TV Review: PASSENGER: Season 1, Episode 1 [BritBox, NYCC 2024]

NYCC 2024 Passenger Season 1, Episode 1 Review

BritBox‘s Passenger Season 1, Episode 1 TV Show Review from the 2024 New York Comic Con.

Passenger, created by Andrew Buchan, is the type of show set in small surroundings that people tend to keep tuning into week after week to see how its characters and plot will develop. This particular show is six episodes long and the first episode has just the right amount of weirdness embroiled in the story line to keep viewers captivated as they try to figure out what will happen next. Wunmi Mosaku stars in the show as Riya Ajunwa, an authority figure in a small, snowy village known as Chadder Vale. She’s a classic figure who the audience can easily find themselves relating to. That’s partly because Riya has been abandoned by her husband despite being smart, determined and ambitious.

The plot of Passenger develops in a slow but steady fashion. A girl named Katie Wells (Rowan Robinson) goes out driving and gets herself in some trouble which leads to an investigation by Riya. Katie’s dad, Eddie (Barry Sloane) is getting out of jail after serving 5 years out of a 10-year sentence for stabbing a key character in the village. David Threlfall is Jim Bracknell, a hard-working local man who suffers trauma from his past as he was the one Eddie had stabbed. These characters seem relatively minor on the surface but it’s clear that Eddie, in particular, will have a large role on this show.

It’s clear that the heart and soul of Passenger is Mosaku in the type of role made famous by Frances McDormand in Fargo. While the first episode of Passenger is not always ground-breaking, it paints a picture of the village it sets itself in and creates in Riya a formidable opponent for whoever or whatever is lurking in the background. A deer is ripped apart early on in the show which leads one to believe that something sinister is going on which could be much more than meets the eye. Something is happening which has no clear explanation and that’s why Riya takes up the case. She’s inquisitive and curious yet also 100% professional. She wants answers to questions that arise and she will surely get them as the series continues to grow through its following five episodes. Mosaku commands the viewer’s attention right from the moment she appears on-screen and seems like the one to root for here.

Barry Sloane is a revelation. He plays his character, Eddie, as the most intriguing male in the show. It’s clear when the writers have a certain character who might be either redeeming himself or setting the record straight and that character here is Eddie. Sloane exhibits the type of mystery and sophistication in his performance that makes the viewer well aware he is the character to keep your eye on here. While Riya is the hero of the program, Eddie will most likely be the most valuable player and have the strongest character arc of the fictional people featured on the show. Rowan Robinson avoids cliches in her on-the-nose portrayal of Katie Wells who has a tie to Eddie being that she’s his daughter. It will be interesting to discover how these two characters, in particular, could develop when watching the rest of the program.

While it’s hard to tell what lies in store in future episodes, Passenger makes its mark in its first outing. By bringing ordinary everyday characters into the mix under extraordinarily odd circumstances, Andrew Buchan is setting the stage for the future of his creative plot with the initial episode. You may think Passenger is something along the lines of Fargo meets Stranger Things but it’s smart enough not to pigeonhole itself into such a distinct category which makes it even more fascinating to watch. At six episodes in length, this is the type of show you could binge watch in a day or two.

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