Dan Fogelman became one of the most successful creators of his era with the wildly popular “This is Us,” and his latest project reunites him with the star of that NBC hit, the wildly talented Sterling K. Brown. “Paradise,” now launched on Hulu, is a hybrid that doesn’t always connect its different elements, attempting to blend the human drama more familiar to Fogelman fans with an extremely unusual concept that could be read as a commentary on government lockdowns, a vision of the end of the world, a warning about distrusting superiors, or none of the above. And it’s all a murder mystery too! It’s a show that often feels ground down by the demands of its aggressive plotting, moving back and forth between present day and flashback material more than a season of “LOST,” which can make it sometimes feel like a cheat as characters fall victim to their twists more than their development. Still, it’s a consistently easy watch, only feeling hollow in retrospect. It moves quickly enough that you don’t really notice it’s not nutritionally satisfying. Sometimes that doesn’t matter. After all, we’ll still need shallow escapism in paradise.
This review is a bit later than some of the others because Hulu asked critics to wait until today to divulge what “Paradise” is actually about, and I found it nearly impossible to write around the very premise of the entire program, even if the company has kept it secret in its promotional material. If you still want to stay unspoiled on something not revealed until the end of the premiere, go watch it and come back. We’ll still be here.
“Paradise” opens with the tenor of a traditional murder mystery. Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins (Brown) is one of the closest allies to President Cal Bradford (James Marsden). When he comes to relieve his buddy and colleague Billy (Jon Beavers) of his overnight duty, he finds Bradford dead. He shuts down the residence and begins an investigation before even calling it in, a move that will spark suspicion. It turns out, of course, a lot of people had the motive to kill Cal Bradford, which will be revealed largely through flashbacks as to how everyone got to “Paradise,” which the premiere reveals is actually a vision of a very dark future.
It turns out that everyone – Cal, Xavier, Billy, Xavier’s two kids – is living in a massive man-made community deep in a mountain in Colorado, a bunker after the end of the world. Yes, Bradford was the last President of the United States, and everyone fled to this future version of “The Truman Show” when the nukes hit the fan. Xavier’s wife didn’t make it, along with billions of other people. The first few episodes introduce the major players in this sci-fi drama, including the architect of all of it, a mysterious woman named Sinatra (the excellent Julianne Nicholson), given such a nickname because she’s always the Chairman of the Board. Charlie Evans plays Cal’s son Jeremy; Sarah Shahi a mysterious psychologist who gets close to Xavier; Nicole Brydon Bloom as another Secret Service Agent; Krys Marshall as Xavier’s superior and someone with a secret relationship with Cal; and Gerald McRaney as Cal’s dementia-suffering father.
Whereas a lot of creators would have leaned into the concept of “Paradise,” Fogelman and his team pepper their scripts with reminders that this is from a creator who often works in a form that could be called melodramatic. It’s not just Xavier’s wife that the President couldn’t retrieve before his family was forced into Paradise. The second, stellar episode details how Sinatra became hardened by reality after the death of a child. Almost every character here has a dark back story that would have fit in “This is Us” – like that show, most people have unreconciled drama with their parents or children from Cal’s quest for acceptance from a cold father who now doesn’t know his name to Billy’s back story of familial violence.
I don’t mean to imply that a great high concept sci-fi show can’t express human interest, but there’s a push-and-pull between the plotting of “Paradise” and its more soap operatic elements that can sometimes make it feel like two different shows. To that end, I must say that the excellent ensemble likely drawn in by Fogelman’s past success goes a long way to bridging that gap. Oscar nominee Brown gives a strong, subtle performance instead of going broad, not only recognizing that Xavier is more of an observer than a speaker but probably knowing that the show is crazy enough that he needs to stay grounded to make it relatable. The always-great Nicholson does phenomenal work in the second episode, but her character is then a bit reduced to a villain from there on out. It’s a trend in the writing – a showcase for a performer that then slides that character back into the machinations of the plotting from there on out.
There’s also a bit too much structural gamesmanship in “Paradise,” moving so often from flashback to present day that it can become difficult to get an emotional grip on either. Having said that, I was never bored through seven hours of streaming TV, and sometimes that’s all one needs, especially in a time when so many people wish they could live in a potential paradise – a place with no crime, no weapons, and no climate change. Although, as “Paradise” make crystal clear, never trust anyone who tells you everything is going to be alright.
Seven episodes screened for review. First three now on Hulu with a new episode every Tuesday.
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