Dec. 10, 2020 2:33 pm ET
The physical and social backgrounds essential to this dark political tale exert their powers early. âTotal Controlâ (begins Thursday, Dec. 17, Sundance Now) is a six-part drama set in the Australian Outback. A place, weâre shown, where people spend their days swatting at the flies circling their heads, and where conversation is dry and to the point, and jokey, though without cruelty. Itâs the way of this society to be wary of strangers but not impossibly so, as one government representative discovers in episode 1, when he comes knocking on the door of a house in the small town of Winton. Heâs met with suspicion by the woman who opens itâshe quickly decides heâs a Mormon, seeking converts, and informs him that heâs wasting his time.