Hit Or Miss: Apple TV's Servant
MediaPunch
On November 28th, Apple TV is set to premiere the M. Night Shyamalan production: Servant. The series was ordered back in 2018. The series is created and written by Tony Basgallop (Inside Men, What Remains, To The Ends Of The Earth) who serves as producer alongside Shyamalan. The cast includes Toby Kebbell (Black Mirror), Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under), Rupert Grint (Harry Potter), Nell Tiger Free (Game Of Thrones). The premise of the show had remained largely mysterious until the release of the official trailer on November 8th. The initial teaser, entitled “Jericho”, only consists of two shots. The first is a wide shot in a household. At the center of the frame is a swinging cradle that is facing a newscast that is playing on the television. The next shot is a close-up of a baby doll that sits nicely within the uncanny valley. The cradle continues to swing as the baby moves in and out of the shallow depth of field.
The trailer begins with a foregrounded image of a wooden rocking horse. In the back, just slightly out of focus, is a woman (Lauren Ambrose), presumably tucking a baby into a crib. The woman responds to the doorbell and introduces herself and her husband to a young woman named Leanne (Nell Tiger Free). This is Mr. and Mrs. Turner. They’ve just hired a caretaker for their baby, so it seems. Information is given slowly within this two minute trailer. Without knowing information from the previously released clips, the trailer withholds information fairly well while maintaining an unsettling tone. Unlike the mother, Mr. Turner (Toby Kebbell) seems highly skeptical of his wife’s nanny decision. She seems “too young” and “weird”. The nanny is meant to live in the house as needed, taking care of the Jericho while the Turners work and go about their daily lives. At the 40 second mark, Mr. Turner stares suspiciously around the corner at Leanne as she interacts with Jericho. Following this scene, we are given a brief moment with Julian (Rupert Grint) who seems to be privy to “the situation”. The inanimance of the child is fully revealed when Mr. Turner picks up the baby by its ankles in a rather shocking reveal. Baby Jericho’s arms flop about in a way that only a synthetic material could.
Mr. Turner makes it a point to sit down with Leanne do discuss the odd situation. He is confused by her insistence to treat the baby as though it is real despite his wife not being present. Leanne, in her mysterious and steadfast way, insists that everything is fine as is. He goes on to explain that the couple lost their child when he was about 13 weeks old. The death shook Mrs. Turner to her core and the inclusion of the doll is meant to help her cope. Instead of moving on, Mrs. Turner has begun to treat the baby as if it were alive, even going so far as to hire a nanny. Leanne’s behavior seems quite strange in this context. As the trailer pushes forward, the amount of images increase and we hear dialogue from scenes that do not directly correlate with the image. A character asks, “You hired a nanny for a doll?”. We hear her again ask, “How much did those boys tell you about what happened”. It is unclear who she is talking to. The trailer reaches its peak at this point. We see a few motifs which include a cricket, the flame from a stove top, and a wooden doll. A voiceover, likely the voice of Mr. Turner, laments “What if she wakes up? What if she remembers?” The sound of a car alarm, a repeating piano note, and hissing strings bring the tension to a boiling point. The sequence ends with the static from a baby monitor. A haunting disembodied voice asks, “Do you know who you welcomed into your home?”
If the trailer and Shyamlan’s filmography wasn’t already an indication, one can expect a twisty thrilling narrative that is sure to polarize. Shyamalan has been a mainstay in the horror/thriller genre for better or for worse. It will be interesting to see how the story will unfold within a television series framework rather than a feature film. The show premieres this month on the 28th. For those who have bought into Apple TV, Servant is not be missed.