A company figures out how to match soulmates, but it doesn’t make life much simpler.
SUMMARY
English scientist Rebecca Webb (Hannah Ware) is the CEO of The One, a company which uses someone’s DNA to find their perfect love match. The corporation is wildly successful, but everything gets put in jeopardy when a body turns up in the Thames. It turns out the body belongs to a former associate of Webb and her partner James Whiting (Dimitri Leonidas) named Ben Naser (Amir El-Masry). Det. Kate Saunders (Zoë Tapper) is assigned to investigate, but Kate is also using The One to find her match, Sophia (Jana Perez). At the same time, Webb is being investigated by journalist Mark Bailey (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), whose wife Hannah (Lois Chimimba) has secretly had him tested by The One, only to find out that she is not his perfect match.
END SUMMARY
Years ago, there was a movie called Timer which was a British comedy about a world where almost everyone has a device implanted into them that tells them when they’re going to meet their soulmate. The movie did a good job of exploring how the world is changed by finding out that not only are soulmates real, but also that they can be found through science. However, where that film was mostly a funny character study of a person who doesn’t have a soulmate match in that world, this show tries to do a study of a number of characters but lets most of them get bogged down by the overarching mystery of Rebecca and Ben’s body. Too much time is spent trying to drag out what ultimately is not a super satisfying story.
It’s even worse because most of the side stories actually could be super interesting. For example, Kate is bisexual but tends to date men, only to find out that her ideal match is a woman. That’s something that surprises even her. That would be a fun thing to explore, the idea that people might not even be able to guess the gender of the person who will be perfect for them. However, trying to play out any of these situations mostly falls to the wayside so that we can talk more about what Rebecca did to start the company and whether or not she committed a murder in the process. Each of the narratives that the show sets up could be interesting and bring up a number of points about how society could be changed when something that seems metaphysical, like love, can actually be conquered by science. But, no, instead we get a bunch of cliched drama. It’s really disappointing, because many of the performers in this show are great.
Overall, this show has a great concept, but the execution is not great. It’s even harder to deal with because apparently AMC has a show called Soulmates with a similar premise as an anthology. I’d probably recommend that one instead.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
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