In the recent ITV thriller After the Flood, floodwaters recede to reveal a corpse, setting up the series’ central murder-mystery. The Drought, or Sequía, finds television once again making the case for not pulling out the plug unless you are very sure there are no nasties lurking at the bottom of the bath. This engaging new Spanish drama, available on Walter Presents, begins with the discovery of skeletal remains in the arid basin of the Campomediano reservoir near the border of Spain and Portugal, once very much filled with water, now parched and ready to give up its decades-old secrets.
A radio news report tells us the Iberian peninsula is drastically low on water, with Spanish reserves at less than 35% of capacity. But the series opens in a downpour, back in the pre-drought times, as mysterious people drag a mysterious body (or two) through a storm before a gunshot hints at the victims’ fates. This gloomy glimpse at a soggier past soon gives way to the blazing sunshine of the present day. Those of us more used to the Nordic in our noirs may take a second to adjust to the fact that the sunlight makes everything appear at least 10% less sinister. Yet the heat soon works in the drama’s favour. Nobody is quite as they first seem, and you get the sense that the remains uncovered at the bottom of the Campomediano are about to have them all sweating buckets.
