A Missing Kid Show That Respects Your Emotional Limits

I love a good crime drama, but I’m not as keen on missing kid stories (especially when the kid is three years old), unless there is some hope that the kid will be found. Dead kid stories are kind of my kryptonite, all of which is to say: If you’re in a similar boat, stick with Apple TV’s latest, Last Seen, the Australian miniseries created by Kris Mrksa, based on the book The Dispatcher by Ryan David Jahn, because it’s not quite what it seems.

What it seems, initially, is a show about Ian Ridley (Patrick Bramall, Colin from Accounts), a dispatcher (or a 911 operator), whose kid went missing 11 years ago who finds the bones of his missing daughter. That is not a show I particularly want to see, even if the end goal is to solve the mystery, find the killer, and get justice. There is no amount of justice available in the world for killing a child.

What becomes clear by the end of the pilot episode is that there is no mystery behind who abducted Maggie Riley — we know who it is. What also becomes evident several minutes into the second episode is that the bones that were discovered were not those of Ian’s daughter. The guy who took Maggie, Henry Reid (Brendan Cowell), is a reclusive religious fundamentalist, and he and his wife, Jenna (Maxine Peake) are keeping Maggie (now a teenager) on his property and raising her as their own daughter.

The real tension is whether Ian will figure this out and find his daughter before he hits bottom — he’s a recovering alcoholic who is not recovering well, and his family is not too keen on the fact that he refuses to move on after his daughter’s disappearance. It’s been 11 years. His ex-wife (Jessica Wren) has moved on — she’s pregnant and married to one of the cops overseeing the case, and they’re all ready to get on with their lives.

There are plenty of those convenient coincidences (Maggie, the missing teenage daughter, calls 911 at one point and Ian happens to be the one who answers). The show’s description also notes that Ian “will stop at nothing to find her and reunite his broken family, whatever the cost,” which suggests he’s headed for a spectacular downward spiral as he attempts to reconcile with his daughter.

Despite the fact that Maggie is still alive, Last Seen is bleak as hell. But for those who find the bleakness of crime dramas strangely comforting, it’s well executed. Bramall is always great (Colin from Accounts fans will appreciate seeing him in a grim drama), and the fundamentalist antagonist is sufficiently compelling (the bones discovered may not have been Maggie’s, but they were someone’s, which creates genuine mystery). It’s like Scandi noir with Australian accents and without the freezing temperatures — a show built on the certainty that even if the grieving father finds his daughter, he’ll have given up everything in the process. He’s not entirely stable, either, which makes for compelling television.