Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fatal Attraction’ On Paramount+, An Updated Take On The ‘80s Bunny-Boiling Film

As much as networks and streaming services want to market reboots by saying they’re “reimaginings” that are being seen through a modern lens, yadda yadda yadda, for the most part, the reboots are an attempt to capitalize on a studio’s successful IP. That certainly seems like the case of Fatal Attraction, a new series reboot of the 1987 hit film.

FATAL ATTRACTION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A bearded man in prison scrubs sits down in front of a parole board.

The Gist: Dan Gallagher (Joshua Jackson) has been in prison for 15 years on a 15-to-life sentence for murdering Alex Forrest (Lizzy Caplan). He invited his daughter Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels) to attend; unbeknownst to him, she’s sitting in the gallery for his parole hearing. The former Los Angeles prosecutor has been more than a model citizen in prison; in fact, he’s helped several fellow inmates get released.

During his parole hearing, he testifies that he’s done so much good in prison because when he killed Alex, he didn’t realize what he was capable of, but he definitely chose to do what he did in the moment. His only goal, he tells the board, is to reconnect with his family.

Flash back to 2008. Dan is a senior ADA who has connections and a pretty rigid moral code, at least we think that when a colleague tells him he gave his wife’s bracelet to his mistress. He almost seems like he’ll be a lock to fill the open judge’s position, and at 40 he’d be the youngest to get it. His home life seems to be pretty smooth sailing; he has the usual marital tiffs with his wife Beth (Amanda Peet), but they still seem to be in love and hot for each other. Young Ellen (Vivien Lyra Blair) loves to read and both parents dote on her.

He and Alex, who works in the Victim Services Bureau, get glances of each other as they pass in the Criminal Courts building, but they meet when Alex subs for her boss during the sentencing phase of one of his trials. There seems to be a spark, even during such a businesslike transaction. One of his investigators, Earl Broker (Reno Wilson) sees her and quips, “Is she my toe? Because I’d bang her on every piece of furniture in my house.”

When he loses the judgeship to a political appointee, he can’t hide his disappointment and anger over it. The lead investigator in his office, Mike Gerard (Toby Huss), points out to Dan that he’s the only one who cares that he becomes a judge at a younger age than his late father did.

Dan and Alex see each other more often in the halls and their eyes meet more. Then they see each other at a retirement party; when he re-enters the office building that night drunk off his ass, she’s in the elevator, and they come damn near close to doing right there and then.

Cut back to the present. Dan, having been paroled to a halfway house, meets his estranged daughter in a coffee shop. She’s going against the advice of her mom, who has since remarried. When they meet, Dan shocks his daughter by telling her that he didn’t kill Alex and he’s determined to clear his name.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Of course, Fatal Attraction is based on the hit 1987 film, written by James Dearden and directed by Adrian Lyne, and starring Michael Douglas, Glenn Close and Anne Archer. As far as TV comparisons are concerned, it’s not a stretch to compare this version of Fatal Attraction to the recent Netflix erotic thriller Obsession.

Our Take: We’re guessing the idea behind this version of Fatal Attraction, created by Alexandra Cunningham and Kevin J. Hynes (Silver Tree directed all the episodes), is that the affair-turned-obsession that the movie examined will be filtered through a 21st century lens, where gender roles and our deeper understanding of mental illness. Stretched out over 8 episodes, the idea is that all of these issues can be explored instead of just going with the broad strokes from the movie.

But in doing that, Cunningham and Hynes have diffused all of the sexual tension that defined the early part of that film, leaving a soggy, slow-moving first episode that does a lot of throat clearing but doesn’t push the story forward as much as it should.

We get it: Dan Gallagher is a straight-arrow prosecutor who is cocky as hell. He knows he’s the best, and the way he walks around the criminal courts building communicates that. For some reason, though, we have to show his 40th birthday party and see him karaoke-ing to Natalie Imbruglia. For some reason, we have to see him crashing his company car while drunk and having Mike cover it up.

We’re not quite sure if there’s going to be a payoff for scenes like this down the line, but it feels like there’s a lot of character establishment and not a lot of, you know, the simmering attraction between Dan and Alex.

Of course, this simmering attraction is going to lead to an affair that Dan will regret, especially after things get violent. But at this stage of the show, we’re not buying that Alex, as played by Caplan, is capable of either the seductive or the obsessive parts of the role. We’re unabashed Caplan fans going way back to when she was on The Class 17 years ago, and we know she’s capable of being that smart, sexy character (see the entire run of Masters of Sex). But, for some reason we’re not buying it here. It could be a decided lack of chemistry with Jackson, or it could just be that she’s underplaying Alex at the start to make her look completely normal.

And do we really care about how Dan is trying to clear his name while he’s on parole? Sure, we see what his actions have wrought within his family, but it just seems pointless to bounce back and forth when the present-day story feels like it’s going to be even lamer than the Dan-Alex story.

Suffice to say, we were bored silly by the first episode, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series. The first episode should be ramping up the tension, not dissipating it.

Sex and Skin: For a show that is supposed to revolve around an affair and its aftermath, there was a decided lack of sex in the first episode.

Parting Shot: As present-day Dan tells his daughter Ellen that the words he said during the parole hearing are ones that he had to say in order to get paroled, we see 2008 Dan sitting next to Alex at a bar and smiling.

Sleeper Star: We do think the supporting cast is pretty good. Huss and Wilson do a good job of delivering lame lines, making the writing sound better than it actually is.

Most Pilot-y Line: Could there be a worse line than Reno Wilson’s “Is she my toe?” line that we cited above?

Our Call: SKIP IT. The series version of Fatal Attraction lacks the danger and tension the film had, and there isn’t enough story to compensate for expanding the two hour movie into an eight-hour series.

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.