Lockwood & Co. review: A supernatural teen potboiler done right
Newcomer Cameron Chapman shines in Netflix's equally grim and cozy series
TV Reviews Lockwood
In the first scene of Lockwood & Co., an older woman offers an apologetic look to two teenagers carrying swords on their belts and toting duffel bags filled with small bombs. “When I was your age, I was out chasing boys, having fun,” she says. “It’s terrible the world’s come to this. I feel sorry for your generation.” Then she walks away, leaving them all alone to deal with the mess.
Naturally, she’s referring to a half-century-long epidemic of ghostly visitations. But she could just as easily be a baby boomer offering a half-hearted apology to a couple of Gen-Zers for any number of real-world crises, from climate change to income disparity to rolling pandemics. It’s this binding central metaphor that helps set Lockwood & Co. apart from any number of teen supernatural potboilers that streamers churn out each year. It’s easy to become invested in its young heroes, because their plight is one we can instantly recognize.
But that’s not the only thing that makes this Netflix series worth spending a few cold, cloudy afternoons watching on your couch. Unlike many of its peers, Lockwood feels lived-in; it’s easy to believe you’re stepping into a world that’s already been around for a while. It’s stylishly shabby and threadbare, like an old overcoat hidden in the back of a thrift shop.
Based on Jonathan Stroud’s critically acclaimed young-adult book series, Lockwood comes from creator Joe Cornish (Ant-Man, The Adventures Of Tintin), the British comedian-turned-filmmaker who first made a splash with his 2011 sci-fi indie Attack The Block, which introduced audiences to future Star Wars breakout John Boyega. Anyway, this new series is set in an alternate reality where the dead return as restless, angry spirits to plague the living—an unexplained phenomenon that the characters simply refer to as “the Problem.” Since adults can’t sense ghosts, humanity’s first line of defense is teenagers trained in the art of supernatural combat.
Like many an adventure story, the show centers on a trio of flawed heroes: Lucy Carlyle (Ruby Stokes), a gifted “listener” who moves to London to flee a tragedy in her hometown; Anthony Lockwood (Cameron Chapman), a dashing ghost fighter with an enigmatic past and a barely concealed death wish; and George Karim (Ali Hadji-Heshmati), the prickly but well-meaning brains of the operation. Their titular paranormal investigative agency is a bootstrap operation that, unlike its competitors, runs without adult supervision. And with coats this billowy, who needs grownups?
Cornish and his team are economical with their world-building. Rather than dumping a load of exposition in the first episode, Lockwood throws us in the deep end and trusts that we’ll learn to swim. The series starts out teatime-slow, but the pace picks up after a few episodes once the show finds its footing. (This kind of early plot drag has become all too common on streaming dramas.) It’s a dark Scooby-Doo mixed with Being Human and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency—not to mention The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself, another recent Netflix supernatural drama that was canceled too soon.
There are plenty of genuinely scary ghost encounters, rip-roaring swordfights, and genre jargon; but Cornish’s series stands out for its patient character work. We spend as much time with Lucy, Lockwood, and George around the kitchen table at their shabby Marylebone headquarters as we do watching them escape paranormal encounters by the skin of their teeth. Throughout, the show never loses its focus on the toll that routine trauma has taken on humanity at large and its young defenders in particular.
Lockwood has pinned its hopes on a cast of relative unknowns, and the gambit pays off. Chief among them is Chapman as Lockwood in his first-ever screen role. From his confident strut to his melancholy eyes, the actor feels like a young David Tennant (the fact that his costume bears an uncanny resemblance to Tennant’s in Doctor Who only heightens the likeness). Chapman is a magnetic presence as a swaggering showoff who, beneath the confident veneer, is haunted by more than ghosts. Though he’s only 19, he exudes the world-weariness of someone much older.
He shares a crackling chemistry with Stokes as Lucy; the pair play off each other like Mulder and Scully, trading as many barbs as longing looks. Best known for playing the second-youngest Bridgerton daughter, Stokes anchors Lockwood in emotional realism. As jaded and determined as she is witty and vulnerable, her Lucy is a teen heroine who’s easy to root for. As George, Hadji-Heshmati (Holby City) adds a spice of weirdness to the central trio, and his guileless, wide-eyed demeanor reminds us that these hardened detectives are, after all, just kids.
