Two former Dwarf actors and a duo of song-and-dance hitmen named Barbie and Ken? Netflix’s eight-part British mystery series Stay Close can’t be as strange as that, right? Or maybe it can. The series centers on a former strip club dancer who made herself disappear after evading a stalker, only to have her past catch up with her a decade later as her wedding date to a new man closes in. Played by Cush Jumbo(Torchwood, Vera, The Good Wife), the series’ lead is Megan Pierce, a woman pursued by an ex-fiancé played by The Hobbit star Richard Armitage and a cop played by The Hobbit star James Nesbitt. Meanwhile the cops realize men have been disappearing during an annual celebration in this beachside town. A coincidence? All the players seem to own some part of the secret in this modified adaptation of Harlan Coben’s novel.
It’s such a strange thing to see over and over. Whether it’s Broadchurch, Marchlands, Lightfields, Thirteen, The Missing, or Requiem, the British television studios can’t stop making series based on the story of a missing child. And it’s not just the Brits that can’t get over the genre. Americans tend to do it with a supernatural bent, in shows like Twin Peaks, Stranger Things, or Riverdale. But finally they may have got one right, compelling characters, a solid mystery with twists, turns, and surprises, and the missing factor of most series in the genre, a satisfying ending. That’s Harlan Coben’s ten-part series now streaming on Netflix called The Five.
Smartly directed by Mark Tonderai, who has directed episodes of TV series including Doctor Who, Black Lightning, Gotham, Time After Time, and Twelve Monkeys,The Five takes the story of a five-year-old who disappeared on an outing with his older brother and his three friends, and turns it into something completely fresh and compelling. Twenty years later in modern day England, the DNA of the missing boy is found at the crime scene of a murder of a local woman. The news upends the lives of the missing boy’s brother, a lawyer and part time P.I. played by Tom Cullen (Orphan Black, Downton Abbey), his separated parents played by Geraldine James (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Alice in Wonderland) and Michael Maloney (Mr. Selfridge, Henry V), and his three friends: a cop who is the son of the detective on the original case played by O-T Fagbenle (Doctor Who, The Handmaid’s Tale), a doctor who has returned after years in the States played by Sarah Solemani (Bridget Jones’s Baby), and a protector of street kids at a local shelter, played by Lee Ingleby (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World).
Every player in this tale is a mess. The cop can’t balance work and life and must care for a father with Alzheimer’s, the doctor is figuring her way through a failed marriage and early stages of addiction, the shelter manager cares a bit too much about protecting kids on the streets, and the brother of the missing boy runs the route where he lost his brother every day, unable to get past his loss. As a police procedural, Fagbenle and detective Caine, played by Hannah Arterton (Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders), make for a solid policing duo, while Cullen and Ingleby are a great sleuthing team of private investigators.
