The Girl in the Water

I'm a fan of Mbatha-Raw. I'd probably watch just about anything with her. That said, "Surface" is pretty bad. I'm generously giving it a '5', mostly due to her welcome presence, but this is at best a 2nd or 3rd rate production. It's rare to hear dialogue that's this cliched outside of daytime soap operas, but they're hitting that mark here. A story about some ultra-wealthy pretty folks with problems is hardly ripe in this (almost or hopefully..) post-pandemic period. It's hard to even care one bit about these characters, or the very obvious story line. Surface is just a disappointing mess.

It's not a terrible series, but it's unoriginal. More style than substance, it's a glossy production with a shallow script. Gugu MR does her best, but her character fails to be that interesting. And no, having a black protagonist married to a white man is not "woke" or propaganda. If you think that in 2022 you need to go outside and observe reality.

No doubt that this was a good story and the first episodes keep you interested. Unfortunately it appears as if the writers worried about a predictable ending and didn't know what to do for a finale.

The final episode makes no sense and leaves a lot of loose ends. So it leaves you with a sense of having watched to go to a dead end.

I thought the lead female and male where both excellent actors. Don't listen to all the crazies about this movie being woke. Not a clue what they are talking about. Unless you don't like a white man with a black woman. (We all know that's called something else...not woke) sad that a good show has crappy reviews. I enjoyed it. Especially since I didn't have to commit to a second season. It could have easily been a movie instead of a series though. It's worth the watch.

This isn't terrible but also not great, and certainly not original. In fact, you'll probably have the story figured out within the first few minutes, but if you have nothing else to watch, I can think of a lot worse options out there (like anything on broadcast channels, For all Mankind, and Invasion comes to mind.)

What I do recommend on Apple is Severance, Black Bird, Defending Jacob, Foundation, See, Ted Lasso, Servant, The Morning Show, Prehistoric Planet..