LONDON (AP) — It’s Netflix’s decision each new 12 months to present viewers a headscratcher in January.
Since 2020, the streamer has launched a U.Okay. miniseries based mostly on thriller guide by Harlan Coben over the vacations. It appears to have paid off: “Fool Me Once,” starring Michelle Keegan, Adeel Akhtar and Joanna Lumley, launched this previous January and have become what Netflix says was considered one of their most watched reveals of the 12 months, amassing 108 million views.
2025’s seasonal suspense collection is “Missing You,” based mostly on Coben’s 2014 New York Occasions bestseller. It stars Rosalind Eleazar (“Slow Horses”) as Detective Inspector Kat Donovan, a police officer who focuses on discovering lacking folks — other than the fiance that vanished 11 years earlier.
“They know Jan. 1 is the sweet spot for them,” says actor Richard Armitage, who has appeared in every winter Coben adaptation, which relocates the tales from the books’ America to the north of England. “People have ownership over the show now, so like, ‘I want my Harlan Coben show on New Year’s Day. Give me my Harlan Coben fix.’”
“It’s perfect timing for the release, to be honest,” says co-star Ashley Walters. “Most people are going to be hung over or, you know, just not have anything to do with the day.”
The present opens with the shock of Donovan’s ex-fiance (Walters) popping up on a relationship app, over a decade after she got here house sooner or later to seek out him gone.
“I’ve ghosted people before,” laughs Armitage. “Just people you don’t want to talk to anymore. Not digitally though.”
One other star, Jessica Plummer, isn’t a fan of those that disappear with out saying goodbye, although.
“I’d just feel too guilty,” she admits, calling it “cowardly and lazy — sorry Richard!”
Eleazar guarantees twists and turns alongside the way in which, including that the actors weren’t initially given the ultimate two scripts and needed to flip to the guide to seek out out what occurs.
Coben “really is a genius at taking you up the wrong track,” says Eleazar. “You’re so sure that this time you’ve got it right and it’s this person or this thing, but you are inevitably always wrong.”
“I would love to know, actually, how he starts a book, you know? Does it start with an idea or does he think of the most inconceivable idea and go, ‘That’s how it’s going to end’?” she provides.
Armitage agrees that “Missing You” does justice to the “hair-raising” shock ending of the guide; “It’s like the rug is pulled away at the last minute.”
And whereas audiences at house can binge-watch the entire five-part collection as 2025 remains to be discovering its toes, the solid might be busy with quite a lot of pastimes.
Lenny Henry, who portrays Kat’s father, jokes that he often wakes as much as a brand new 12 months surrounded by roast potatoes, whereas sporting pajamas.
Armitage likes to be outdoors and begin recent by snowboarding down a mountain, whereas Eleazar has plans to rejoice in fashion: She and a gaggle of mates have a practice the place they lease a fortress and gown up in themed costumes.
Previous New Yr’s Eve events have included donning 18th century garb in France and final 12 months’s Versace-themed fete.
“I will be celebrating and really hoping that everyone loves this show on the 1st,” she says.
