“Are you representing Tassie in a bad light?”

Production on Bay of Fires Season Two begins next week in Tasmania, with star, co-creator and executive producer Marta Dusseldorp hoping the locals are a little more chilled second time.

During filming of Season One, there were plenty of questions about what the ABC series might do to reputations.

“I was getting quite a lot of flack. ‘Are you representing Tassie in a bad light?'” Dusseldorp recalls.

“And I’m going, ‘They’re not Tasmanians!’ But I couldn’t reveal it because I didn’t want to spoil it.

“I also didn’t want to spoil it for those who streamed it, because we were the top of ABC iview non-kids – that little blue dog,” she laughs. “But it really brought in a young and a male audience, which was really interesting.”

Indeed the series was ABC’s number one Australian drama series in 2023, even outranking The Newsreader, with a particularly big iview uplift. There was some debate about whether all episodes should drop at once on iview (in the end it was weekly).

“That was a decision that went back and forth, back and forth and I started panicking. I rang ABC at one point, and said, ‘Maybe we should drop them all!” But it became this water cooler and the only time we got smashed was with the Matildas.

“But the pick up the next day was 75% or something on the streaming, and catch-up was unprecedented on this show, which was really lovely. I mean, they were ringing me going, ‘This is very unusual.'”

“I’ve found working with the ABC on this show to be an absolute delight.”

The series has also sold to a number of international territories through Fremantle Distribution (UK on May 23 through ITVX) and co-produced by Dusseldorp’s Archipelego Productions and Fremantle Australia for ABC.

“I’ve found working with the ABC on this show to be an absolute delight. Their belief in an independent producer… I work alongside Fremantle Australia but I run the development side of it. Their belief in Archipelago Productions and giving me the resources meant I could get going quite quickly and early,” she continues.

“We’ve folded in a whole lot of women into the Writers’ Room because last season, it was just Andrew (Knight) and Max (Dann). This season, Romina Accurso (The Heights, Wellmania), Josephine Dee Barrett (Love Child, Wonderland) and Hannah Samuel (The PM’s Daughter) have joined us. They’ve got various experiences, and we’re also nurturing new, upcoming writers in the process. Andrew has been mentoring them all the way through which has been really beautiful to watch.”

So what can viewers expect in Season Two? Dusseldorp is keeping her cards close to her chest.

“Obviously, it’s one of those ones where you pull a thread and the whole thing just collapses. So I have to plot very carefully and make sure that we know exactly where we’re heading, which we did on Season One. That’s why we took the circuitous route. Andrew really wanted to do that. He said to me, ‘I think often we leap too quickly into why we are here, and I want to take the scenic route.

“When the money runs out another boss arrives”

“In Season Two obviously Stella’s the boss of the town and she’s trying to run it ethically and morally. But it’s very difficult because of course, when you’re in a town of criminals, that’s not the way they necessarily work. Everyone’s made a lot of money because she’s very good at playing in the margins, dipping into the Russian income source, which she does with Sammy, which we allude to at the end of season one. But when the money runs out another boss arrives and she finds herself hurling through…”

Channeling an Eagles classic she adds, “It’s that thing where you can you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

Season two will air in 2025.