THE SIGNAL
Hello trouble
UK/US Netflix, streaming now
Directors Sebastian Hilger,
Philipp Leinemann
Cast Peri Baumeister, Florian David Fitz, Yuna Bennett, Hadi Khanjanpour
Honestly, you wait ages for a sci-fi thriller about a female astronaut on the ISS, then two come along at once.
If you’ve seen another show which launched recently – Apple TV+’S Constellation – it takes a while to appreciate the distinctive qualities of this German series, because for a couple of episodes the déjà vu is overpowering.
A young daughter back home. A husband who’s a teacher. Dual time frames. Ambiguity about whether what the heroine is experiencing is a hallucination. An eccentric who’s been recording transmissions… the similarities
Becomes less convincing as it transitions from family tragedy
keep piling up. The pain of separation is another overlapping theme – even more so here, after the plane bringing Paula (Peri Baumeister) home vanishes. The astronaut detected a signal from deep space: a voice saying “Hello”. Something is on its way, and powerful forces are keen to avoid the disruption that could ensue.
Co-written by star Florian David Fitz (laidback hubby Sven), it’s attractively shot, with plenty of lens flare, circling camerawork and some dreamily colourful flashbacks. Little Yuna Bennett steals the show as Charlie (deaf, but able to hear via a plug-in implant), her eyes so huge they resemble a CG effect.
The series becomes less convincing as it transitions from family tragedy into a conspiracy thriller where “Trust no one” is good advice. The ruthless plotters are amusingly bad at basics like holding someone until the intel they coughed up is confirmed correct, or checking that someone actually was shot in the head. And the whole business is predicated on the idea that this vast, overarching conspiracy is incapable of tracking an object approaching Earth. Still, the series finds its own identity in the end, and the final twist is a neat one – even if it is a crib from Star Trek... Ian Berriman
The working title for the series was Hello. Maybe someone realised that sounded dangerously like a Lionel Richie biodrama?