Imagine a crime that keeps on happening across the centuries. Exactly the same. Identical. The same murder, the same location, the same conditions. Everything about it is as peculiar and as inexplicable as it sounds. That is what happens in Netflix’s show Bodies. Four detectives, in four different time periods investigate the same unsolved murder.
Bodies is bolder and darker than the usual shows I watch. It’s a thriller, each episode rich in suspense with the never-ending whodunnit question looming. Set in London, it travels back and forth between 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053 showing glimpses into both the personal lives of the detectives and their efforts to wrap their heads around a mysterious, unsolvable crime.
There’s a lot of history to jump through, and the time periods blend together, scenes change rapidly and you, as the viewer, can’t help but play detective along with them. The premise is totally unpredictable. Don’t fight it. Very little makes sense at first, the producers were clever with how they revealed the information.
What’s interesting about it is how it is a time-period show, a sci-fi of sorts but also set in today’s world. There are candle-lit seances, time-travelling loops, interrogations, secret handshakes, car chases, blackmail and eerie recordings. A fine case of good cops and bad cops.
At times it is frightening. Not spooky, nor violent. Its scares are plot-based. More like ‘Can you imagine if that really happened?’ ‘If the world truly turned into that?’ ‘If secret cults not only ruled the world but changed the course of history.’
The concept of history, time travel, and how one action affects a million tiny other actions becomes central in the story.
As we follow the detectives searching for answers, Detective Sergeant Shahara Hasan in 2023, Charles Whiteman in 1941, Alfred Hillinghead in 1890 and Iris Maplewood in 2053, keeping up with all the mind-bending revelations is a challenge. Fear not, it all comes together in the end.
Shira Haas, the actress who starred in Unorthodox, is excellent as Detective Maplewood. As is Amaka Okafor as Shahara Hasan. In between the crime-solving scenarios are underlying themes – Hasan is a single mum who lives with her father and young son, there is a troubled teen thrown around in foster care and a romance that cannot see the light of day so it remains painfully hidden.
What is surprising about Bodies is that although captivating, it was only released for one season. The ending (of course) leaves you wanting more and just when all is revealed, more questions arise.
