Original episodic thrillers have been, currently are, and continue to be all the rage on Netflix, but it’s definitely worth mentioning that Harlan Coben has repeatedly been cornering that particular market for the streaming service, with Fool Me Once marking the platform’s eighth adaptation of his work.
The murder mystery writer has become such a hot ticket for exclusive content that Prime Video has gotten in on the act, too, but it’s Netflix that continues to be his preferred port of call. This time around, Michelle Keegan stars as a grieving widow coming to terms with the brutal murder of her husband, only to spy him on a nanny cam in her house, opening the doors to yet another labyrinthine conspiracy.
Shows based on the Coben back catalogue tend to follow similar paths, but Netflix has admirably mixed it up by giving the green light to British, American, Spanish, Italian, and Polish productions, with the author revealing to Radio Times that Fool Me Once is poised to mix it up again.
“So, Michelle is coming back from serving in the war, and is a combat pilot suffering from some of what she saw there. Then something happens at home – her husband gets murdered, and after a couple of days, she sees him on her nanny cam a lot. It’s a pretty good hook to get people in… and Michelle is an actress who can really pull off both being strong and tough. She just really delivers it.”
At this stage, you could slap Coben’s name on just about anything and drop it on Netflix to guarantee success, and while that’s undoubtedly going to be true for the eighth time in a row when Fool Me Once eventually premieres, you’ve got to hand it to the various creative teams for continually finding new and inventive ways to tell what reads as a repetitive conceit on paper.