Hot Sheet: To Be Experienced

10. TELEVISION: Top of the Lake Premiere
There’s a quiet brilliance to everything Holly Hunter does. (Broadcast News is still one of the best portrayals of the struggle women face in the workplace.) But as she ages, the roles she takes and the characters she portrays are even bolder, more raw, and powerful. Such is the case with her latest, a seven-part miniseries that debuts March 18 on Sundance Channel. Top of the Lake is the highly-anticipated project from Oscar winner Jane Campion (who reinterpreted feminist film form with The Piano) and star Elisabeth Moss (best known from Mad Men). The story is set in New Zealand, a land that feels both magically mythical and jarringly real, where a 12-year-old girl named Tui goes missing when it’s discovered she’s five-months pregnant. Moss, a police detective, is brought back to her hometown to find Tui, and in the end it takes her on a wracking journey of discovery where Moss gets to show the sort of capable but complex woman that you don’t see on network TV. Hunter is a sort of (possibly lesbian) feminist spiritual guru who takes in and helps repair damaged women and children, running a de facto womyn’s land out of rusted freight cars set apart in the backlands. It’s a winking nod, we think, that for the role, Hunter sports a wig that makes her look very much like Campion does in real life. Bonus points: Lucy Lawless has a cameo as an estranged wife, Pete Mullens (who was the Death Eater in Harry Potter) is captivating, and there’s a pivotal gay character (but it would ruin the story to say who). In all, a quiet, edgy crime drama (that’s less frustrating than contemporaries like The Killing), which will keep you coming back week after week for the final whodunit. See the trailer below.