A new 5/5 thriller series has just been added to streaming

The show is full of the shocking cliffhangers and twists you'd expect from a Harlan Coben Netflix thriller, but it grounds them with richer characters and a greater sense of authenticity.

Accessible now through Apple TV, the show is set in Victoria, Australia. The story follows Ian Ridley (Patrick Brammall - Colin From Accounts, The Devil Wears Prada 2), a former police detective whose life fell apart when his young daughter, Maggie, disappeared without a trace 11 years ago.

Now a recovering alcoholic and working as a police dispatcher, all that's keeping the father going is his unwavering refusal to accept that his child might be gone forever. When the body of a young child is discovered locally, it leads to a renewed interest in the case, which Ian uses to launch his own fresh investigation into his daughter's disappearance.

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The series also follows Henry (Brendan Cowell, Avatar 2 & 3) and Jenna Reid (Maxine Peake, Say Nothing), a couple living off-the-grid with their teenage daughter, Sarah (newcomer Chloe Jean Lourdes in a star-making turn). Across six episodes, the Reid family becomes embroiled in Ian's investigation.

Last Seen Review

That said, what really elevates Last Seen above its contemporaries is how it avoids red herrings and other elements that suspend one's disbelief. Instead, it devotes more energy to creating an atmospheric, authentic, tangible sense of place, as well as building a core group of multi-layered, complex, believable characters.

This extends not just to Brammall's grizzled, hard-bitten hero, but even the villains of the piece. The latter are never presented as cartoonishly evil. Instead, they are just flawed people whose past mistakes and bad decisions, which once seemed justified to them, have spiralled out of control.

Yes, Last Seen is kicked into gear by one hell of a coincidence which occurs at the end of episode two (which we won't spoil). Yet, what transpires at this moment could happen in the real world.

From then on, it's remarkable how much mystery and tension creator Kris Mrksa and director Christian Schwochow build without ever exiting the realms of reality or deliberately wrong-footing the viewer.

The consistently taut, tactile set-pieces help with this. But also Mrksa and the actors make the audience care about the central characters and the dilemmas they face, as they become embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game that quickly reaches fever pitch over six tight 45-or-so-minute episodes.

Last Seen Interviews

Ahead of the release of Last Seen, JOE interviewed its stars Patrick Brammall, Maxine Peake and Brendan Cowell.

Brammall is best known to international audiences for his work in comedies like Colin From Accounts, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and No Activity. That said, the actor was drawn to Last Seen because of the chance to play a darker, more reserved lead character.

On what attracted him to the part of Ian, he explained: "I think it was the contrast, really. The fact that they were entertaining me as possibly playing the lead, that's always nice. But then I thought it's been a long time since I've done anything like this, maybe never. Certainly on this scale, never.

"So, the depth and the breadth of the emotional landscape of it, I thought, was really exciting. I play a bit more still in this… [In general], I move around a lot, I modulate my voice, that's generally how I am as a person. In Colin from Accounts, the character I play, Gordon, is an extension of me. It's not a leap.

"Whereas Ian, he's far more still. He's got a lot more going on inside. There is some action in [Last Seen], but he's less demonstrative. So, that was a great acting challenge, which I really relished, because I haven't done anything like that for a long time."

JOE noted to Brammall that though the character is very still, we could always feel his emotion raging just beneath the surface.

Patrick Brammall in Last Seen

"Yeah, that's right. I think that was the challenge," he replied. "Because in comedy, it is about being on the front foot and having momentum, and it's a bit more bold. Whereas this was about containing and having a really strong internal life.

"That's what I really enjoyed doing. That was the challenge that I attempted to rise to in this."

Last Seen is based on the novel The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn, which was set in Texas. While Brammall is unaware of the exact reasons for moving the story from America to Australia, he does believe the change is additive.

"Yeah, I don't know why they chose Australia, but I think it's a great choice. I mean, obviously I feel that way. I wouldn't be in it otherwise," he laughed.

"But I think the ruggedness of it. You've got the shipwrecked coast, and then you go way inland for stuff at the end of the season…I mean, it was a huge expanse.

"Logistically, it was very difficult to shoot this. Apple were amazing, and the production companies who were involved. But I think it does help the story. You can buy that [these characters] are so close and yet so far, because it's such a dense country.

"It's so kind of inhospitable in many ways, but Henry and his family do make themselves comfortable in that inhospitability. They've been there for so long, unbeknownst to Ian and the rest of the town."

Maxine Peake in Last Seen

One of England's most revered actresses, Maxine Peake, is the only non-Australian in Last Seen's cast.

She tells JOE that she was drawn to the project for the chance to work in Australia and with Australian actors she had already admired.

"To spend four months in Australia I thought would be an adventure, and then the cast with Patrick, with Brendan, with Dan Henshaw [who plays Ian's friend and AA sponsor], I knew their work and was a fan of their work.

"Obviously, because Brendan also does theatre and writes, you just think: 'This could be a really interesting opportunity.' It just felt very different.

"Then there's the character of Jenna, which I felt was quite a tough nut to crack in many ways. I always like to take on parts that I think: 'Hmmm this isn't going to be easy. This is not simple and straightforward'.

"I didn't quite know initially, when I read the script, how I would go about it. But that's the joy then, you unpick it, and you work with great actors who help you unpick it, like Brendan, like Dan, and like Chloe, who played our daughter."

Slight spoilers for the first episode of Last Seen

Towards the end of the first episode of Last Seen, it becomes clear that Brendan Cowell's Henry is one of the show's antagonists. That said, the character has many layers, with the actor also imbuing him with a pathos that feels true to life.

When we asked Cowell if there were any villain stereotypes he was keen to avoid, he bristled at the word villain.

Maxine Peake and Brendan Cowell in Last Seen

Replying to JOE, he said: "Yeah, I think just the word villain I wanted to avoid in a lot of ways. You can't judge your character and then go about playing it. You have to come from the inside out, and let the audience do all the judgment.

"So I just found a guy that... built this [family], and he really believed, a little bit from his upbringing and a little bit from what Maxine's character and he had discussed, that this was important and this was the chosen way of living and that they were doing a good thing.

"Of course, secrets inevitably come out from the inside. Once you commit one act to protect a secret, then you can kind of just keep going. I think that's what happens to Henry."

Using a metaphor, Cowell explained his thoughts on Henry's road to antagonist. "[You think] 'Oh, we'll get a lock on that door, and then we'll get a little bit of an alarm system on my phone, and then we'll put one on the gate, then we'll get the cameras.' Then little by little, you've kind of gone mental, but you don't know, because it just started by going: 'Oh, we might lock the door.'"

Speaking as Henry, he added: "I think I'm protecting my family as every parent does, trying to keep my kid out of danger."

Continuing, Cowell noted: "But when the outside world comes to threaten this, I think you see that Henry doesn't know what he believes, or whether he's done the right thing or not."

How to watch Last Seen

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The first two episodes of Last Seen are streaming now on Apple TV+, with the rest of the six-episode season dropping weekly on Wednesdays.