The InBESTigators

## Website

The InBESTigators on ABC Iview

***The InBESTigators*** is an Australian mockumentary comedy-drama television series created by Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope for ABC Me (Australia) and Netflix worldwide. The series stars a group of year 5 kids that form a detective agency to solve crimes and become best friends.

The series originally premiered on June 21, 2019, and was released worldwide on August 9, 2019. The second (and final) season premiered on November 11, 2019, and was released worldwide on January 10, 2020

## Premise

Ezra Banks meets Maudie Miller, an aspiring private investigator and they create a detective agency run by children. They are joined by two other kids from grade five, Ava and Kyle. Ava brings the social skills and Kyle brings the athletic prowess. Operating out of the granny flat in Ezra's backyard and led by Maudie, they scour through clues to solve a school or neighbourhood whodunnit mystery in each episode.

## Series Summary

* **The Case of the Disappearing Deliveries**: The recently formed The InBESTigators receives their first case: they need to help a woman named Sophie to find her stolen frozen-yogurt parcels. Maudie discovers that Oliver, Sophie's younger brother, had done this to make her stay at home because he was feeling annoyed by Joanna, Sophie's neighbor, due to her singing the hole time.
* **The Case of the Missing Solar System**: Pixie notices that her solar system diorama was stolen, but no one believes her because she always forgets to do her homework, including Miss Tan. Maudie discovers that the responsible was Justin because he think that his diorama wasn't good enough, and reveals that his parents do the works for him.
* **The Case of the Distressed Dancer**: Maudie, Kyle and Ezra goes to the Dance Dreams School to discover who sabotaged Zac O' Halloran's presentation during a concert. They found that Trixie, the school's technichian, had used her cell phone to edit the music's speed and disguised as Zac's. Maudie explains to Zac that she done this to revenge for the disrespected that and his group had caused to her: They dont remember her name, don't remember her role at school and never invited her to the break.
* **The Case of the Sleepover Secret**: Ava founds to be very upset because Pixie doesn't speaks to her during the hole week because she thinks that Ava told her secret during the sleepover on Ava's house. While she and the rest began to decorate the agency, Ava reveals everything she knows to Maudie, and the same discovers that Amelia, which was felling left out during the hole sleepover, break into Pixie's phone because she think that Ava and Pixie was texting about her.

* **The Case of the Soccer Saga**:
* **The Case of the Puzzling Pet Day:**

## Fan Film

On February 16, 2023, an Indiegogo page was started for an InBESTigators based fan film, One Last Case. At this moment, all we really know about the film's plot is that it will star teenage versions of Ezra, Ava, Kyle, and Maudie going on a grand adventure for their final case before having to go to their respective universities and move on from the agency. On this journey, they'll attempt to solve the mystery behind a string of disappearances throughout the country. For more details about the film, including how you can help fund it, here's the Indiegogo page for the project: https://igg.me/at/one-last-case/x/31643664#/\_

## Cast & Characters

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## Production

### Development

After the overwhelming success of *Little Lunch* Gristmill producers Robyn Butler and Wayne Hope are looking forward to introducing another children's comedy to the world. "We took the comic tone of Little Lunch and married with it the private detective, mystery genre (one of our favourites), inventing a ground-breaking procedural comedy for kids. We are immensely proud of the show that we have produced," says Butler and Hope. *Inbestigators* EP and ACTF Head of Development and Production, Bernadette O’Mahony says the new series will be a hit with children and their parents.*“The Inbestigators* is fresh and original, every episode keeps you guessing and smiling. And the characters are just divine – we’ve fallen in love with them and know the audience will too."

The creators added that: "One of the reasons we made the show was as a response to the world we're living in, which is increasingly us and them," Butler explains. "It's so toxic and you can feed your narrative of what you perceive – whether it's the news channels you look at or the Facebook world you exist in – and never really be challenged. We felt that if you just start from the ground up, with a bunch of kids and you put ethnic diversity and gender equity and respect and integrity and kindness in there, you can maybe foster something else in a kid when they're growing up."

In June 2018, ABC and Screen Australia greenlights *The InBESTigators*, along with *Hardball*, *100% Wolf* and a second season of *Mustangs FC*. Screen Australia's head of production Sally Caplan added: "It’s vital that young Australians are able to see their country, their stories and hear their accent reflected on the screen, so we are incredibly proud to be working with the ABC on this significant slate of children’s programs. "The characters in *The InBESTigators, Mustangs FC, 100% Wolf* and *Hardball* are distinctive and inclusive, and tell stories that are innovative and culturally significant. We have high hopes young viewers will connect with these tales and keep enjoying Australian content as they grow up."

### Casting

With the scripts all written, all focus turned towards production. With Butler and Hope both directing on the series, the hunt was on to find the lead cast. According to them, it occurred 715 individual auditions for the main cast. In June 2018, was announced the cast for the series, starring Abby Bergman as Ava Andrikides, Aston Droomer as Ezra Banks, Anna Cooke as Maudie Miller and Jamil Smyth-Secka as Kyle Klimson in the main cast. Also, in recurring roles, has Maria Angelico as Miss Tan, James Saunders as Mr McGilick, Hannah Johnston as Amelia Fitzgerald, Clarke Richards as Mr Barker, Madeleine Jevic as Miss Parides, Eliza Ong as Poppy Banks, Soraya Briggs as Max, Matilda Hardwick as Caitlin, Sienna Foggie as Esther, Ayiana Ncube as Ruby, Marita Wilcox as Miss Maniaci, Hannah Leigh Struckett as Pixie, Milla Bishop as Miranda, Zakariah Rahhali as Mario, Ethan Pham as Diet, Bailey McMilian-Power as Justin, Monty Henderson as Toby, who first appeared in the second season, and Jack Goodsell as Archie. Butler and Hope said, "We’re delighted to be combining two of our favourite things: kids and crime. Okay, that sounds wrong… We mean we’re excited to watch our eleven-year-old detectives crack the very big cases like who stole Pixie’s solar system diorama?"

