Mention the words ‘Eighties’, ‘supernatural’ and ‘teenagers’ in one sentence, and chances are one show leaps to mind: Stranger Things. But another one might soon join it in the popular TV viewing consciousness.
Lockwood & Co, Netflix’s newest teen offering, is just as witty, almost as emotional and bags of fun to boot. Also, pleasingly, it’s set in the UK.
Based on the young adult book series by Jonathan Stroud and adapted by Joe Cornish, the show is set in an alternate reality where ghosts exist and their touch can kill. To combat them, the children and young adults who are sensitive to ghosts (adults aren’t) are hired into agencies that are paid healthy sums to deal with these spooky problems – resulting in a rather low life expectancy on the part of these young hirelings.
One of them is Lucy Carlyle, played excellently by Ruby Stokes. She flees her Yorkshire home after a job at her old agency goes catastrophically wrong, and finds refuge at Lockwood & Co, which is owned by the teenaged Anthony Lockwood (a suave, assured Cameron Chapman).
Together with the agency’s researcher George (Ali Hadji-Heshmati), they set out to take down all manner of nasties - and maybe figure out why caused this ghostly invasion (dubbed ‘The Problem’) in the first place.
Though the show is set in an alternate present day, the presence of ghosts since the 1980s means that society has stagnated to the point where everything has a vaguely retro vibe, including the visual effects of the wispy spectres that launch themselves at the protagonists. Mobile phones aren’t a thing, characters consume cups of tea by the bucket-load and a good way of getting in touch with somebody is to leave them a message on a noticeboard. Also, people carry rapiers around (iron repels ghosts).
London is the perfect setting for this show. It simply oozes character: you can absolutely believe that ghosts lurk in the Victorian cemetery of Kensal Green, or down by the riverside at low tide. And the show makes the most of this, avoiding jump scares for a sense of creeping dread that permeates almost every frame.
However, one of the best things about Lockwood & Co is the chemistry between its three leads. Stokes conveys equal amounts anger and determination as the damaged Lucy, while Chapman is charming as the silver-tongued Lockwood, whose parents died and left him a prime bit of real estate in central London that doubles as the agency headquarters. Each of them (including Hadji-Heshmati) get their moments to shine, and in classic YA fashion, adults aren’t to be trusted: nearly all of them are nursing some ominous ulterior motive or are out for themselves.
Though the show has the odd line of clunky dialogue – usually when explaining the lore-heavy difference between Listeners, Watchers or other types of ghost sensitivity – it’s usually so good that these brief moments don’t matter.
Mostly, though, the exposition is woven seamlessly into the plot. We learn about the elite agencies Lockwood is attempting to compete against (with pleasing names like Staines and Dollop & Tweed), the thriving black market in haunted items and even who the show’s version of celebrities are – the main one is Marissa Fittes, one of the first people in the UK to find a way of dealing with these supernatural pests.
Does Lockwood & Co break any new ground? As with Stranger Things, no. But it weaves all its constituent parts into an entertaining narrative that raises just the right amount of hair on the back of the neck. A spooky delight.
