Nocturne struggles to sustain its slow-burn crime drama

Apple TV's prestige crime thriller

Nocturne premieres with two episodes on October thirtieth, adapting best-selling Scandinavian mystery novels. Liev Schreiber plays a brilliant yet broken detective obsessed with a case involving a serial killer played by Stephen Graham.

The slow-burn format dominates prestige TV

This format, where one complex investigation spans a season or more, became a sensation after AMC's The Killing in two thousand eleven.

The mystery is solved from the start

Serial killer Jurek Walter, confined in a Pennsylvania psychiatric hospital, is clearly the culprit. When a boy thought to be his victim, Michael, turns up alive years after disappearing with his sister, the hunt for…

Retired cop drawn back into the case

Jonah Lynn, a Philadelphia cop and military veteran now retired and reclusive, was instrumental in the original investigation.Michael's return draws him back in, along with FBI agent Saga, who is a surrogate daughter to Jonah.

Hospital scenes carry the show's power

Zazie Beetz's Saga goes undercover as a patient at the hospital, where she becomes a spookily canny mix of actor, detective, and daredevil.

Outside the hospital, characters fade

Strong actors like Bill Camp, Poorna Jagannathan, and Chrissy Metz, who plays Michael's mother Ida, are saddled with underwritten characters.

Delayed backstory undermines the drama

Creator Rowan Joffé appears to be holding characters at arm's length to shock viewers with later revelations.

Lacks the specificity of similar shows

Nocturne's Pennsylvania setting invites comparisons to Mare of Easttown and Task, both created by Brad Ingelsby.

Character depth is the slow burn's fuel

There are only so many murder plots in crime television, but as many unique characters as there are human beings.

“A slow burn that doesn't make use of such a rich source of fuel is apt to fizzle out.”