CrimeChange

Far be it from me to promote a TV show ... (haha) but the third instalment in Australian televised crime, Underbelly, begins on Sunday evening on Channel 9. This 3rd instalment is a sequel to the second instalment (which was Aussie crime in Melbourne from the late '70s to early '80s), and a sort-of prequel to the orginal Underbelly (late '90s- early 2000s) which first lifted the lid on the seedy underworld of Australian mafia-like crime in Melbourne and Sydney. Underbelly (the original, anyway) was really Kath & Kim gone bad (and considerably more ethnic).

Amongst the Aussie actors featured in the show - including Steve Bastoni (remember Police Rescue? Mickey (aka Gary Sweet aka ladies man as Johanna Griggs can attest) was my first TV crush) and Dieter Brummer, the fallen Home & Away star who sought career revival with Dominos ads (let's hope Underbelly works out better) - is one of my absolute favourite Aussie actresses, Sigrid Thornton.

As well as her roles in Prisoner and All the Rivers Run, Thornton really came to my attention in Seachange as the city lawyer who threw it all in to become a Magistrate in the adorable coastal town of Pearl Bay ... and to fall in love with one of my other great TV crushes, Diver Dan. Let's take a moment to reflect on Diver Dan's excellence, shall we?

How much did you cry in that scene? Bucketloads. (Wait, that's not Meredith in bed - but you know the scene I mean. Final episode, Meredith has a stroke. Devastating).

According to the Sydney Morning Heral, in Underbelly Thornton plays Detective Gerry Lloyd, a power-suited policewoman who finds herself caught between the murky realm of Kings Cross policing and the Wood Royal Commission, which set the stage for its implosion.

In keeping with a structure set with the first Underbelly, the criminals are based on their real-life historical namesakes but the "good guys", including Lloyd and Joe Dooley, are assembled from historical accounts of a number of actual police into fictional characters.

Sigrid has this to say about the new drama: "[Australian drama] was in danger of becoming anachronistic and this is about as modern as you can get. And yet it still speaks very much to an Australian audience. We know it happened here and in the heart of some of our major cities and that lends it a particular flavour Australian audiences are ready for."

"I think Australian audiences were ready for something that was a fast-moving, raw, drama that didn't patronise them, that allowed them to think on their feet, allowed them to fill in the dots. But it also came off the back of a wave of dramas coming out of the US that were exploring the multi-faceted nature of criminals, crime and the underworld, exploring the moral ambiguity of crime. Underbelly takes that one step further, exploring the moral ambiguity of policing crime."

This is why I love her. Look at that vocabulary! And her talent! And her beauty! She is an absolute stunner - and that's without adding on the patronising "for her age". Yay for Sigrid, and yay for Australian drama.