BY ROGER WATSON
A few years ago, I had dinner in Hong Kong with an Australian sheep farmer who had sold his property for hundreds of millions of Australian dollars. By then, he was living in a prime Sydney Harbour apartment, married to a colleague of mine—a glamorous former Australian Olympic athlete and recipient of the prestigious Order of Australia.
His daughter flew for Cathay Pacific, my preferred airline (as I’ve mentioned previously in Country Squire), giving us an instant connection. When I asked when she had started flying, he told me she’d been flying since childhood. The scale of his former farm, which he described as being comparable to the size of northern England, made this a necessity. With a fleet of helicopters and pilots on standby, the family had to learn to fly young in order to navigate the vast estate.
Australia’s size is almost incomprehensible—individual farms can be larger than Wales. You could board a plane at noon in Sydney, eat lunch, watch a movie, take a long nap, and still be flying over Australia hours later.
This brings me to Territory, a recent six-part Netflix series set on a fictional Australian cattle farm. The farm is described as being as large as Belgium, which is surprisingly plausible. Set in the Northern Territory—an unforgiving red desert—the area is described by one character as “miles and miles of bugger all.” It’s hard to imagine cattle surviving there, but they do, thriving enough to make their owners millions. The cattle barons live on luxurious ranches, seemingly wanting for nothing—except, perhaps, peace.
The plot of Territory centers on a generational feud between the farm’s owners, the Lawsons, and their scheming neighbours, the Hodges, alongside the leadership of the Cattle Owners Federation. The ‘traditional owners’ of the land also periodically surface, seeking to claim resources from the white landowners.
If this sounds like a crowded narrative, that’s because it is. The first episode introduces a sprawling cast of characters, often with the help of helicopters—both literally and figuratively. It can be tough to track who’s married to whom, who hates whom, and why. There isn’t just one storyline but several, all tangled together.
To fully grasp the series, I had to watch it twice. But it’s worth the effort. Even if you don’t follow every intricate plot twist, there’s plenty to keep you hooked: violence, cattle rustling, and a healthy dose of good-looking Australians. Each episode ends on a cliffhanger, leaving you eager to hit Next Episode without hesitation.
The plot thickens when one of the Lawson sons, married to a Hodge, spirals into dysfunction. She’s having an affair with the head of the Cattle Owners Federation while her husband drinks himself into oblivion on the farm. Both are deeply despised by old man Lawson, who still runs the property. He plans to leave the farm to his grandson, the alcoholic son’s child—but the boy is missing.
This “poor little rich boy” has fled his former life of privilege, preferring the company of a sociopathic drifter. To complicate matters, the drifter’s girlfriend becomes romantically entangled with him, sparking chaos within their makeshift community.
As the series progresses, the action accelerates, with multiple storylines converging in a gripping finale. While some events stretch believability—multiple shootouts, bodies piling up, and yet no police ever appearing—it’s undeniably entertaining. Perhaps this is how things work in the outback; if so, it’s a place best admired from afar.
The season ends on a dramatic cliffhanger, leaving viewers eager for a second installment. If Netflix greenlights a follow-up, you can be sure I’ll be watching.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.