The ghost of Kate Winslet haunts Peacock’s by-the-numbers new crime drama Long Bright River, a plodding attempt to replicate the Oscar winner’s small-screen success story Mare of Easttown. That show seemed like repetitive formula on paper but four years ago next month, it became the kind of buzzed about hit that TV execs dream of, winning over critics, audiences and Emmy voters. It led to the birth of a rotten new term used in industry boardrooms, the “prestige-ural”, a prestige procedural which would transplant high-end production values and an A-list lead on to material that had long been associated with churned out primetime network fodder.
So here comes Oscar nominee Amanda Seyfried playing another Philadelphia cop who finds herself grappling with both the opioid crisis and the case of a murdered young woman which links to her own past and troubled family dynamic. It’s hard not to make instant comparisons but then Mare of Easttown was itself highly indebted to Happy Valley, Sally Wainwright’s sensational Yorkshire-set series starring Sarah Lancashire as a character so close to Winslet’s that it almost felt like a remake. With Long Bright River, we’re far from the gold standard set there, the show a familiar yet forgettable remix.
