| Image Alt: | Pine Gap title screen |
| Creator: | Greg Haddrick |
| Director: | Mat King |
| Starring: | Parker Sawyers Tess Haubrich Jacqueline McKenzie Steve Toussaint Stephen Curry |
| Country: | Australia |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 6 |
| Location: | Alice Springs, Adelaide |
| Network: | ABC |
Pine Gap is an Australian television drama series that was released on Netflix and broadcast on ABC in 2018. The six-part series is written and created by Greg Haddrick and Felicity Packard with Mat King directing all six episodes.[1] The series was produced by Screentime.
Pine Gap is an international political thriller which is set around the Australian and American joint defence intelligence facility at Pine Gap, south-west of the town of Alice Springs, Australia.[2]
Luke Buckmaster of The Guardian wrote that the "soporific" series was "less a spy drama than an attempt to cure insomnia." He also criticised the series for what he regarded as its poor story-writing and unsatisfactory acting, giving it one out of five stars, as "there is nothing remotely cinematic about the drama."[3] Helen Razer of the Daily Review gave the series a negative review, disparaging it as "a poor attempt at promoting favourable propaganda about Australia–United States relations". She also criticized what she regarded as the tokenistic use of Aboriginal characters.[4]
Pat LaMarco of The Daily Free Press described Pine Gap as a "dull and sluggish attempt at a thriller". He also viewed the show's release on Netflix as a sign of what he regarded as the deteriorating quality of its content, writing that "now we will be seeing critically acclaimed dramas...and low-quality, forgettable efforts such as Pine Gap on the same [streaming] service."[5]
Pine Gap was removed from the content streamed by Netflix in Vietnam by order of the country's Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information because a map with the nine-dash line was shown in two episodes of the series, albeit in a context in which characters criticised China's claim over the waters in on-screen dialogue.[6] [7]
In November 2021, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board of the Philippines ordered Netflix to remove certain episodes that featured the nine-dash line, deeming it "unfit for public exhibition" after the country's Department of Foreign Affairs issued a complaint calling the line "illegal" and a "violation of Philippine sovereignty".[8]