Television Review

Servant: Season One

A couple is in mourning after an unspeakable tragedy creates a rift in their marriage and opens the door for a mysterious force…

Tony Basgallop created Servant and wrote every episode, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s the complete work of M. Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable). Apple used Shyamalan’s name to promote this psychological horror series, which he produces and directed two episodes for. And that raises certain expectations in audiences; good and bad, given the filmmaker’s chequered career. But while there are tonal similarities to Shyamalan’s earlier work, like The Sixth Sense (1999), plus the fact it takes places in his hometown of Philadelphia, Servant deserves to be judged on its own merits.

Servant concerns Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean Turner (Toby Kebbell), an upwardly mobile celebrity couple. Dorthy’s a local TV news reporter, while her husband’s a famous consulting chef. The Turners hire a nanny to care for their infant son Jericho, but when meek teenager Leanne Grayson (Nell Tiger Free) arrives it becomes clear something peculiar is going on in their…