Somewhere on a producer’s letterhead is the scrawled note: What if “9 ½ Weeks” for Gen-Z, but make it fit for the ID Channel?
Let me make one thing clear: I do not buy it. I simply do not buy it. Neither the plot of “56 Days,” based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Howard, nor its characters, nor its twists. Not the odds that something similar would actually happen; with the exception of a couple of actors, the writing and direction are so dreadful that most of the cast cannot bring the story to life, so each of the eight 48-minute episodes feels like it lasts for hours.
The story, such as it is, cuts back and forth between two narratives. The first is the grocery store meet-cute and subsequent love affair between Ciara (Dove Cameron) and Oliver (Avan Jogia). The second, taking place in the present, follows the police investigation of a heavily decomposed body in the bathtub of Oliver’s swanky Boston apartment, where he and Ciara had begun living. I am not permitted to discuss 80% of the storyline in this review, but what I can say is that it is extremely obvious from the first episode that both Ciara and Oliver are liars. And if you are remotely well-versed in mystery novels and/or thriller TV series, you can decipher the solution halfway through the second episode.
Dancing between two timelines is not a new gimmick in thrillers; Gillian Flynn made boatloads of money by using it as the fundamental conceit of “Gone Girl.” Unless executed extremely well, however, it’s a trick that works better in novels than it does onscreen, because prose simply requires you to progress to the next chapter, to feel certain that by the end of the next page you’ll know more than you did on the page before. But the screen has different demands. You need captivating actors, writing that would actually compel someone to pay attention for eight hours, and interesting production design. “56 Days” is simply the latest example of Mid TV: high production value, mediocrity everywhere else. The lighting is all blue and grey, the production design looks expensive but has nothing to say (a dark apartment with bright abstract art, deeply original!), and the costumes, which can be the audience’s first visual clue into a character, are about as deep as a kiddie pool.
Cameron and Jogia aren’t short on charisma. Both possess the chops to portray someone who could be guilty of murder, but depicting the smolder required of an erotic thriller is an entirely different business. The writing hinders them so that it’s practically a physical obstacle; there is nowhere for them to go with what little they are given. There’s hardly any eroticism in the sex scenes, and clearly no one on the production staff took a note from “Heated Rivalry”—intimacy can have purposes other than for titillation. It’s part of your series’ runtime, use it for something! What can a sex act reveal about a person? Their character, their motivations? I’ve seen better erotic thrillers in my sleep.
The one star this series deserves goes to three people who rescue it from being an utter waste of time. First, Dorian Missick and Karla Souza, as Detectives Karl Connolly and Lee Reardon, respectively, desperately try to push the meager material beyond its limits. It helps that their characterization is that of two people who aren’t married but may as well be; knowing each other’s rhythms, tics, habits so well that there’s a hilarious, lived-in resignation to their affect. Missick (long familiar with playing a cop, since nailing the part during the squat cobbler storyline on “Better Call Saul”) is a profoundly talented actor, as is Souza, who was by far the best part of “How to Get Away with Murder.” The love they pour into Karl and Lee makes it clear they’re on a completely different, and far better, show.
The third hero of “56 Days” is Matt Murray, who plays property manager Kevin Sullivan. Kevin wears a brocade puffer jacket and hands out business cards at a crime scene, and, unlike Oliver and Ciara, is not a very good liar. His conversations with Connolly light up the screen as they waver between confirmation and suspicion. Give Karl, Lee, and Kevin their own spinoff. It can’t possibly be worse than this.
Entire series screened for review. Premieres Wednesday on Prime Video.
