The Changeling

What we’re left with is a series that is too tonally messy to pull off the interesting allegory it is attempting. It’s a shame, and a real missed opportunity: we deserve a bold drama that is unafraid to deal with the alienating effects of postnatal depression and psychosis – but The Changeling is not that show.

If being made to feel unsettled is enough for you, The Changeling will make you very happy indeed. So too if you are happy watching great performances hold a proliferating mass of material together. If the thrill provided by daring, innovative television (even if it doesn’t quite come off) is your jam, dig in. If you are seeking answers, narrative satisfaction or resolution – well, stay away, for this show is more full of loose threads than we can understand.

Mostly fascinating, sometimes frustrating, and thick with the tension that occurs whenever a baby is involved in supernatural suspense, the series, which begins Friday, plays with so many ideas that it’s hard to decide exactly what it’s about, in the larger sense.

The Changeling still resonates, despite its flaws, because it taps into something raw and primal — much like the fairy tales of old that inspired the original book.

Had The Changeling followed the source material more closely, cut the dead wood and sorted out its pacing at the end, we'd certainly be looking at yet another Apple TV+ hit.

After three episodes, we’re no closer to figuring out what is really going on than when we started. The Changeling is ultimately a missed opportunity: eerie moments that don’t build up to anything, and random philosophical musings that don’t add up to much.

The Changeling desperately wishes to be one thing: a generation-spanning saga detailing the limits of free will versus fortune. Despite coming close, the show is so bogged down by its own ambition and ostentation that it’s destined for a different fate: squandering its immense promise under the weight of stylish, well-acted hubris.

A stark example of how out of sync the rhythms of good fiction can be with the demands of television. At the same time, it demonstrates the ways in which appealing performers and some visual style can keep you at least partly interested even when the story wanders.

A passionate but frustrating adaptation of Victor LaValle’s stunning 2017 novel, the series benefits greatly from the quality of its cast.

Changeling’s attempt to dress up mythological concepts in 21st-century garb runs headlong into a modern pitfall of a different variety – namely, the TV series that introduces an enticing and layered mystery, only to see its bizarre-baby story advance at something approximating a crawl.

“The Changeling” offers some of the most effective horror I’ve ever seen. The show’s casual, grounded, workaday realism augments the nightmare; the contrast between those registers, whenever they meet, is sharp. Totally arresting. But as the protagonists’ quests weaken their connection to that concrete world, the show’s stakes start to scatter, too, as if pulverized by too many competing symbolic operations.

For long, baffling stretches, the show seems to abandon its central storyline for no valid reason to indulge in other characters’ arcs that feel weirdly out of context and stripped of any notable significance. And yet, even in the back half of its haywire episodes, The Changeling shows some occasional promise with moments attempting to grasp onto an emotion or idea, but just before any of them could crystallize into something concrete and definite, Marcel cuts them off abruptly.

Given how rushed everything feels by episode eight, “The Changeling” misses out on the chance to be a tightly constructed series. Instead, it's yet another mediocre offering from Apple TV+.