Netflix makes it difficult to tell which shows are worth your time. New shows pop up every week, and discerning the good from the bad is nearly impossible. Sometimes, though, something breaks through all the noise on the server and reminds everyone what great TV can and should look like.
Adolescence, which hit the streamer on March 13, is one such show, and it’s one you should definitely make time for. The series, which is just four episodes long, follows a family who find themselves confronting the unthinkable after their 13-year-old son is arrested for murdering a schoolmate. As they attempt to reckon with the fallout, they learn more about exactly what their son is accused of. Here are five reasons you should make time for this show:
It’s formally daring
If that premise isn’t hooky enough for you, Adolescence is also unusual because each episode is told in one unbroken take, and the episodes all take place in real time. That means that the show jumps around in time a bit, but it also grounds the series in a kind of immediacy that only underlines how serious the situation is and how quickly things can escalate. It also underlines how real and raw each of the central performances is, and how quickly this allegation shakes the foundations of this family — and makes the parents, in particular, question everything they thought they knew about their children.
It features a wonderful ensemble
A show with this much of a focus on one family had to cast that family exceptionally well, and that’s exactly what Adolescence does. Stephen Graham, who is also one of the show’s writers, is wonderful as the family’s patriarch Frank, a man searching for some explanation for the turn his life has taken. Christine Tremarco may be even better as Frank’s wife, a woman desperate to find the son that she used to know. Owen Cooper, who plays the boy accused of murder, is just as great as a young man who is either a normal kid or someone who committed a heinous act, or perhaps both.
It’s impeccably written
Given the show’s structure, Adolescence has to find unique ways to deliver its exposition. These episodes take place in real time, which means that all of the writing has to give us a sense both of who this family was before this allegation came down, and also of what has happened in the time between episodes. While this structure can make that kind of exposition clunky, Adolescence avoids basically every trap that could come along that path. What’s more, the show still has plenty of time to help us understand these characters, and the actors embody them so thoroughly that we understand almost immediately how they related to one another before their lives were turned on their heads.
It’s got real ideas
Although this show takes place in the U.K., it’s a show that could take place almost anywhere in the world. More than most TV shows, Adolescence is a series that understands just how toxic it is to be a teenager living in the 21st century. Kids are bombarded with stuff they aren’t ready for, and taunted and attacked by one another in ways that are undeniably cruel. The series has a firm understanding of how easy it is for young boys to start listening to the wrong people, especially when there are so many people online determined to get their attention. It’s not an easy show to watch, but Adolescence is very much about the moment we live in now, and in particular, how dangerous it is for people without fully formed brains.
It’s a clarion call for parents
Adolescence is, perhaps above all else, a call for parents to check on their kids. The parents in this show are not bad people, and they are not bad parents. But in an era when raising a son is more difficult than it has ever been, Adolescence is a reminder of just how present parents should be in their children’s lives and just how easy it is for a kid to go down the wrong path.
Parenting is, even in the best of times, a nearly impossible task. But as Adolescence reminds us, it can also leave you questioning every decision you’ve ever made, trying to understand how the good boy you thought you raised turned out to be someone else entirely. It might not always be an easy sit, but that’s part of what makes the show so gripping from front to back.
