Pine Gap
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If you’re curious, ‘Pine Gap’, a 2018 six-part television series, produced by the ABC in collaboration with Netflix, should be on your ‘to binge watch’ list.
Those flying between Perth and Alice Springs, have probably noticed some 19 radomes – giant white golf ball like structures housing radar antennas – just outside of Alice Springs. Such a glimpse into the secretive US Australian joint spy facility, commonly known as Pine Gap, has a tendency to make us curious about what goes on behind the high security fences of the facility that currently employs over 800 personnel.
If you’re curious, ‘Pine Gap’, a 2018 six-part television series, produced by the ABC in collaboration with Netflix, should be on your ‘to binge watch’ list.The real Pine Gap facility is said to control American satellites over one third of the globe, and the series’ storyline focuses on the staff monitoring (and employing drone strikes) in Asia and the South-China sea.
The series addresses our awkward and often uncomfortable reliance on America as our partner and protector. Cultural, political and personal differences between Americans and Australians at all levels – from facility staff to PM/President – are explored both seriously and lightheartedly.
I particularly enjoyed the ‘what-if’ scenarios of our currently most pressing geo-political issues and concerns. When considered in the context of the work of the joint facility, international security and diplomacy take on a new dimension. The currency is evident the portrayal of the US President (or POTUS). He sounds and to some extent acts surprisingly like Donald Trump. This contributes some funny moments, such as the leaked and broadcast recording of what POTUS really thinks of our PM and Australians.
The individual characters who work at the facility are presented as very high achievers whose life or interpersonal skills vary significantly. Their personal and working lives are shown to often overlap, and it’s this context that makes the feel context fresh. The central theme of seeking to identify a security leak from within adds an element of suspense to their private interactions.
The show achieves greater balance by also including some ‘outside’ characters, including a Chinese ‘developer’ seeking permission to work on Aboriginal land, an Indigenous law student activist, the ‘neglected’ wife of the most senior American at the facility, who enters into a relationship with the attentive Chinese developer, a local GP who is an Aboriginal elder, and a homeless teenage girl who seeks help from a friendless tech geek.
Critics/reviewers are polarised in their views of this series. Those who hate the show say that its storyline is corny, that the characters are stereotyped, that the American accents aren’t convincing, that the overall concept is cliched, that the pace is slow and ultimately that it’s boring. Others suggest that it’s a brilliant and fresh concept, that it is well acted, and that it is topical and ground breaking in tackling the subject matter.
As I binge-watched the show, and want further series, I clearly enjoyed it, for reasons shared by many other viewers. There are many reasons for liking ‘Pine Gap’. The seriousness of the subject matter is not ignored nor trivialized, and yet the series is not as dark as its subject matter would suggest. The gloom, depression and despair with which one or two recent overseas films clothed those working in such secretive information gathering settings, where reactions and decisions may determine the life or death of many geographically removed strangers, is downplayed and largely confined to one character in this series.
‘Pine Gap’ has something for most cinematic tastes and interests – geo-politics and current implications for Australia, spying, use of drones to kill, cross cultural/racial relationships, indigenous land rights, relationships with co-workers, and refreshingly, genuine Australian English and Australian settings.
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