Morgan, 2024 | Netflix Mini-Series | 7 mins read | Spoiler-free!
Sometimes marketing teams can make a good decision. I hate to admit how easily I can be hooked by an entertainment media’s marketing strategy sometimes, especially because I’m starting to become a marketing hater (not the people, just the culture – I’m sometimes just sick of being sold stuff, y’know?). But sometimes something will just grab me, and it’s normally the most random of things.
It was two such things that piqued my curiosity for Netflix’s (now-no-longer) new drama miniseries, Eric (2024), written by Abi Morgan, directed by Lucy Forbes and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The first was the YouTube ad. Not the swiftly edited together dramatic clips of 80s New York city, mind you, but instead that it had a dramatic minor-key cover of ABBA’s 1975 classic, SOS. A random thing to focus on, I’m aware, especially considering it doesn’t even fit with the show’s 80s nostalgia agenda. But it is one of my favourites of the Swedish Superstars – yes, even when Pierce Brosnan is singing it – and it grabbed my attention and refused to let it go. The second hook was a video-billboard that I noticed outside Reading Station which teased something big, blue and furry. With some confusion, I realized it was an ad for the same drama mini-series I had been caught by on YouTube the other day which, from my memory, hadn’t mentioned a giant, fluffy yeti amidst all its standard, stock thriller footage. Anyone who has the misfortune of knowing me in real life will instantly know that a monster hook will get me on board with anything and Eric‘s approach of advertising their seemingly serious new drama but not focusing on the brightly coloured, Jim Henson-esque monster thumping around the set was enough to make me set aside my fear of watching serialised media and view it all in one evening.
As previously mentioned, Eric is set in 1980s New York City and follows unlikeable puppeteer Vincent Anderson, who is the creative genius behind a well-loved Sesame Street style children’s show. Problems with alcohol abuse and running his mouth has started to destroy every part of his personal life from his career to his relationships. When his son, Edgar, goes missing, Vincent believes he can bring him back home with both the literal and hallucinatory assistance of the seven foot tall, walkaround puppet that Edgar had designed for his father’s show; the titular Eric.
What sounds like an interesting premise turns out to be nothing more than a gimmick to make a mediocre crime series just about warrant it’s “Offbeat” label on Netflix’s categorising system. Eric is probably intended to be this paradoxical extended metaphor that visualises Vincent’s lifestyle: defined by it’s childish whimsy yet self-destructive and volatile, a materialized inner voice that speaks bluntly and drops swear words from a Ludo-like, huggable face. As such, I was neither endeared nor captivated with this creature’s “haunting” presence. He ultimately feels irrelevant, as he is used so few and far between scenes to deserve the tonal shifts that the show tries to go for. When we hit the mid-point of the show, we are treated to an evening at the local gay nightclub with Cumberbatch and his puppet pal snorting cocaine in the bathroom and grooving to Laura Branigan’s ‘Gloria’ on the middle of the dance floor. Surely this was intended to hint at Vincent’s increasing spiral or suspicious coping mechanisms over the disappearance of his son, but since we’ve hardly seen a glimpse of anything we are meant to empathize with (or at the very least attempt to justify) his antagonistic personality, all we can do is question what we are seeing and ultimately land on the conclusion that it’s all for aesthetic and talking point. Perhaps if they went for a more Venom/Eddie route and leaned into this bizarre buddy-cop-like dynamic it could have been more warranted. The show seems largely indecisive whether it wants Vincent’s vision of Eric to be working with him as an extent of his imagination or against him per his self-destruction. I can’t even justify it as self-hatred, as one of the few things the show seems crystal clear on is Vincent’s overwhelming arrogance. Some tightening of this dynamic between the two – to either stick with the grit or allow for some true offbeat comedy – would probably help you click with Vincent more.
Vincent is hugely unlikable and not even in an interesting way. You hardly find yourself rooting for him to even find his own son. Cumberbatch doesn’t seem quite able to repeat his knack of an engaging, self-absorbed genius that audiences seemed captivated by from his BBC Sherlock days, instead offering us just a cut-and-dry jerk whom meanders around the plot and engages us less and less as each episode goes on, making him and his monster feel almost like side-characters in what is supposed to be his journey of growth and mending relationships. He starts to feel unnecessary in his own story; instead Edgar becomes a more pivotal figure and Cassie the more sympathetic of the family, as the struggling mother who doesn’t get everything right but tries to navigate this living nightmare, delivered with a more grounded performance by Gaby Hoffmann. The show tries to convince us that Vincent is this legend of the children’s entertainment world with a genuine passion for his television show that he is deftly alienating himself from with his malicious personality, but I never bought into it. How can you be a paragon for childish whimsy but also the biggest asshole to ever exist? It could have been an interesting dynamic to explore, but Cumberbatch just doesn’t give us enough slack from this poisonous personality to empathize with. Even when the show comes to its climatic penultimate episode, Vincent and his internal growth feels like an afterthought and unwarranted.
The 80s set-up also feels just as gimmicky as it’s titular character, something that I’d wager was also a marketing ploy from Netflix continuedly trying to ride the slowly dwindling relevance of Stranger Things. Perhaps it works for some people, but as someone who’s never seen S.T and has more of an aesthetic affinity for the earlier eras of the 1900s, it didn’t do it for me. The children’s show puppeteer angle could definitely have worked and is an idea that, despite the underwhelming outcome, I think was a fun springboard to go from and I wouldn’t mind seeing another attempt at this concept. Just not with Cumberbatch.
Eric isn’t an inherently flawed premise, just one that suffers from mediocrity in its execution. Maybe with a bit more creativity and a different lead it could have become something worth talking about, but considering I heard more about this show before it’s release and dead silence after it, I don’t think I’m in the minority in this opinion. If anyone else actually watched it, that is.
Eric is six episodes long and currently streaming on Netflix only.
A note from an exhausted, non-website savvy Miss Ivy: I have no idea why the ‘Leave a Comment’ header appears twice, I only put in one comment block, I swear, I think it is something to do with an automatic footer, perhaps? Thank you for bearing with me while I try to navigate WordPress, I appreciate you :’)
Eleanor L. Ivy 
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