Netflix
A show rises high enough in Netflix’s top 10 list, I am likely to watch it, and that’s doubly true when it comes to some sort of science fiction or horror offering. After the stellar Fall of the House of Usher, I was curious what replaced it. That would be Bodies, a show I heard compared to Netflix’s Dark, one of the service’s all-time best series, due to its focus on time travel.
It’s not made by the Dark team. Rather, they went on to make 1899, a trippy sci-fi series that was abruptly cancelled by Netflix after a supposedly poor performance, leaving its storyline unfinished. But they’ll be back for more later with “Something is Killing the Children.”
Bodies is something different. If you want to compare it to Dark, it’s perhaps about 20% as clever and interesting. Passable, but not terribly engaging. You may want to see its mysteries to the end, but I would not blame you if you stopped short either. I don’t think you’re missing much, even if yes, this does tell a conclusive story as a miniseries, rather than as season 1 of something that could be left unfinished.
Bodies tells the story of different detectives who find the exact same corpse in the exact same place in London decades apart. One in the 1890s, one in the 1940s and one in 2023, to start with, anyway. Investigating what exactly happened here leads to a vast conspiracy with a generation-spanning cult that includes a figure who effectively appears to be immortal. He goes by many names, but he’s usually played by Stephen Graham, who I certainly recognize from his excellent turn as Al Capone from Boardwalk Empire.
Bodies
The problem is that pretty quickly, about midway through the show, the mystery does not seem especially mysterious. While you may not know every detail, you probably have a rough idea of what’s going on, including how the bodies got where they did and why the main villain keeps showing up across timelines. It’s pretty spelled out.
I will say I think the individual performances in the show are solid. The lead detectives of every era are great, especially Jacob Fortune-Lloyd’s Charles Whiteman, who you may recognize from The Great, and Kyle Soller’s Alfred Hillinghead, who you may recognize from Andor. Shira Haas’s Maplewood and Amaka Okafor’s Hasan are also good. They are the highlight of the series.
The story and structure is just average, however. I’ve seen endless amounts of time travel fiction and this probably doesn’t crack the top 20, while Dark sits at a firm #1. It’s watchable, sure, and it at least has an ending, but don’t go in expecting anything mind-blowing.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
