The small seaside town of Evelyn Bay is a study in contrasts. There’s an undeniable intimacy within the tightly knit Tasmanian community; it’s a place where everyone doesn’t just know each other’s names, they know all their secrets — or most of them anyway. But the backdrop for this town is anything but humble. It’s lined with towering cliffs, soundtracked by crashing waves, and filled with the kind of natural beauty that can take your breath away in more ways than one. 

Evelyn Bay is the setting for The Survivors, a six-episode limited series now streaming on Netflix. The show explores what happens to families and friends when they’re forced to reckon with the kind of traumatic events that have a way of floating up to the surface again and again.

The Survivors stars Charlie Vickers as Kieran Elliott and Yerin Ha as Mia Chang, a young couple who are visited by ghosts of their past when they return to their childhood hometown to be with Kieran’s ailing father and emotionally distant mother. It’s a thrilling whodunit — with an intensely emotional core.

Yerin Ha as Mia and Charlie Vickers as Kieran

“I often describe the show as a Trojan horse,” showrunner Tony Ayres says. “It’s a family melodrama disguised as a murder mystery. Because the things that are really at its heart are things like a son wanting his mother’s love and the mother who just cannot afford to give it because her whole world might fall apart.” 

The series is based on Jane Harper’s bestselling novel and navigates, Ayres says, “themes of family and loss and the stories that we tell each other to understand loss.” For Kieran and Mia and all the other people in Evelyn Bay, the stories they’ve long told each other in order to move forward begin to unravel, exposing a dark side to the always sunny surfaces that surround them.

The Survivors is now streaming on Netflix, and you can watch the trailer, above, and read all about the series below.

Johnny Carr as Dan and Miriama Smith as Pendlebury

What is The Survivors about?

Kieran Elliott’s life changed forever when two people drowned and a young girl went missing in his hometown of Evelyn Bay. Fifteen years later, returning with his young family, the guilt that still haunts him resurfaces. When the body of a young woman is found on the beach, the town is once again rocked by tragedy and the investigation of her death threatens to reveal long-held secrets, the truth about the missing girl, and a killer among them.

The series is produced by the award-winning team at Tony Ayres Productions (Fires, Clickbait, Stateless), which is backed by Matchbox Pictures and Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. Additional support is provided by VicScreen through the Victorian Production Fund and the Victorian Digital Screen Rebate, and production support is from Screen Tasmania.

Jessica De Gouw

Robyn Malcolm as Verity

Who’s in the cast of The Survivors?

“When you get a whole bunch of human beings together,” Ayres says, “they tend to take on certain roles … But we somehow managed to get an ensemble of people together who were just there for each other and supported each other. Maybe because they all knew they had to do big emotional stuff somewhere — every role has a climactic moment. And so they were there for each other.”

Below, meet the ensemble cast of The Survivors.

• Charlie Vickers (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Medici) is Kieran Elliott.
• Yerin Ha (Bridgerton, Halo) is Mia Chang.
• Robyn Malcolm (Heartbreak High, Sweet Tooth) is Verity Elliott.
• Damien Garvey (Nautilus, The Artful Dodger) is Brian Elliott.
• Thom Green (Apple Cider Vinegar, Ladies in Black) is Sean Gilroy.
• George Mason (Black Snow, The Power of the Dog) is Ash Carter.
• Jessica De Gouw (The Union, The Crown) is Olivia Birch.
• Miriama Smith (Darby and Joan, The Gone) is Detective Senior Sergeant Sue Pendlebury.
• Johnny Carr (Strange Creatures, Five Bedrooms) is Detective Alex Dan.
• Martin Sacks (Irreverent, Ocean Boy) is Julian Gilroy.
• Julian Weeks (Apple Cider Vinegar, Prosper) is Liam Gilroy.
• Shannon Berry (Fake, The Wilds) is Bronte Laidler.
• Catherine McClements (Apple Cider Vinegar, Pieces of Her) is Trish Birch.
• Don Hany (Neighbours, My Life Is Murder) is George Barlin.

Damien Garvey as Brian

Where are the filming locations for The Survivors?

The series was filmed in Tasmania, Australia, and is set in the town of Evelyn Bay, where the book takes place. However, as Ayres points out, “Evelyn Bay doesn’t actually exist. Jane [Harper] made it up out of a number of different places.”

Instead, The Survivors was filmed in an area of Tasmania called Eaglehawk Neck, which Ayres says has “such a gothic landscape. It’s cliffs and sea caves and this pounding ocean. It really is so spectacular.”

“What I love about [it],” Ayres says, “is that big emotions play out in this big landscape. That’s why Tasmania works so well — it’s at an emotionally operatic scale.”

Shannon Berry as Bronte

Is The Survivors based on a book?

Yes, the series is based on the bestselling novel by Jane Harper. 

Ayres credits Harper for being “such a great plotter of murder mysteries.” He says what she “does so beautifully is that she creates a scaffolding in a classic murder mystery” so that people can use the framework of a “classic whodunit” to experience a whole host of emotions.

“The themes of grief and loss are something that I’ve danced around my entire career,” says Ayres. “I’ve always been interested in the way that people respond to loss because it seems to be one of the universal human conditions. We’re all going to have to deal with this at some point in our lives and sometimes at different points. It felt like a really strong thematic center for the show. But I’m also conscious that we need to give audiences a scaffolding.”

Charlie Vickers as Kieran and Thom Green as Sean

When does The Survivors come out?

All six episodes of the limited series are now streaming on Netflix.