Among the supporting cast, Hayley Konadu (Moon Knight) stands out as Flo Bones, a Thames mudlarker who sells haunted relics on the black market. She’s a warm, chaotic presence as one of the few adults who sees the Lockwood gang as more than a liability. Meanwhile, Game Of Thrones alum Ben Crompton is appropriately menacing as the sinister Barns, and Morven Christie (Grantchester) keeps you guessing as the mysterious overseer of a deeply cursed cemetery.
All in all, Lockwood is an appealing blend of noir-tinged detective tale, horror, and lowkey teen drama with just the right amount of witty banter. Both grim and cozy, it’s the TV equivalent of a strange old bookshop hidden down a London side street. You can practically smell the dust—and we mean that as a compliment.
Lockwood & Co. premieres on January 27 on Netflix.
21 Comments
I look forward to this being canceled if it doesn’t crack Netflix’s top 3 for ten months.When I read the original summary on Netflix for ,I thought it was a direct rip off of Dead Boys Detective Agency but reading this review makes it sound much more original, so while I’ve had a bad taste about it(As I felt it was ripping off something from Doom Patrol), this sounds pretty enjoyable
Didn’t you hear? Now it’s about “completion rate”, babyyyyy. So if it isn’t the Top 3 Finished Quickest within a month, THEN it’ll be canned. But that could change between now and next week, so who knows.
My first thought. Or at least it reminded me of the Doom Patrol (HBOMAX) version of them.
Their TV show is still coming though.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15358446/
This looks fun & sounds pretty interestingI hope that Joe Cornish gets stars from Attack the Block to guest star (Jodie Whittaker! John Boyega! Franz Drameh! Nick Frost!)
“Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”Holy crap do I wish that hadn’t been cancelled, it really captured the absurdity of the books even if the plots weren’t really based on them.
Yeah, I didn’t think I would, but I wound up really enjoying it.
Sounds fun, but I just can’t. I need Netlfix to release some sort Odds Chart with each new release. Odds We Are Prematurely Renewing This:Odds We’ll Still Cancel It:Odds We Know We’re Cancelling It But We’re Here to FCK with You Anyway
Its great. Worth a watch even if it’s just one season. At least its something different than the usual Netflix fare. Jump in !
“…she could just as easily be a baby boomer offering a half-hearted apology to a couple of Gen-Zers for any number of real-world crises, from climate change to income disparity to rolling pandemics.”I’ve never heard a baby boomer apologize for any of the crises they’ve created.
I’ll accept that the adults can’t sense the ghosts as long as it’s not “As soon as you turn 18 (or 21) the ability goes away” and more “Everyone’s bodies mature at different rates so we can’t tell you exactly when it will happen, but it’s generally around this time and we’re not sure exactly why*.”*Leave it as an unknown because trying to inject actual science into these things often doesn’t go so well.
It is the latter, and it’s something of a tragedy when you lose it. Works well both literally and as metaphor.
Now that I’ve seen the show I’m happy that we got to see it in action and it’s something that can be kept hush hush for a while because it’s not a case of “you’ve reached this age so it’s gone now.”
I feel it works well as a metaphor for the loss of athletic ability with age, particularly for elite athletes. Sure, some people can keep performing at the elite level for a decade, maybe two, but everyone is going to decline eventually, and what are they then? The idea that you reach your peak in your teens or early 20s is inherently sad.
It seems to be random in the show. No one know when it will happen to them
I will watch it. At least it is not another show about a chosen one at a magical school. I will just assume it will be canceled after the cliffhanger last episode.
The real question is, does Adam Buxton make a cameo?
I knew a few Lockwood’s growing up. It’s a fun last name to say! lol
Teen series on Netflix? Enjoy your 1, if your lucky — 2, seasons.
Finished this last night. Worth a watch for the soundtrack alone. Bauhaus, The Cure, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, This Mortal Coil (!), and the Associates (!!!). The show is set more or less in present day, but somehow all of the music is from the early 80s.
Lockwood & Co. is visually strange to English eyes. It’s set in the mid 2020s, but somehow the entire country appears to have been timelocked in an earlier era. The cars, the TVs, phones, trains, even fashion. Lockwood wears the same square knitted skinny tie I wore in 1986.It’s like Britain is preserved in aspic, barely able to progress. There’s some very cool worldbuilding beneath this. (Plus of course it sidesteps pesky inconveniences for the writer such as cellphones.) Still, all that old railway rolling stock, the ‘80s-era BMWs and VW Golfs, make ghost-ravaged London look suitably grubby. And it’s nice to see my old (ha ha) haunts like Kensal Green Cemetery get an appearance.