Earlier this month, the same week a big dumb shark movie called The Meg opened in Australian cinemas, another shark-themed production debuted on our television screens: Channel Nine’s fishy crime thriller Bite Club. It’s hard to know which is more idiotic: the story of an ancient “megalodon” the size of a bus that chases Jason Statham and his deep sea diving pals, or the story of two detectives tracking down a serial killer in Sydney while attempting to overcome dialogue so bad it feels like a form of assault.
Before hitting play on Bite Club (an eight-part series, with episode three broadcast this week) I consulted the program’s official synopsis, which reads: “After surviving a shark attack two detectives join forces to hunt the ultimate predator, the serial killer who is also hunting them.”
I read that description multiple times. Did it really imply – as it certainly seemed to me – that the shark was the serial killer? The press notes seemed to corroborate this, with its pledge to reveal “a very different type of killer”.
Have sea creatures in this world learned to walk on land? Do they study our movements? Do they hide in the shadows? Do they sneak into our homes at night? Will this series be a companion piece of sorts to the much-maligned 1995 direct-to-video movie Theodore Rex (in which Whoopi Goldberg partners up with an anthropomorphised Tyrannosaurus Rex to solve crimes) but a thriller rather than a comedy, with the ancient creature a villain rather than a sidekick?
The crazy thing about the first episode of Bite Club (this review encompasses episodes one to six) is that it finds ways to suggest the answer is yes: that a shark is somehow the culprit. The opening scene takes place in the water with surfer lovers Dan (Todd Lasance) and Zoe (Ash Ricardo) discussing the riding of “one more wave.” Then, thwack! A shark – in the form of a blurry whirl of CGI – attacks them. The camera bobs below the surface as the water turns blood red. Both emerge alive but Dan is missing one foot.
After a quick squiz at his stubby, bloody, munched on leg, the story jumps ahead three years (possibly allowing time for a very intelligent shark to quickly learn how to walk, talk and binge-watch all eight seasons of Dexter). We learn that the pair have separated and Dan thinks of Zoe – just like the shark, perhaps – as the one that got away. Oh, and they are both (very good-looking) detectives.
The corpse of a murdered woman has recently turned up on the beach. A policeman at the crime scene declares that “sharks got to her” but it “isn’t clear what actually killed her”. Ah, the plot thickens. Sharks might have had some hand (fin?) in it, but weren’t necessarily the actual or only killers.
Dan and Zoe are assigned to the case. The press notes don’t even pretend they are intelligent detectives, declaring that Dan “uses his natural physical ability to get by”.
Dan also now has an intense fear of sharks. Some fear is normal, of course, given the events of the first episode, but Dan is scared of sharks even when he is on dry land far from the water. He tells Zoe about an app he has on his phone that informs him of the latest shark sightings. Zoe asks whether that might be a tad paranoid given they are, you know, on dry land far from the water. Dan responds: “I just like to know where the bad guys are.”
There is some enjoyment to be had in watching the cast (which includes Deborah Mailman and former Hobbit, Dominic Monaghan) try – and fail – to make the dialogue work. When Zoe discovers the murdered woman went missing some time ago, she exclaims: “What I don’t understand is, why would Audrey return from the dead?”
When Dan speaks to other members of Bite Club, a survivor’s group for people who have been attacked by sharks, he reflects on his trauma, saying: “It was the worst pain that I’ve ever known. I swear if someone handed me a gun I would have just pulled the trigger. Ah, there’s nothing like losing a limb”. The “ah” in that line is a miscalculation from Todd Lasance, who makes it sound as if Dan is being nostalgic – remembering the good old days when his foot got chewed off.
If the acting is bad the script is worse, screenwriters Sarah Smith and John Ridley rolling out soap opera drama thinly disguised as police procedural (“full disclosure: I know you’re sleeping with her!”) and a simplistic trail of clues. Directors Jennifer Leacey, Geoff Bennett and Wayne Blair don’t imbue the material with much atmosphere or flair (I haven’t seen the final two episodes helmed by Peter Andrikidis).
How did the efforts of many talented people result in such a show? Were the cast and crew punch-drunk on the idea of making something “so bad it’s good”? This is a mystery infinitely more perplexing than the case the characters investigate.
I hold out hope that the murderer will have gills, a snout and fins. If the final episode reveals a shark serial killer, perhaps squawking all sorts of shark-like sounds when it realises the jig is up (subtitles: “I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids”) all sins will be forgiven.
The dialogue actually improves a little as the series progresses, and the drama becomes ever so slightly more plausible. This actually had a reverse effect, making the show less rather than more entertaining. Bite Club enters a death spiral: the better it gets the worse it gets. And it gets very, very bad.
• Bite Club is showing on Wednesdays at 9.45pm on Nine
