2020 has been an awful year. I will not touch on the pandemic, if you want such content switch on the news. Instead, I’m going to speak about a different catastrophe, a fictional one. What better way to sign off for the year than doing what I do best, providing a Netflix television recommendation. My television highlight of 2020? A Belgian Netflix series called Into the Night.
The Plot
Okay, so stay with me on this. The plot sounds mental; it is mental:
The series starts with a hijacked flight from Brussels. The hijacker, an Italian NATO soldier, forces his way onto the aircraft, and demands it take-off. The apocalypse has begun, all living organisms are being killed by exposure to sunlight. The handful of people in the aircraft become survivors from the deadly global event as the plane heads west to outrun the rising sun.
I told you the plot is out there, really out there. But at 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, I’m not the only one who loved this.
The Review
From minute one, the show throws you into the action. Six episodes, all around thirty-five to forty minutes long, it wastes no time. Where other shows have the scope and budget to stretch things out into the night is tightly written, directed and acted. Most of the plot takes place on either the plane or where they can haphazardly land, the show giving mere glimpses of the rest of the world. The show excels with its far more conservative budget than other Netflix output.
The best bits of the show are the logistics, increasingly a race against time. How can a plane can travel fast enough to outpace the sunrise? What about fuel? Food? At times the madness of the show threatens to overtake the believability of events on screen, but the show does a superb job of avoiding turning into a farce. Instead, the viewer is treated to a perfectly sized show that lives up to its promise.
Bring On Season 2
As we sign off 2020, I can’t recommend a better piece of escapism. As my girlfriend and I did back in May – crack open the booze, turn up the volume and binge watch the most balls to the walls television show of the year. If you need any further persuading, the trailer is here.
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