Stories where the main character has lost his or her memory can get frustrating for viewers, mainly because the show’s creators want to put the viewers in the disconcerted shoes of that character. What happens is that the missing pieces that the main character are searching for sometimes are necessary to help the dramatic tension. So the viewer is not only lost, but there’s no actual story to get invested in. This is one of the major issues with Apple TV+‘s new thriller starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
SURFACE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A fully-clothed woman falls into the vast expanse of water we’re looking at. Suddenly, she finds herself under a large boat.
The Gist: Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who lives in a gorgeous San Francisco home with her husband James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), has been recovering from that incident, which she’s come to believe was a suicide attempt, five months ago. The reason why she’s come to believe that is because the head injury she got from the attempt has affected her memory, to the point where her therapist Hannah (Marianne Jean Baptiste) tells her she won’t get many of the more recent ones back.
But she’s slowly but surely rebuilding her life, going back to the hospital where she worked, going out with her friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) for drinks and stepping out with James to a swanky fundraiser. The incident still haunts her, along with visions of the Coast Guard officers that rescued her. She’s also drawn to a black dress that she doesn’t seem to remember and James doesn’t seem to favor.
When she’s out with Caroline, she sees a man looking at her constantly; she then encounters the man, Thomas Baden (Stephan James), outside the fundraiser; he tells her that James isn’t the man she thinks he is. She gets more clues that their marriage wasn’t as blissful as she thought when she overhears James talking to someone during the gala. She also sees that she had a broken arm 18 months ago that could have been a domestic incident.
Baden leaves her a matchbook to a Chinatown bar, which she visits. He finds her there and tells her that he was the police officer that investigated her case. Again, she keeps trying to figure out what led her to jump, something Heather has discouraged her from doing. But the more she finds out the more she starts to wonder, especially when she unlocks a video on her iPad that shows her that she and Baden knew each other a whole lot better than she thought.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The memory loss theme of Surface reminds us of Open Your Eyes, a Polish thriller that came out in 2021.
Our Take: Created by Veronica West and boasting Mbatha-Raw and Reese Witherspoon among its executive producers, Surface is a frustratingly slow show that doesn’t give us a ton of details about the incident at the center of the drama, aside from Sophie’s desire to find out the truth, even if it’s a truth that’s going to be ugly for her to hear.
We get the point of how shrouded the details are; we’re taking the perspective of Sophie, who is desperately trying to fill in the blanks of her life and the suicide attempt and is getting frustrated. Her hazy view on life is mimicked by the blurry edges of most of the shots in the first episode, whether they’re seen from Sophie’s perspective or not.
But what we end up getting are a lot of scenes of Sophie having visions, looking consternated at her memories, or pushing where most wouldn’t push. But what we don’t get is a particularly complex story. She has no memory of jumping into the water, and everyone around her is telling her that she tried to kill herself. She even left a note. But we know that is likely not what happened, or else there would be no show, right?
What we’re waiting for are the moments of revelation, like the one at the end of the first episode, where we find out things about Sophie’s life that point to something other than a woman having a blessed life with a man she adores.
Mbatha-Raw is certainly a radiant presence, and she does a lot with the material she’s given. We just wish there was more drama to get invested in during the first episode, and we have the feeling that subsequent episodes are going to proceed in an equally deliberate manner.
Sex and Skin: There’s sex, but it’s mostly clothed and shot at non-revealing angles.
Parting Shot: After running down to the wharf, Sophie encounters one of the Coast Guard officers that rescued her; she tells Sophie that she was telling everyone that her name was Tess.
Sleeper Star: It feels as if Stephan James, who plays Braden, will become increasingly influential as the series goes along. And it also seems that his intimidating manner is just a shield for him.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I jumped! That’s it! That’s the sad fucking truth; I have to live with that and so do you,” Sophie says to Braden when she confronts him about the video she saw. We’re not sure she’s even convinced about that when she says that line.
Our Call: SKIP IT. As much as we couldn’t take our eyes off Gugu Mbatha-Raw during the first episode of Surface, her performance can’t save a show that doesn’t seem to have enough story to justify an 8-episode series.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
