Suspicion (2022)

People staring at screens the whole time (which, admittedly, is probably all that espionage is in the 21st century) is inherently undramatic. I haven’t seen a TV series based around cyber-espionage and infosec that solves this one yet, but thankfully it doesn’t sink Suspicion altogether because the characterisation is strong and the mystery holds.

Suspicion doesn’t spend any time making viewers care about Leo or Katherine, so the entire mission feels very low-stakes. There are bare minimum levels of intrigue, and fans of the genre might even enjoy the ride, but Suspicion has nothing to offer besides an average suspense story.

To say that “Suspicion” is afraid of saying anything real would be inaccurate, as Thurman’s character awkwardly explains the show’s whole thesis statement in a speech late in the series. Yet “Suspicion” still doesn’t seem to know exactly what it’s saying, repurposing its more political source material into a series of middle-of-the-road thriller beats that are never as gripping as they aim to be.

By the time “Suspicion” reaches its heavy-handed conclusion, we hardly care who done it and why they did it.

It feels like Suspicion is a bunch of espionage scenes in search of a cohesive story. The story may reveal itself at some point, but right now, the whole operation feels bland and generic, to the point where we don’t think we’ll be engaged with the story in subsequent episodes.

By the time Suspicion gets there, however, it feels like too little, too late.

Everything turns sloppy and weird in this eight-parter, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+. Based on the Israeli series “False Flag,” the show devolves into a strange hybrid that’s neither tense nor particularly logical.