Yahoo News Apple TV+ show Servant from M. Night Shyamalan is the streamer's first must-watch
Note: This article contains minor spoilers for the first three episodes of Servant on Apple TV+.
Plot twist. It turns out Apple TV+ is actually worth your time after all, and a huge part of that is down to Glass filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.
Along with show creator Tony Basgallop (Inside Men, What Remains), the infamous director is back with Servant, a psychological thriller which veers far closer to the likes of Signs and The Sixth Sense rather than cringe-worthy misfires like The Happening.
Despite what that nightmare-inducing trailer might have you believe, the aim here is to unsettle, rather than outright scare, and that sense of foreboding is apparent right from the first moment we meet Servant's unhappy couple, Dorothy and Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell and Lauren Ambrose).
It doesn't take long to realise that something's not quite right between the pair, and this only intensifies more when a young nanny called Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) is welcomed into the home.
As anyone who's watched the trailer knows by now, the central characters are trying to cope with the loss of their child by replacing it with what's known as a "reborn doll." This extremely lifelike replica is just as horrifying to look at as you might expect, giving physical form to all of the grief and trauma that's barely concealed under the surface.
Early on in the pilot, Sean whacks what we imagine to be an actual baby against a table, giving us a surprising jolt which sets the tone for how unsettling this show really is. Should we laugh nervously or freak out over what we just saw?
The answer is probably both, and this odd tension is expertly maintained from a technical standpoint too. Intense close-ups feature prominently throughout all ten episodes, and almost everything we see is limited to the confines of the home, amping up the show's claustrophobic feel to an almost unbearable degree.
Awkward breast massages and skinned eels are just a few more of the many disturbing sights that lie in wait across the first few episodes of Servant.
Shyamalan isn't exactly known for his restraint, and on paper, some of this might sound like Servant veers dangerously close to his more ludicrous movie ventures. Luckily, creator Basgallop is the main driving force here, and he's able to make these stranger moments land in ways that unnerve, rather than outright surprise or confuse us to the point of frustration.
A small, but impressive cast also do wonders in this regard. Kebbell is our gateway into this eerie, bourgeois world of denial and suppression, and although we question some of his character's decisions, Kebbell himself perfectly grounds our own incredulity with an understandable desire to maintain harmony in the house — no matter how messed up that "harmony" might be.
Six Feet Under star Lauren Ambrose is also impressive in a role that could have easily gone over the top, convincing us of the depths someone will go to protect their mind from collapse — and it's about time we saw her take the lead in a show of this caliber.
Nell Tiger Free doesn't fare quite as well with a thankless and mostly blank part, at least in the first three episodes. To be fair though, the mystery behind her character's true intentions are key to Servant's central mystery, and this impenetrable facade lets us imagine all kind of horrors churning away under that sweet, pious surface.
Rounding out the cast is Harry Potter favourite Rupert Grint, who proves himself to be a legitimate actor here beyond the owls and wizarding of years gone by.
These plaudits don't necessarily mean that Servant is perfect though. Although each episode only lasts for thirty minutes, it's still hard to see how the show's central mysteries can be drawn out effectively across ten episodes — and word that Shyamalan plans to develop 60 episodes in total do little to alleviate our concerns either.
Still, what we've seen so far lives up to Apple TV+'s hype in ways that star vehicles like See and The Morning Show didn't quite achieve. Who would have thought that a plastic baby could outshine Jennifer Aniston and Jason Momoa so spectacularly? And just when we thought Shyamalan might have finally ran out of twists...
The first three episodes of Servant will premiere November 28 on Apple TV+.
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