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'Stranger Things' springs to mind.
'Beef' is another.
Now Netflix has done it again with 'Baby Reindeer'.
© Netflix
Based on its star Richard Gadd's acclaimed autobiographical one man show of the same name, it's a twisted tale about stalking.
Constantly bucking expectations, the show strays into territory the viewer might find disturbing and surprising, subverting usual victim narratives.
Drawing on his own experience of being hounded in real life, Gadd plays a fictionalised version of himself, Donny Dunn - a struggling stand up comedian who works during the day in a London pub.
A wannabe Vic Reeves, he's a reserved guy offstage who is still on good terms with an ex girlfriend, Shalom Brune-Franklin's Keeley's mum.
Nina Sosanya's Liz is even his landlady.
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While working on a shift, he takes pity on a distraught customer Jessica Gunning's Martha Scott who comes into the pub, giving her a cup of tea on the house.
From that one brief act she is smitten, coming into the pub every day to converse with him and increasingly flirt with him.
Martha's romantic fixation with Donny amuses his fellow workers, Michael Wildman's Greggsy and Danny Kirrane's Gino.
She even has a nickname for him "Baby Reindeer" and gabbles away with tales about being a wealthy lawyer.
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But the laughter soon gives way to concern when she gets his email and starts to bombard him with hundreds of messages each day.
Meeting Martha for a coffee, he is particularly disturbed by a meltdown she has in the cafe.
Bizarrely, he secretly follows her home - discovering that she lives in a council flat and is then spotted peeking in her window.
Interpreting this as a sign that he is romantically interested, Martha begins to insert herself even more into various aspects of his life.
She turns up at stand-up gigs where he is dying onstage and even befriends Liz to get into his home to leave photographs of herself in her underwear in his bedroom.
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She threatens Keeley after tracking her down on Facebook, believing she is still his girlfriend.
However she gets really mad when she discovers about Teri, an American therapist who Donny starts dating.
Even though Donny subsequently discovers online that she has a history of stalking, he is slow to alert the police to her obsessive behaviour.
But then her behaviour and his really spirals out of control.
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'Baby Reindeer' has sparked a debate in the UK about stalking and coercive control but it's also a complex tale that doesn't simply boil the issue down to Martha being a bunny boiler like Glenn Close's Alex in Adrian Lynn's hit 1987 movie 'Fatal Attraction'.
It doesn't just focus on stalking but also on Donny's baffling behaviour.
While not justifying his treatment at the hands of Martha, Donny nonetheless behaves inexplicably throughout the show, developing a fascination with his stalker to the point where it puts his own safety and sanity at risk.
The risky situations he finds himself in also do not just involve Martha.
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Throughout the miniseries, Donny confounds viewers by sabotaging any prospects he has of a stable, happy relationship.
All of this makes for uncomfortable viewing.
There are moments of grim sexual violence in the show that are hard to watch - particularly in the fourth episode.
But even the way this is handled by Gadd and directors Weronika Tofilska and Josephine Bournebusch is not quite how you might expect.
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The explicit nature of Gadd's story and his narration will remind viewers of Danny Boyle's influential adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel and play 'Trainspotting'.
However unlike Boyle's film, 'Baby Reindeer' lacks visual panache and at times it struggles to shake off its theatrical origins.
In spite of its contradictions and flaws, it's still a challenging and undoubtedly fascinating watch.
As Donny hurtles into one catastrophe after another, it's a bit like watching a succession of car crashes.
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As for the performances, Gadd and Gunning understandably dominate the show.
The former undoubtedly engages our sympathies but also puzzles with Donny's erratic behaviour.
His is not a broad brush depiction of a victim of abuse - it is multi-layered and contradictory.
Gunning, who some viewers will know from Stephen Merchant's 'The Outlaws,' shows there are more strings to her bow than just being a comic actress.
She successfully toys with the audience's emotions in the show - appalling audiences with her obsessive and abusive behaviour but then hinting at a desperate loneliness that starkly comes into view when Martha explains where the nickname "Baby Reindeer" came from.
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Sosanya, Brune-Franklin, Wildman, Kirrane and Thomas Coombes as a gormless police officer who Donny eventually reports Martha's criminal behaviour to, provide sturdy support.
Amanda Root and Mark Lewis-Jones amuse and surprise as Donny's seemingly straightlaced parents back home in Scotland, Elle and Gerry.
However there are two members of the supporting cast who really leave their mark.
Mexican filmmaker and actress Nava Mau dazzles as Teri with a performance that will challenge audience prejudices and attitudes.
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Tom Goodman-Hill also turns in a haunting performance as Darrien O'Connor, a TV comedy writer who takes Donny under his wing.
There are so many surprises in 'Baby Reindeer,' that just like Neil Jordan's 'The Crying Game,' you are desperate not to spoil them in any review.
The show is, in truth, a bit of a rollercoaster ride but it will not be for everyone.
When you climb off Gadd's rollercoaster, it's dizzying and disorientating to the extent that you're not quite sure how you feel about the show in its immediate aftermath.
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'Baby Reindeer' certainly packs a lot of issues into it's seven episodes and it's crying out for an academic treatise on what it has to say about the psychology of victims and their abusers.
There's no doubt it is one of the most memorable shows you'll see on any TV platform this year, if you can stomach the graphic content.
It announces Gunning, Goodman-Hill, Mau and Gadd as actors to keep an eye on.
Gadd's revelation that the show is autobiographical has ironically triggered an online witch hunt by viewers who have tried to unmask the real stalker who inspired it.
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That has led to some commentators labelling it as irresponsible TV.
But there's no doubt that what Gadd is really trying to do is shine a light on the complexity of abuse from the perspective of the victim.
Is it on a par with Michaela Coel's equally complex and challenging tale of sexual abuse, 'I May Destroy You'?
Not quite but it is reminiscent of that BBC show and it will certainly have you thinking about it days afterwards.
And if it sparks conversations about stalking, coercive control, sexual abuse and support for victims, then that's surely a good thing?
('Baby Reindeer' was made available for streaming on Netflix on April 11, 2024)
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