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Q+A

Mark Fennessy, founder and CEO at Helium Pictures, on a series he describes as sitting at “the intersection of crime, psychological thriller and horror.”

Producer: Helium Australia

Runtime: 6×60’

Distributor: ITV Studios

What makes the show unique?

The Killings at Parrish Station is a haunting, time-spanning thriller with a very distinctive proposition: a cosmic-horror-meets-cold-case drama set across two timelines, 37 years apart. At its centre is detective Georgia Cooke, whose investigation into a brutal massacre at a remote desert research station in 1987 costs her almost everything – her career, her family and, ultimately, her freedom. Decades later, when a series of eerily identical murders begins, Georgia is pulled back into the nightmare and forced to confront the possibility that the original case was never truly solved.

What excited us was the opportunity to tell something that feels both elevated and emotionally grounded. The genre gives the series real scale and atmosphere, but the heart of the show is deeply human: trauma, obsession, guilt, fractured relationships and the search for redemption. It has the suspense and ambition of a premium thriller, but also a psychological and existential dread that feels unlike anything else in the market. It is premium, it is unique, and it is exactly the kind of bold storytelling Helium is passionate about.

What are the auspices for the show?

This is a hugely ambitious series, and that ambition is reflected in the creative team and cast. The series is created and written by Ben Jenkins, whose background in satirical comedy gives the writing a very sharp, unexpected edge, alongside the darkness and suspense. Daniel Nettheim directs all six episodes and is also co-executive producer, which gives the series a strong and cohesive visual identity across the whole story.

The writing team also includes Tim Pye, Catherine Smyth-McMullen and Yolanda Ramke, bringing together a really exciting mix of experience across premium drama, genre and horror. Kerrie Mainwaring produces, and the wider creative team includes cinematographer Damian Wyvill ACS, production designer Scott Bird, costume designer Nina Edwards APDG, hair and make-up designer Sheldon Wade, editor Katrina Barker ASE and composer Michael Yezerski.

In front of the camera, we have an extraordinary ensemble led by Mia Wasikowska and Heather Mitchell as younger and older Georgia Cooke, with Xavier Samuel and Robert Taylor as Michael Thorne, alongside Alan Dale, Doris Younane, Kat Hoyos, Emma Lung, Nic English, Alex Malone and many others. Because the story spans two time periods, casting was absolutely critical. We needed actors who could not only embody the same characters decades apart, but also carry the emotional consequences of everything that happens between those two points in time.

Who do you see as the audience for the show?

The show is for audiences who love premium, atmospheric thrillers, the kind of viewers who want to be gripped by a mystery but also challenged by complex characters and a bigger mythology. There is a strong crime engine, with a massacre, a cold case and a present-day investigation, but it gradually opens out into something stranger and more unsettling.

It will appeal to fans of elevated genre storytelling – audiences who respond to shows that sit at the intersection of crime, psychological thriller and horror. But it is not a conventional horror series. Cosmic horror is more about dread than shock. It is psychological, suspenseful and concerned with the unknown – with the fear of discovering something we were never meant to understand.

The emotional access point is Georgia. Across both timelines, she is a brilliant detective, a mother and a woman whose life has been defined by one case. Viewers will be drawn into the mystery, but they will stay because of Georgia, her relationship with her daughter Frankie, her complicated bond with Michael, and the way the past continues to echo through every character in the present.

What is your ambition for the show?

Our ambition was to create a bold and distinctive drama with true international appeal. The series has an epic canvas – the Australian desert, a remote research station, a radio telescope, a mystery that spans decades – but it also has an intimate emotional spine. We wanted the audience to feel the scale of the story while remaining deeply connected to the characters.

There is something very powerful about taking a mythic idea and grounding it in a recognisable human world. The show asks what happens when a story, a trauma or a mystery refuses to die. How does it change over decades? How does it distort the lives of the people connected to it? And what happens when the past starts repeating itself?

For us, the ambition was to make something that feels cinematic, unsettling and original, a series that delivers the pleasures of a gripping thriller but leaves audiences with bigger questions about belief, memory, obsession and the limits of human understanding.

Where would the show ideally sit across markets, channels and platforms?

The Killings at Parrish Station is a natural fit for platforms and channels looking for premium scripted drama with a clear hook, strong genre credentials and international scale. It has the propulsive engine of a crime thriller, the atmosphere of elevated horror and the character complexity of a prestige drama.

Because it is a six-part series, it offers a contained, bingeable story with real momentum. The dual timeline structure gives every episode a strong sense of discovery, while the central mystery keeps the audience moving forward. At the same time, the Australian setting gives it a distinctive visual identity, particularly the Broken Hill desert landscapes, which bring enormous production value and make the location feel almost like a character in its own right.

I see it sitting very comfortably with buyers looking for bold, authored drama that can cut through in a crowded market: distinctive, premium, suspenseful and emotionally driven, with a genre edge that helps it travel.