Suspicion (2022)

Confidently ambitious, taut and not infrequently exhausting.

People staring at screens the whole time (which, admittedly, is probably all that espionage is in the 21st century) is inherently undramatic. I haven’t seen a TV series based around cyber-espionage and infosec that solves this one yet, but thankfully it doesn’t sink Suspicion altogether because the characterisation is strong and the mystery holds.

Suspicion doesn’t spend any time making viewers care about Leo or Katherine, so the entire mission feels very low-stakes. There are bare minimum levels of intrigue, and fans of the genre might even enjoy the ride, but Suspicion has nothing to offer besides an average suspense story.

It feels like Suspicion is a bunch of espionage scenes in search of a cohesive story. The story may reveal itself at some point, but right now, the whole operation feels bland and generic, to the point where we don’t think we’ll be engaged with the story in subsequent episodes.

Everything turns sloppy and weird in this eight-parter, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+. Based on the Israeli series “False Flag,” the show devolves into a strange hybrid that’s neither tense nor particularly logical.

Suspicion is convinced of its own cleverness and righteousness, but very little over the course of its eight episodes provides any evidence for either.

The biggest mystery in Suspicion is why it’s asked two brilliant US actors to perform back-up to a cluster of not-very-good Brits. In fairness, few could salvage a script this silly.

An ok storyline, although the script writing is poor, the plot holes are many, and most of the acting is sub-standard. Many of the twists are heavily signposted, and the whole thing should have been 3 episodes max! I'd definitely not watch it again!

It started off with fair character presentation, but deteriated into a diatribe of wokeness and it felt like I was being preached to by the end. Talking of which, the season finale was a real let down. Its almost as if the writers couldn't make their mind up about who was responsible for the kidnapping until they wrote the last 10 minutes. In fact, you could have filmed a dozen endings and let the audience decide and it would still have left you wondering where those hours went. If this gets a second season I would be amazed. Put the money into season 2 of Severance instead.

Suspicion (S01, 8-eps, 45-min, Apple) starts off with a fast-paced kidnapping in NYC but fritters its mystery across 7 more unnecessary eps, mostly in the UK. In fact, this is one of those stories that would've presented its material better as a 100-min movie than as a long, drawn-out series. As you tire of the plodding pace by episode three, I promise you can skip to the last episode, you won't have missed anything of real importance. The cast is tepid, no real star power on display. Of trivia interest is Noah Emmerich (FBI agent "Stan Beeman" in "The Americans") as the point FBI agent here, and Elyes Gabel ("Walter O'Brien" of "Scorpion") who basically plays a tougher "Walter", still no social skills or "EQ".