he also has the ability to show pathos towards his fellow investigators and has good observation skills, which make sense given his novelist background.Consider House, M.D. He's sarcastic, caustic, permanently ticked-off, insulting, brash, ingenious, playful (to the extent of causing harm) but committed to his work as a doctor. Now consider Eve Winter. Nothing special, just the typical cop with a haunting past, who is trying to do justice by the victims who keep her work coming. Nothing to write home about. Consider the Fed, Jake. He just wants a confession and keeps getting into loggerheads with Winter. Nothing special there, either. The only one with a hint of personality is Indiana herself, and thank God for that, because otherwise the entire cast could be replaced by everymen and the story wouldn't change much.Regardless, I'm giving this an 8/10 for an overall solid show. Good entertainment, but don't expect to be hooked until the penultimate episode.

Contrary to other opinions here at IMDb, we found Winter to be a superb production, well-acted and well-written. British mysteries sometimes are heavily-weighed for character-development, leaving nifty plot developments as a secondary consideration. We haven't quite finished the series, but we are pleased that some mysteries are slowly coming to light, and others will be revealed in the final episode.There's a nice bit of coincidence in the plot, a tool that can be used or overused. In this case, it ties some loose plot-ends together nicely and shows that the hunch of one key detective was off-base, a rare outcome in a mystery story. Rebecca Gibney is excellent as the lead detective 'Winter', very reminiscent in looks and style of Amanda Burton, from the British 'Commander' series (maybe a little prettier, and not so tragically-flawed).WE caught this on Acorn TV - but we would part with the price of a DVD set to see it again.

I doubt if I (we) will finish this series. We watched the pilot and all we did was a back and forth on how incompetent the cops were. But the series is on Acorn, so we said let's see if we do a binge watch to find out if the writers get better.They didn't. These cops don't jump to conclusions; they take running leaps.  Detective Sergeant Eve Winter tries to run a serious investigation but Detective Inspector Lachlan McKenzie (Peter O'Brien) decides he has the killer of Karly Johansson, Paul Paget whose wife was murdered eight years earlier; and McKenzie is adamant that Paget did it. McKenzie threatens him, follows him, and decides his Javert made Paget take his own life. But Paget was murdered. Rats, wrong again.Next McKenzie decides Johansson's husband Luke did it. Nope, wrong again. Luke is just a hapless drug dealer. And the Australian feds are involved as Federal Agent Jake Harris is trying to tie up a drug case using Indiana Hope as a witness. But someone is trying to kill Indiana and she tries to hide by having her friend Sharni help her. Then there is the big twist: Indiana Hope isn't Indiana Hope but Hope Ziegler the daughter of Peter Ziegler, the Director of Public Prosecutions. And Peter dumped his daughter off to be raised by another family as she was always getting into trouble and embarrassing him. Winter decides there is a leak in her task force and unless she finds out who, Indiana will be killed. And when Detective Inspector Lachlan McKenzie is shot, she knows she is right. This is where I gave up and went to bed. My wife finished it but won't watch a second series should one be approved. She says the cops are so incompetent that they make her cringe. She will admit that she likes Detective Alesia Taylor; but that is it. There is also a subplot involving Eve Winter's nephew Harry Winter who is a bit of a 14 year old idiot, and Eve's sister Melanie Winter who is a bit of a you are always picking on me for being a bad mother; which she is.

*sigh* Well I was hoping to cove something else in my first review but I suppose this will have to do.I think it's biggest problem is quite simply the fact that it's no different than EVERY OTHER POLICE DRAMA EVER! Well apart from the Australian accents (although it does remind me a little of City Homicide back from 2011 and seems to suffer from dullness, anyway I digress).Almost all of the scenes contain the protagonist played by Rebecca Gibney and a lot of the series would rest on her acting ability. Well... it's not bad, but she's trying so hard to be the tough independent female that her character seems to be a little bit of a mary sue just because she's so one-note. Probably more of the writing and directing at fault to be honest and it's causing the lead role to perform in an almost satire of her character. Maybe her character will be more flushed out in the future but this should have happened in it's predecessor The Killing Fields.I'm not sure why Channel 7 is trying so hard for this show to succeed putting it in a prime time slot but it saddens me that something with a little more spice could have been put there. I'd probably would have criticised it a lot more if there was anything to criticise. TL;DR It's bland, so bland it's hard to call bad. Even bad can be entertaining.