Netflix's 'The Boroughs' Fizzles Out After Promising Start

The Boroughs, a new sci-fi series on Netflix, started off with a bang. By the end of the first episode, I thought to myself, 'This is a really good TV show.' I binged the first half of the season in one evening, and would have kept watching if I could survive on zero hours of sleep.

The show is about a retirement community in New Mexico that seems very pleasant and Utopian on the surface but, like all Utopian places, harbors a sinister secret. We know something is up right from the get-go, when an elderly woman is killed by some kind of horrifying monster inside her home.

The chief protagonist, Sam Cooper (Alfred Molina), a grouchy retiree, moves into The Boroughs against his will. His late wife had wanted to move there and he'd already signed a contract and invested his retirement savings into the place. He moves into the house where the woman in the opening scene was killed. For some reason, management hasn't bothered to fix the doorknob that was blasted off during the attack.

Cooper is a curmudgeonly old grump, brisque with his daughter and rude to his son-in-law. He's grieving the loss of his wife who, we learn in flashbacks, he loved very much. They were very close. Their relationship was almost saccharine-sweet, and these flashbacks are, in some ways, the first red flag that the show would dip too deep into the well of sentimentality.

But there is too much of a good thing. The show barrels ahead, always in a rush with nowhere to go but down. I thought of Netflix's A Man On The Inside, which is an excellent show that lets its lead grapple with loss and grief through the bonds he forms at the retirement home. The Boroughs is more interested in driving the plot. And in the second half of the season, that's just not enough.

The cast of The Boroughs includes some strong performances, particularly from Alfre Woodard as Judy Daniels, who delivers a standout performance. The rest of the cast, including Bill Pullman and Clarke Peters, are also solid. However, the show's failure to live up to its promise is a shame, especially when you consider the potential it had.

'I wish I had never binge-watched it in the first place,' I thought to myself after finishing the show.

The cast really lost me with Geena Davis, who plays Renee Joyce, a resident of The Boroughs who looks like she's doing everything in her power to not look or act like a resident of The Boroughs. Her relationship with security guard Paz (Carlos Miranda) is more than a little uncomfortable. A 29-year age gap can be an awkward watch, especially when the plot demands that we ignore it.

Ultimately, The Boroughs is just another bland, unsatisfying Netflix Original series. As a film, it would have been a lot of fun, and it reminded me of classics like Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Cocoon. But as a series, it's just too long and meandering.