In 1992, a young mother was stabbed to death while walking with her toddler son in Wimbledon Common, and the two-year-old ended up being the only witness. That story has been dramatized in the new Netflix series The Witness.
THE WITNESS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Camcorder footage of the woods in Wimbledon Common. A young mother pushes a tricycle.
The Gist: The Witness is a dramatic reexamination of the Rachel Nickell case, one of most extensive investigations in the history of Great Britain. In July of 1992, Nickell (Eleanor Williams) was stabbed dozens of times and sexually assaulted as she walked with her 2-year-old son Alex Hanscombe (Jahsaiah Williams) in the woods adjacent to Wimbledon Common. Alex was left bruised and clinging to his mother’s body; he was also the only person who witnesses the killing.
The murder was splashed all over the media, and the police ordered Alex and his father, André Hanscombe (Jordan Bolger), to stay at the house of his mother June (Kerry Godliman) for their safety. As police try to get Alex to describe what he saw, a counselor (Claire Rushbrook) tells André that the sooner he can discuss what he saw, the healthier he will be as he gets older.
Meanwhile, DI Keith Peddler (Neil Maskell) is put in charge of the investigation, which brought in a criminal psychologist named Paul Britton (Paul Chahidi) to create a psychological profile of the killer. Via the rudimentary description Alex gives of the killer, combined with information from other people in the park, leads police to a man named Colin Stagg (Jamie Bisping), though there isn’t enough evidence to hold him. Peddler recruits Britton to see if he can extract an admission via letters wher he poses as a female “pen pal.”
The constant presence of the media and well-wishers prompts André to move with Alex to Spain. A decade later, André is summoned to London by DS Ivan Agnew (Mark Stanley) to say that they’re reopening the cold case because of new DNA technology, but they still want to speak to Alex (Max Fincham), who is now a teenager. Alex refuses to rehash what he thinks is the only memory he has of his mother; he’d rather honor her by not eating animals and following the other examples she set rather than continually talk about that traumatic moment.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Written by Rob Williams, The Witness tries to have the intensity of a show like Adolescence, but doesn’t quite get there. Netflix also has an accompanying documentary called The Murder Of Rachel Nickell.
Our Take: There are a lot of subtleties to the Rachel Nickell case, but it feels like The Witness glosses over those to hammer viewers with the broader aspects of the story. How did police pressure on both Alex and André back in 1992 affect them as individuals, as well as their relationship? How did the media involvement create that pressure, to the point where Peddler used some unorthodox methods to extract an admission from Stagg?
The structure of the show, which goes back and forth between 1992 and 2002, also doesn’t help cultivate nuance. It’s especially apparent in a scene where André and teenaged Alex go to a dinner party, and the two of them go at it when Alex refuses to eat the fish he was served. The scene was a not-so-subtle indication that while Alex seems okay, he really isn’t, and the more that he’s leaned on by police, the quicker he’s going to crack.
There really was an opportunity here to examine how a trauma like what Alex experienced can affect a person in different ways through their lives and how the media pressure was a part of that trauma. But the way we see everything portrayed is more about a recitation of the facts of the case instead of a really deep dive into the emotional toll the case took.
Performance Worth Watching: Jordan Bolger does a good job of showing André’s struggles with two-year-old Alex, but also the tumultuous relationship he has with his son a decade later.
Sex And Skin: None.
Parting Shot: We look into a window to see another woman going about her evening. She is likely going to be another victim of this killer.
Sleeper Star: Max Fincham tries his best to play teenage Alex with some degree of subtlety, however…
Most Pilot-y Line: In 2002, Alex should have been 12 or 13. Fincham looks and acts way older than that.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Because of some good performances and an interest in seeing the broad strokes of this case, The Witness is worth watching, but we just wish the series took a more nuanced look at the Nickell case.
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.