### Filming

The series was filmed beginning on 9 July 2018 at Moorabbin Primary School in Moorabbin, Victoria and was pretended to end in December 2018, but filming officially wrapped in November 2018. Dan Maxwell acts as photography director, with Simon McCutcheon acting as production designer. For the studio for the agency, the production needed to construct a staff car park and house it in a semi-permanent marquee.

Bartley says after 20 weeks of filming, "It really feels like a little family here on set. It’s been a marathon effort, but the kids are just really great." In between takes, the crew voice words of encouragement – "good job", "great energy – that was awesome" and "you got this – good on you, mate".  When a break is called, the cast and extras hop on the playground to chat about their holiday plans together. Other cast and crew members play footy together during lunch, and hacky sack in the shorter breaks. During an interview, Anna Cooke says that: "The episodes were not all filmed in order so if we had a bunch of scenes, in say the playground, then we would film them in one go, even if they were in different episodes".

### Maturity Ratings

 France
 Bahrain
 United Kingdom

## Broadcast

### Season 1

The first-season premiere was confirmed with a trailer posted on the official ABC Me channel on YouTube on May 27, 2019. It debuted on June 21, 2019, with the episode "The Case of the Curious New Girl", and ended on July 10, 2019, with the episode "The Case of the Baffling Birthday". On July 27, 2019, it was released on Netflix Futures' YouTube Channel the trailer from the first season on Netflix, which was released worldwide on August 9, 2019.

### Season 2

On August 12, 2019, it was officially announced that a second season from the series would come soon. In October 2019, a trailer was released on both Gristmill and ABC Me's official YouTube channels. The season premiered on ABC Me on November 11, 2019, with the episode "The Case of the Concert Catastrophe", and ended on November 30, 2019, with the episode "The Case of the Triple Inbestigation".

## Trivia

* Evidence of the show canon taking place in Australia wasn't provided until "The Case of the Baffling Birthday", when Ava and Maudie were mentioned studying Parliament House.
	+ "The Case of the Copy Cat" also proves that the show takes place on Australia.
* The 4 main cast members in order from oldest to youngest are Abby Bergman, Aston Droomer, Anna Cooke, and Jamil Smyth-Secka, similar to the age order for the group.
* Every episode title begins with "*The Case of the...*", as a form to cite a crime that the inbestigators will solve.
* Heidi Arena, member of the main cast of Little Lunch, guest starred as Joanna in "The Case of the Disappearing Deliveries".
* "The Case of the Rosemary Riddle" proves something about the setting of the series:
	+ Each season can be connected to each other in another chronological form, which is proved as Maudie and Kyle were using the same clothes that they were using in the case report of "The Case of the Disappearing Deliveries", and they mention that Ezra's nanna would come to visit him.
* Differently from the original order, the episodes are divided in 10 with 2 episode per segment on Netflix, but this wasn't counted as the official order.
* Most episode events take place at Middle Primary School.
* Most case reports are occurred on Granny Flat, except in "The Case of the Distressed Dancer", "The Case of the Very Lost Notebook" and "The Case of the Unhappy Camper".

## External links

### Official

* ABC Iview
* IMDb
* Gristmill
* Series 1 on ACTF
* Series 2 on ACTF

## References

1. ↑ ABC greenlights ‘The InBESTigators’. *if.com.au*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 New Series The Inbestigators Debuts June 21. *ACTF's Official Website*
3. ↑ FTA lead preview M Magazine November 10. *The Sydney Morning Herald*
4. ↑ ABC greenlights ‘The InBESTigators,’ ‘Hardball,’ ‘100% Wolf,’ more ‘Mustangs FC’. *IF Magazine*
5. ↑ The InBESTigators are on the Case. *ACTF's Official Website*
6. ↑ Cast announced for kid’s series The InBESTigators. *TV Tonight*
7. ↑ The Inbestigators (2019) - The Screen Guide - Screen Australia
8. ↑ How to Make a TV Mystery: The Case of The Inbestigators. *ACTF Blog*
9. ↑ Take A Our Of The Set | The Inbestigators. *via Youtube*
10. ↑ Clue in to the Action on The Inbestigators’ Set. *ACTF Blog*
11. ↑ Child star Anna Cooke talks about her show The InBESTigators. *Ed Movie Guide*
12. ↑ The Inbestigators New Series Trailer 🔎 Netflix Futures. *via YouTube*. (July 27, 2019)
13. ↑ Lentz, Kelsey (July 31, 2019) Netflix New Releases: August 2019. *The Hollywood Reporter*.
14. ↑ The Inbestigators Goes Global on Netflix. *ACTF*. (August 12, 2019)
15. ↑ Trailers from the second season on Australia:

	* The Inbestigators 🔍 Season 2 Promo 🔎. *YouTube*. (October 15, 2019)
	* NEW EPISODES The Inbestigators Trailer (2019). *YouTube*. (October 20, 2019)
16. ↑ What’s On TV? Monday 11 November – Sunday 17 November. *ACTF* (November 12, 2019)

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