Sixteen-year-old Jenny (Amy James-Kelly, “Coronation Street”) resents Tom for something that happened the night her mother died one year ago. “People are entitled to their secrets,” Tom’s best pal Pete (Marc Warren, “Snatch”) tells him, serving something more like a warning.Īs “Safe” unspools, it turns out Tom knows nothing about those closest to him, even his oldest daughter. Tom thinks he’s fulfilling his promise to his late wife, Rachel (Katy Carmichael), by raising their girls in such a location, where he knows all his neighbors. “Safe,” from the mind of mystery writer/executive producer Harlan Coben, focuses on a gated community. He’s convincing, but it takes some getting used to. Hall sounds a bit like actual British actor Russell Tovey, who’s serving time on ABC’s miserable “Quantico.” That might be the most disorienting part of “Safe’s” opener. Like everyone else in this United Kingdom production, Tom is British, and Hall leans fully into the accent. The North Carolina native stars as surgeon Tom Delaney, the grief-stricken widower and father of two daughters. He was the lovably neurotic embalmer on “Six Feet Under” and the even more loved serial killer on “Dexter.” Hall makes his return to series TV in Netflix’s thriller “Safe” (premiering Thursday). And after you're finished there, our 2018 Netflix schedule and our summer premiere schedule will clue you in on everything else coming to TV soon.First, we have to talk about that accent. Safe is currently available for streaming on Netflix (opens in new tab) right now, so be sure to get on that. Now how about giving Harlan Coben another show, Netflix? But here, the rewards for trying something new become prevalent very early on, especially once the streak of gallows humor starts creeping up through the hyper-dramatic narrative. Telling a story that doesn't seem capable of expanding into additional seasons, Safe is far from the most safe kind of programming for Netflix subscribers to take a chance on. Add to that Milo Twomey's intimidating club owner Bobby, Karen Bryson's dulled-eyed neighbor Helen and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin's secret-harboring student Ioan, and you've got a suspect pool that never seems to slack off. There's Hannah Arterton's new-to-town Detective Constable Emma Castle, whose troubled past brought her to town under hidden circumstances. There's Zoé Chahal (Audrey Fleurot), a teacher who gets embroiled in a scandal after being accused of sleeping with a student her husband Neil (Joplin Sibtain), a hulking man who doesn't smile much and their son Chris, who also happens to be Jenny's boyfriend. Scanlan) and their antsy son Henry (Louis Greatorex). There's Sophie's boozing ex Josh (Emmett J. Let's go down the list of all the other characters clamoring for viewers' suspicions, even on top of everyone that's already been discussed. The same goes for Sherlock vet Amanda Abbington's Sophie Mason, a Detective Sergeant dealing with a non-routine home life (complete with an alcoholic ex-husband living in a caravan in the driveway) and a complicated burgeoning romance with Tom. Pete is the alpha male in the friendship, and is just as invested in trying to find Jenny as Tom is. Pete Mayfield, played expertly by Marc Warren, is Tom's longtime best friend and fellow surgeon, with whom he shared a stint in the military. Hall, whose accent takes multiple episodes to latch onto, is nothing like his Dexter or Six Feet Under characters here, but is similarly flawed and seeks ways to atone for such flaws. There are plenty of moments in Safe where the story and its twists threaten to derail the tightly wound mayhem, but the cast saves it from ever tipping over. True to Harlan Coben's written works, he and his creative team pile on the suspenseful sequences and suspicious suspects, giving viewers just as much information to suss through as the characters.
And when one of those daughters, Amy James-Kelly's feisty 16-year-old Jenny Delaney, goes missing under mysterious circumstances, his ongoing trek to discover what happened uncovers the dark underpinnings of his community and its many residents. Hall) is a surgeon and widow whose grief and guilt over his wife's death (a year previous) have affected his abilities to be a fully present father to his daughters. With Safe, Coben put forth a skillfully plotted missing child mystery that, more than just about any other TV show out there right now, fits the full definition of a "page-turner." And what's more, Safe comes in at a lean eight episodes (thanks in part to a co-production with France's Canal+) and thus doesn't suffer from the bloat that some of Netflix's originals do.
While it doesn't make for exact science, it does stand to reason that a prolific and super-talented crime thriller author would be perfect for crafting a TV show in the same genre.
0 kommentar(er)
