Cruel Summer

'Cruel Summer' is a teen drama/mystery that has been a hit in the US (apparently - who knows what that means these days) and landed on Amazon Prime on Friday.

It is the story of the abduction of a popular teenager and the aftermath of her escape told over three summers in the 1990s...at least on the surface. The hook/USP is that it presents the story flashing back and forth on events on a particular day each summer in each episode. The easiest way to keep track is by the radical changes in haircuts of one of the lead characters but they do some nice changes in the way each year is presented as well.

All-in-all it is an okay watch - it has some nice twists (but a lot that are telegraphed) and the main story-arc is compelling and attention grabbing enough. All the sub-plots and secondary characters get really short-changed though and feel cursory at best - they might as well have not bothered.

It is no Veronica Mars or even Riverdale Season One (but better than the latter seasons of that early shark jumper) but as there is still a bit of a dearth of new shows at the moment it fills a gap.