The Apple TV+ series Tehran is a spy thriller that takes place all over the Middle East. So a few Aussie viewers were understandably shocked to see a very familiar-looking building in what was supposed to be the Jordanian capital of Amman.
It turns out that instead of using an aerial shot of Queen Alia International Airport, the producers for some reason went with… Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport. Ah Amman, it’s the Melbourne of the Middle East, after all.
The frankly nonsensical switcharoo was first pointed out by Reddit user /u/gheygan, who added that the real Amman airport is “certainly more impressive (and unique) aerially as well, which makes you wonder even more as to why they’ve used MEL?”
‘Amman, Jordan’ as seen in the new AppleTV+ show ‘Tehran’ looks awfully familiar…
by u/gheygan in melbourne
For reference, here’s the real Amman airport, in all its palatial glory:
It’s a mistake anyone could make, right?
It’s not as if this scene is particularly hidden, either. It’s literally taken from the very first episode, one minute and 28 seconds into the show.
Some users even questioned whether the editors had made the grass in Tullamarine look more brown to resemble sand, or if Melbourne’s cold weather made the grass look shit enough in real life already.
If you were watching in the hope of an accurate plot and setting, maybe this is your cue to switch off. After all, one reviewer in the Financial Times even said the show is at times “guilty of stretching the limits of credulity.”
While not all of us are plane nerds who can readily identify Aussie and international airports from bried aerial shots on TV shows, this particular scene has a dead giveaway that even the non aeronautically-inclined among us can recognise.
There are at least eight Qantas planes parked on the tarmac. Qantas doesn’t fly to Jordan, but they do fly to Tullamarine.
So far only three episodes of Tehran have been released on the platform, with new ones dropping every Thursday. Let’s see if Melbourne’s finest landmark makes another appearance whenever the show goes back to Jordan, and if any other Aussie airports show up on the other side of the world.
