Critical Incident’s series creator and writer Sarah Bassiuoni wants viewers to know that the new Stan original series is “not a cop show, not an organised crime show, but a drama about when things go wrong on the job.” Filmed in Blacktown, Granville, Parramatta, and Greenacre, Critical Incident depicts life in the Western suburbs of Sydney and delves into the complex world of policing and the consequences on those most vulnerable. Bassiuoni told Mediaweek that as a writer, the setting is “always a character and if you can’t make it a character, you might as well shoot it in a studio.
” “As someone who used to work as a civil litigation lawyer who specialised in police issues, Western Sydney is the epicentre of a lot of the issues and cases I dealt with, so in our show, it’s its own character,” she said. “A lot of the cases I dealt with really touched my soul, so when I switched careers, I had to figure out how to make an entertaining story that deals with the issues that I’m passionate about, and I hope that’s what we’ve done with Critical Incident.” Critical Incident follows Senior Constable Zilficar ‘Zil’ Ahmed, who, while on patrol for a teenage suspect, pursues Dalia, and in the chaos of the pursuit, a bystander is critically injured.
Zil then discovers that Dalia was, in fact, not the perpetrator he was looking for. The guilt over the bystander’s injuries, coupled with the pressure of the critical incident investigation and the public scr.