After his successful turn as the titular character in Wes Anderson's Oscar-winning short film The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Benedict Cumberbatch is back in a longer and altogether darker project for Netflix this month.
Eric is a new show arriving on 30 May, the latest salvo in Netflix's never-ending quest to cement its place in peoples' minds as the best streaming service available. It's been doing a good job, mind, based on these 5 must-watch shows for this May.
Eric stars Cumberbatch as the father of an apparently kidnapped child, with Gaby Hoffmann playing his wife and their son's mother. Sounds creepy, right? Check out the trailer below.
It looks like things might start off in a fairly typical fashion in Eric, as Cumberbatch's character goes through the awful process of enduring a police search that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere, and the parental guilt that comes with it.
The twist, though, seems to be that Cumberbatch's character is also a puppeteer on a children's show – like, but not identical to Sesame Street, doubtless for copyright reasons.
He'll seemingly become obsessed with the idea of translating his son's doodles of an imaginary character called Eric into reality as a new puppet on the show. Hence the show's title. And why we're calling it creepy.
That situation looks like it should offer up some seriously fertile ground for psychological questions about the process of acceptance, grief and moving on – and be a challenge for those around him to come to grips with.
Plus, of course, it should mean that we get to see a whole tour de force from Cumberbatch, who's already proven himself an unbelievably versatile and potent performer – and is a huge name for the show to have attached.
With that trailer featuring a pretty superb Abba needle drop, we have every hope that the show will be similarly well-soundtracked. If it is then you'll want to pair it with one of the best soundbars we've tested – Netflix's sound mixes for new content are generally excellent, after all.
Meanwhile, if Eric is now firmly on your watchlist but you don't want to wait until 30 May for some Netflix goodness, there's plenty more to watch, including the current Netflix no.1, a 1970s Irish drama starring Liam Neeson, called In the Land of Saints and Sinners.
