The Brokenwood Mysteries marks 10 years on screen - Spy

The Brokenwood Mysteries will mark its decade with murderous script turns. Photo / Matt Klitscher

The Kiwi show is marking a major milestone.

This month the tenth season of hit TVNZ whodunnit series The Brokenwood Mysteries, famous for its guest stars, will mark its decade with murderous script turns by Anna Jullienne, Sophie Hambleton, Rima Te Wiata, Angela Bloomfield, Ben Porter, Jamie Irvine and country singer Tami Neilson.

Tim Balme conceived the series that is viewed in over 150 countries and for a decade has served as head writer and producer.

A huge international fanbase is one of the keys for the show’s longevity which, outside of Shortland Street, is New Zealand’s longest-running scripted series.

Tim Balme conceived the series and has been its head writer and producer for a decade.

Balme tells Spy he is eternally grateful to the cast and crew who have worked on the 48 tele-features already created.

“There’s been a huge amount of guest actors who have visited Brokenwood over 10 seasons,” says Balme.

“Some to pass through, some to die in a multitude of interesting ways and some to lay down roots - in the local prison.”

Balme is particularly grateful to the series’ stars Fern Sutherland, Neill Rea, Jarod Rawiri and Cristina Ionda.

For a decade Rea and Sutherland have played detectives Mike Shepherd and Kristin Sims for all 48 episodes, alongside Ionda who has played Russian pathologist Gina Kadinsky. Rawiri, replacing Nic Sampson in 2021, has marked up 21 as Detective Daniel Chalmers.

Rea remembers himself and Sunderland sharing a bean bag and watching a rough cut of season one upstairs in the production office late one evening.

Next month, all four stars will be back on set for the 11th season and each has dream guest stars they would like to see. Photo / Matt Klitscher

“When we watched it, we both realised what we were making and were both pleasantly surprised that we weren’t awful,” says Rea.

Sutherland’s most fun time filming was at Karaka at Kingseat, the old psychiatric hospital.

“It was a Halloween-themed episode and we filmed at night, so the only way to combat the eerie vibe of the place was to ‘lean in’ and constantly find ways to jump out of concealed corners to scare the living daylights out of each other,” she says.

Sutherland, Rea and Ionda describe Rawiri’s addition as truly bringing in the laughs to the set when he showed up in season six.

Each of them recounts numerous times Rawiri has split his trousers crouching down for clues or inspecting corpses.

“Jarod’s pant-splitting is somehow a constant surprise to the wardrobe department,” says Sutherland.

“I believe they have tried stretchier material but it never seems to work.”

Next month all four stars will be back on set to film the eleventh season of the show in Auckland and back to the fictional town of Brokenwood. Each has dream guest stars they would like to see invited into the new season.

Rawiri would like to see a mash-up of Shorty and Brokenwood with Michael Galvin guest-starring as Dr Chris Warner.

Rea thinks luring Banksy to guest star with his identity revealed would be a ratings’ winner, while both Sutherland and Ionda would like their character’s long-lost sisters to visit. Sutherland thinks her real-life friend Morgana O’Reilly would be great as Kristin’s wayward sister and Iona would love Melissa McCarthy to play Gina’s sibling who would also be an eccentric but brilliant pathologist.

The 10th season of The Brokenwood Mysteries will premiere onJune 16, at 8.30pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ +.