Another day, another Harlan Coben series on a streaming service. The American writer reunites with Danny Brocklehurst after Fool Me Once (Netflix) for Lazarus. It's not based on any of his published novels and is described more as an "original creation." To be honest, there is nothing original about Lazarus. It has the DNA of other Coben adaptations. Once again, an intriguing, promising setup gets ruined by the time the show reaches its conclusion. Watch one Coben adaptation and you have watched all Coben adaptations. There is little to no narrative distinction between each one of them. I have come to the conclusion that Coben is someone who likes to tease the audience. He lures them in with the promise of hair-raising mystery and nerve-jangling suspense, but then throws cold water over the very excitement and expectations he builds up.
In Lazarus, Coben and Brocklehurst try to create a spooky concoction of suicide, murder mystery, and supernatural elements. Things kick into WTF motion as soon as Laz (Sam Claflin) begins to see dead people. Or does he somehow gain the ability to do time travel? Maybe after the death of his father, Doctor Lazarus (Bill Nighy), the office becomes a sort of portal between the living and the dead world, or between the past and present? In Richard Curtis' About Time, Nighy, in the role of James Lake, tells his son that the men of their family can travel back in time to moments they have lived before. Is this what's happening in Lazarus, too? Is this why Nighy was cast in this show? "Time is not linear; it's cyclical," says a character to Laz. He further adds that sons tend to turn into their fathers and that history will keep on repeating itself unless you break the pattern. This is good advice for Coben — he should really break his predictable, underwhelming pattern.
Like other Coben adaptations, Lazarus unfolds in a hermetically sealed world where there is no room for a word like "impossible." Anything goes, though not in a good way. Coben is like a magician who boasts he can pull a 12-storey building out of his hat—only to reveal, in the end, that there was never anything special inside it. He is a fraudulent magician. As a writer of mystery-thriller novels, he uses the genre as an excuse to conjure as many juicy, unbelievable twists as possible. But when the time comes to explain them, he hides behind red herrings and empty tricks. "Brilliant in setup, hollow in payoff," is how I would describe Coben's work. Just wait till you see what Lazarus does with Laz's ghostly visions. It moves it from the realm of the supernatural to psychological when it's unable to offer a solid justification for its existence. Coben and Brocklehurst throw every trick on the wall and then leave everything up to the "viewer's imagination."
Lazarus ultimately says that teenagers are horny, disturbed, and stupid — they don't always make the right decisions. Well, the show, too, doesn't make the right decisions. I thought it was a good joke that the character whose whole profession is based on spirits is unable to see the ghosts. Lazarus, though, sees no humor in this; it soberly presents this point. Should you be surprised? You won't be once you realize the show's ambitions: it simply wants to keep the viewer in their seat until the final episode. That task is carried out through a "bingeable piece of fiction" that doesn't need to be decent. Lazarus is sterile; it's slop.
Final Score- [2.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times