There's nothing like learning that what you're watching is a true story to make it hit home harder, and it certainly seems like the UK show Netflix just unveiled will make quite an impact on people. The Witness just got its first trailer, and it looks like a generation-spanning story of trauma, but, you know, in a good way.
The show arrives on Netflix on 4 July, and the fact that we already have a trailer makes me think that Netflix thinks it's got something really high quality on its hands. After all, it often waits until much sooner before a show launces to start showing it off like this.
The show, which is based on a real-life events, shows us the story of Alex and his father Andrè, who are the victims of a brutal crime when Alex is just an angelic little two year old. His mother is murdered and it looks like culprit still hasn't been found even years later, with the young Alex being the only witness to the crime.
It seems we'll get a couple of timelines to follow in the show, although we can't know yet whether they'll be in sequences or if we'll cut between them. In one, Andrè is trying his best to keep it together and keep his son safe as the fallout from the murder takes place, while his own mental health obviously takes a battering.
In the other timeline, a more grown-up Alex is still reckoning with the impact of his mother's death, and his relationship with his father. That's going to get even harder when investigators try to re-open the case, potentially in the hope of finding the person who committed the crime before they can hurt someone else.
The trailer makes it clear that this will be an emotional rollercoaster, but it also looks like phenomenally well-made British TV, something that Netflix has been getting better and better at producing. Here's hoping it lands well when it comes to the streamer in July.
