In a relatively short span of time, we’ve become so accustomed to streaming mini-series that live and die on the WTF nature of their twists. In just this year, “His & Hers,” “Run Away,” and “I Will Find You” have become Netflix hits in part because of the shocked social responses to their non-stop plot machinations. Credit (or blame) Harlan Coben, but seeing a mystery/thriller in 2026 that anchors itself to the traumas of their characters, instead of just the secrets they keep, feels different. There aren’t too many shocking developments in Apple TV’s 6-part “Last Seen,” but that allows for more nuanced character work than we often see in this era, and guess what, makes for a more rewarding show. Maybe the Cobenverse just isn’t as strong in Australia.
That’s where this Kris Mrksa adaptation of Ryan David Jahn’s The Dispatcher unfolds, centering an 000 operator (the Aussie equivalent to 911) named Ian Ridley (Patrick Brammall). The hook of the source material is undeniable catnip to TV mini-series producers: An emergency phone operator gets a call one night from a distressed young woman who might be the daughter that went missing from his life eight years ago. The Ian of “Last Seen” has clearly been living a painful existence since the day that his Maggie went missing, an event that fractured his life in so many places that he now pushes through his days with anger in his non-stop quest to find her. The truth is she was never that far away.
This is not a spoiler because “Last Seen” reveals its hand very early. It’s actually the discovery of the skeleton of another child that sends the narrative of “Last Seen” spinning, and hints at a truth about what happened to Maggie that could qualify as a twist if it wasn’t a tragedy that’s pretty easy to unpack before the horrifying flashback episode.
Without spoiling, “Last Seen” counters the saga of Ian Ridley with that of Henry Reid (Brendan Cowell), a man who is living far off the grid in the same part of the country as Ian. He lives off the land with his devoted wife, Jenna (Maxine Peake), and daughter, Sarah (Chloe Jean Lourdes), telling her she can’t interact with kids her age because society doesn’t respect their religious beliefs. If you’re guessing that Sarah is the one who wonders if she’s Ian’s missing daughter, you’re not that far ahead of the show.
While it’s the kind of story that would make your jaw drop were you to see it on the nightly news, it’s a relatively simple one for a streaming mini-series, which allows Mrksa and director Christian Schwochow, who helms all six episodes, to focus on character.
What’s particularly rewarding is how much the writing allows the supporting players to become three-dimensional. There are so many versions of this tale in which the young woman at the center of the piece would just become a cog in the twist machine, but Sarah is a complex, developed character, an innocent stuck in an emotionally impossible situation. It helps a great deal that Lourdes nails some very complex beats in the final couple of episodes, revealing how this is her story more than anyone’s. Again, crime thrillers have a bad habit of elevating heroes/investigators instead of victims, so it’s all the more impressive to see a writer avoid that habit.
The performances are strong throughout, especially Lourdes, Peake, and Daniel Henshall, who is perhaps series MVP as the character stuck in the middle of these intersecting narratives. The “Snowtown” star plays Donald Reid, brother to Henry, but also a friend and support beam to Ian through their work together to fight alcoholism and addiction. He has a few episodes mid-season when, again, the emotional upheaval behind the choices he’s forced to make are more important to the outcome than what he decides to do. He’s great.
To be fair, some characters do get a bit lost in the mix, even Ian to a certain extent, but especially Maggie’s mother, who becomes the one who feels most like a cog in the machine’s plot, around to yell at Ian to give up the search so the character can reveal how he’s never going to give up on his daughter yet one more time. There are also a few cops who feel like exposition devices: there to recount the plot and explain things to the audience more than anything else.
It’s not just Coben. Even the best thriller shows of the last year like “The Beast in Me” and “Furious” have made watching a show based on a missing girl feel like it needs to be predictably unpredictable. “Last Seen” isn’t perfect, but it does so many of the things right that other thrillers don’t even try to do at all. That makes it worth a look.
Whole series screened for review. On Apple TV+ on September 9, 2026.
