Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Obsession’ On Netflix, Where An Acclaimed Surgeon Is Having A Kinky Affair With His Son’s Girlfriend

We were tempted to write a very short review of Obsession. To be honest, the show isn’t that complicated. Two people who shouldn’t ever hook up end up doing the deed a lot, and in very kinky ways. That’s about it. Want to learn more? Read on.

OBSESSION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Dr. William Farrow (Richard Armitage) is engaged in a delicate operation to separate conjoined twins.

The Gist: William has what most would think is an ideal life. He’s acclaimed in his job as a neurosurgeon; the operation on the twins was hailed in the news media. His wife, Ingrid (Indira Varma), is a respected barrister; the two of them still seem to be hot for each other after years together. Their adult kids Jay (Rish Shah) and Sally (Sonera Angel) are family-oriented overachievers. And, in a visit to Ingrid’s family’s country estate, Ingrid’s father Edward (Anil Goutam) reiterates that he’s going to propose to the House of Commons that he become health czar.

At a cocktail party with those same politicians, William spies a beautiful young woman who is seemingly staring into his soul. They meet at the bar and she introduces herself: Anna Barton (Charlie Murphy), Jay’s new girlfriend. She’s fascinated with William after hearing about his brilliance in surgery, and she makes no secret that she’s attracted to him. William doesn’t exactly resist.

During the next few days, she’s all he can think about, and vice versa. She spies his number on Jay’s phone and puts it in hers; she calls him to warn him that she and Jay are coming to “meet” the family. Even at their meeting at the country estate, Anna and William can’t tamp down the fire between them when no one else is in the room.

While he’s in his office, Anna calls him and gives him a time for a rendezvous. They meet at an empty flat and they have an intense sexual encounter. They’re both spent, but they both know this won’t be the last time this will happen, despite the entanglements they each have.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Fatal Attraction meets 50 Shades Of Grey.

Our Take: The first episode of Obsession, written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Benji Walters and based on Josephine Hart’s novel Damage, is pretty simple: Two people who shouldn’t be together are intensely attracted to each other and act on that attraction. It’s what’s going to come next during the 4-episode limited series that’s going to be extremely complicated. The problem we have with the series is that we don’t know how much we care that Anna, and especially William, are destroying their lives with this obsession.

One of our issues is that there is no basis established as to why William is so drawn to Anna. We get the attraction in the other direction; Anna is a sexual person and she’s attracted to William’s genius as a surgeon. And she’s also attracted to Jay and wants to be with him in a relationship. But we have no idea what draws William to Anna so quickly, given what we know about him in the first five or so minutes of the show. Does he have a history of cheating on Ingrid? Is he just a horny bastard? Or is Anna just oozing so much sexuality that he’s powerless?

Some context would help here, because the idea of the vixen seducing the “innocent” family man feels so old fashioned. Granted, the novel this show is based on was written in 1991, but the idea that it takes two to create an affair feels like something that would be more suitable in today’s prestige series environment.

Will we get that context later? Maybe. But we also think that there will be so much time devoted to the kinky affair and its consequences to William and his family that we won’t get much. This may be the rare case where an extra 30 or even 60 minutes of content would have been helpful to make things make more sense here.

Sex and Skin: The show is all about sex, though interestingly we see much more of William naked than we see anyone else.

Parting Shot: Jay tells William that he has this “overwhelming need to be with” Anna and that he’d like his parents to get to know her better. William gives a sly smile as he takes a sip of his beer.

Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to Indira Varma because she deserves better than playing the scorned wife.

Most Pilot-y Line: That being said, it feels like Armitage deserves better than playing a guy who seems to grunt and breathe heavy at the drop of a hat. He’s got to be the horniest guy we’ve seen on TV in years.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Obsession wants to give viewers all the sexy with no story. Is that much different than the soft-core stuff we used to see on Cinemax back in the day? We don’t think so.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.