Terminator Meets True Detective In Netflix's 8-Part Sci-Fi Thriller
There's an eight-episode science fiction thriller on Netflix that has echoes of Terminator and of True Detective. Netflix had a lot of success partnering with British production companies to create series for its original library, and many of the best original shows on the service are either wholly or co-British productions.
The time travel science fiction of Terminator and the grim, haunting murder mystery of True Detective come together in one of those British productions, a 2023, eight-episode miniseries that stars Stephen Graham alongside a talented ensemble cast. It's one of the best thrillers on the service, and an intelligent addition to the sci-fi thriller genre.
Bodies is set in the Whitechapel area of London in four different years: 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. At the same time in all four years, the same body appears in the same location in Longharvest Lane. This results in four different murder investigations undertaken by four different iterations of the Metropolitan Police.
Characters are played by multiple actors as they age over the timeline, and a vast, complex conspiracy begins to present itself. This science-fiction mystery crime thriller pulls from some notable shows and movies, but moves its pieces around to create something unique and compelling, and worth the quick binge.
Bodies Is One Of The Best Sci-Fi Thrillers Of The 2020s
With an 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, Bodies is one of the best science fiction thrillers of the decade. It's a mesmerizing, smartly written mystery that holds your hand just enough so that you never feel too lost, but also feel like you're putting the pieces of the show's puzzle together before the show is.
Bodies never wants you to feel too lost in its plot, and so the narrative often offers the most convenient way to tie everything together. That doesn't make any of it trite, and it instead allows the audience to feel immersed in the multiple timelines. It's a lot of fun to compare how each era of Whitechapel stacks up against one another, and see the similar threads of each year.
The series takes its thriller aspects seriously, even if it's wishy-washy with the exact function of the science fiction. Though there are four different police investigations, they all wind together so that it feels like one big conspiracy, with one resolution satisfyingly closing the book on multiple storylines.
More Thrillers Should Utilize Time Travel Storytelling
Time travel is not utilized as much as it should be in thrillers. The chance to go back and forth and see characters at different points in their lives offers a compelling way to show how a particularly heinous crime can inflict years of trauma on one person and even that one person's offspring.
Dark utilized a time travel-thriller medley to incredible results, but beyond that, the list of time travel mystery shows is disappointingly short. As series like Dark and Bodies show, the twisting complexities of time travel can drive forward a criminal case without even having to leave town.
Bodies makes great use of time travel, turning a typical crime drama into a period piece, a futuristic detective story, and a modern mystery, with each branch of the timeline slowly circling one another to reveal what's happening. Time travel offers another layer of intrigue that competent series can mine to enrich a classic story.