Wednesday 12 May 2021

The Flight Attendant (2020 Developed by Steve Yockey)

Based on a book by Christopher Bohjalian, this should have been called The Idiot, as flight attendant Kaley Cuoco finds a dead man in her bed in Thailand and then proceeds to do everything as wrong as can be done. In such a way, in fact, that you start to wonder if there's a mischievous sense of humour at work, amplified by the fact that she keeps whizzing back to the murder scene, where the corpse drily comments on the action. Meanwhile her friend Rosie Perez seems to be involved in stealing military secrets, whilst her other friend Zosia Mamet luckily is a top lawyer.

Eight 45 minute episodes developed for Showtime. Noticed Line of Duty's John Strickland as one of the directors. Its animated credits sequence and music suggest a coked up version of Catch Me If You Can (an alcoholic version would be more accurate), but the vibe of the show is something weirder. Or sillier - sub-plot involving Perez selling weapons data to Koreans stretches credibility to max, as does fellow flight attendant suddenly announcing he's in the CIA. Overall, I'd say in style it owes a lot to Killing Eve.

That opening credits scene was designed by Taka Ikari and scored by Blake Neely:


Michiel Huisman is the dead man, Michelle Gomez, Colin Woodell, T.R. Knight (brother), Merle Dandridge & Nolan Gerard Funk (cops), Bebe Neuwirth.

Yockey was a playwright, got into TV via Supernatural and Scream: The TV Series. This was 'a departure from the book in a lot of insane ways' - that I can buy.

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