David Tennant's 2020 crime drama Deadwater Fell has hit Netflix – and has already climbed to the top of the UK charts.
Written and created by Daisy Coulam, the series stars Tennant as Tom Kendrick, a doctor whose wife and three children are killed in a fire. Though it seems like an accident at first, investigators hone in on two key details: the father, Tom, was the only one who was pulled out alive, and all five family members were drugged. Coulam and producer Emma Kingsman-Lloy were inspired by Netflix's crime drama, The Staircase, which is based on a real-life homicide case involving a family and its suspicious patriarch. The series has hit no. 1 on the Netflix UK Top 10, and sits at no. 2 in Ireland.
The cast includes Cush Jumbo, Matthew McNulty, Anna Madeley, Maureen Beattie, Laurie Brett, Lorn Macdonald, Ron Donachie, and Seline Hizli. The miniseries aired in four parts on Channel Four in January 2020. New viewers are comparing it to Broadchurch, much like The Guardian did in its 2020 review of the series. Broadchurch, ITV's massively successful crime drama starring Olivia Colman and David Tennant, ran for three seasons from 2013-2017. Both shows are tense, gripping, and devastating.
"The series is observational and understated – I wanted the focus to be on the commonplace and everyday," Coulam previously told The Independent. "Like most crime drama, there are suspects and clues. There are arrests and interviews. But they are played out through the prism of ordinary people."
