The Australian crime author Chris Hammer’s 2019 novel Silver has been adapted for television and is now showing on BBC Two and iPlayer in the UK under the title Scrublands: Silver. Episodes are airing on Monday nights at 9pm from 30 June to 21 July 2025, or you can stream and binge all four episodes on the iPlayer.
Investigative journalist Martin Scarsden (Luke Arnold) is now with Mandy Bond (Bella Heathcote), whom he met in Scrublands, the first story in the series. He’s helping her raise toddler Liam and is a celebrated author. Driving home after a book tour, he receives a call from an old friend who has a problem but won’t say what it is over the phone. The man’s desperate so he heads over…
The climate is temperate, the wind blows off the sea, and we’re now away from the bone dry, sweltering Outback. And what Martin finds chills him to the bone. Jasper is dead on the floor. There’s blood everywhere. Even more strange – Martin’s wife Mandy is standing in the hall holding a knife and dripping with blood. Why is she there? Did she kill the man? Where is their toddler son, Liam?
Martin is back in Port Silver, the small town where he grew up, and the claustrophobia sinks in straight away when he discovers that another old friend, Scotty Waaliti (Luke Carroll), will be the detective investigating Jasper’s murder. Something weird went on at Jasper’s place while Martin was out of town and now Mandy’s in the frame for murder.
The feeling, the atmosphere, the tone – in Silver these things are all very different to Scrublands, the first series featuring Martin Scarsden. This has the feel of a domestic thriller, initially, and there is always the sense that something’s not quite right. In addition to the murder, of course.
While the crimes are just as dark as in Scrublands, and the truth is shrouded in shadow once again, this feels more like a psychological thriller than the big struggle for justice in the face of a wide-reaching conspiracy. This time, Martin isn’t working on a story, he’s involved in a case he’s intimately connected to. An old friend is dead. Another old friend is investigating. His wife was there but can’t remember a thing.
That’s a lot to worry about. This time it’s Martin’s past – not someone else’s – that comes closing in. This is the town, these are the people, that he left behind. In the background, the town is changing with property developers and tourists starting to arrive. All there is for Martin to do is start asking questions, if anyone will talk to him, that is.
There’s some great acting here from the leads Luke Arnold and Bella Heathcote. In the first series, Martin had to deflect a lot of distrust because he’s a journalist and everyone seems to hate journalists nowadays. Now, he has to shrug off constant ill will because of his past. Episode two begins with another brutal act…
The series consists of four 45-minute episodes. It originally aired in April in Australia.
We gave Chris Hammer’s Silver five stars when we reviewed it in October 2019.
