‘Passenger’ Is This Year’s Wildest Genre Mash-Up

“This isn’t ‘Twin Peaks,’ love.” “You’re like ‘Vera,’ boss.” “This is not ‘Broadchurch.’” BritBox’s new acquisition “Passenger” was obviously determined to stay one step ahead of critics, constantly namechecking the shows it has since inevitably drawn comparisons with. It could have referenced a dozen others, too. The dystopian conspiracies of “Black Mirror,” for example, or the supernatural mysteries of “Stranger Things.” Pop culture literates may also be reminded of everything from “The X Files” and “True Detective” to “Fargo” and even British rural soap opera “Emmerdale.”

In fact, actor Andrew Buchan (who, adding to all the metaness, played grief-stricken plumber Mark in “Broadchurch”) has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into his screenwriting debut, also flitting between dysfunctional family drama, small-town social commentary, and broad workplace comedy. A cookie-cutter procedural this is not. 

Glueing all the many disparate strands together is Riya Ajunwa (Wunmi Mosaku), a no-nonsense Northern cop whose job satisfaction levels are at an all-time low. “A cat with a cough? I was in the Met for 10 years,” she moans about the mundanities of police life in Chadder Vale, the sleepy post-industrial town (motto: “a place where everyone matters”) she only moved to for her now-former husband. 

Of course, as suggested by the ominous opening scene, where simple-minded trucker Kane (Nico Mirallegro) makes his regular nocturnal journey from the nearby snow-capped forest to the local bread factory, transporting something far more horrifying than yeast in the process, Riya will soon be longing for the days of sickly pets.  

Whatever’s in the truck that causes Kane to recoil in horror also links in with the terrifying screams and subsequent disappearance of Katie (Rowan Robinson), the factory’s accountant with a thuggish boyfriend and mom who initially seems more concerned about her lost Fiat Punto than the daughter who’s been driving it. We have to wait a while to find out how exactly. However, in another subversion of the well-worn missing girl mystery, Katie returns unharmed — well, apart from some short-term amnesia, nightmarish hallucinations and the coughing up of some mysterious black goo — by the end of the first episode.  

Could Katie’s 24-hour absence also be connected to the old-school video game that’s suddenly transfixed Mehmet (Shervin Alenabi), the best friend who saw, yet seems incapable, of discussing what transpired? Likewise, the Swedish tourist who hasn’t been since arriving for a cult-like gathering at the town’s mystical hotspot several months earlier? And why does Riya experience haunting childhood flashbacks whenever she visits the scene where Katie went AWOL?  

Buchan complicates things further with the premature release of Eddie (Barry Sloane), Katie’s father who’s served just half his ten-year sentence for the vicious beating of fracking site owner Jim (David Threlfall).

“Is the town’s real monster human after all, etc.?,” the show ponders without much in the way of subtlety. Unfortunately, Eddie is such a cartoonish bad boy — could his floppy hair look any more villainous? — that it’s hard to take his menacing act too seriously or care about the will they/won’t they with estranged wife Joanne (Natalie Gavin) that appears to have wandered in from a much grittier saga.  

“Passenger” is far more convincing, however, when it switches focus to the other side of the law. Trainee officers Alison (Ella Bruccoleri) and Nish (Arian Nik) may spend most of their workdays engaging in inane banter (“What would you rather be? A rat or rubbish”). But they evolve into a surprisingly competent, and hugely charming, double act once they gradually begin to crack the code (literally) that’s left their superiors stumped. That includes boss Linda (Jo Hartley), whose prioritizing of meaningless ‘Best Kept Town’ competitions over any crimes more severe than garbage bin theft makes her the poster girl for police complacency, and even the far more competent Riya.  

Still, the latter remains the MVP throughout as the type of no-nonsense yet empathetic authority figure that “Happy Valley” heroine Catherine Cawood would be happy to call a peer. Last seen playing agent Hunter B-15 in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Mosaku brings depth to a character who on paper sounds too idealized — She cares for her cheating husband’s ailing mother! She spends her downtime boxing! She’s a low-maintenance girlfriend! — to be true.   

Like her underlings, Riya also possesses great comic timing, often puncturing all the tension, both professional and personal, with a killer one-liner. “He’s hung like a Japanese war donkey,” she tells her ex about casual love interest/sparring partner Jakub (Hubert Hanowicz), a Polish car mechanic with several secrets of his own. Should “Passenger” fail to get a second season – and its original home ITV has been worryingly quiet on the matter since it first aired back in March – then Mosaku deserves a spin-off investigating various paranormal activities at the very least.   

Let’s hope that Buchan gets the chance to finish the story he started, though. Audiences burned by the cancelations of “Kaos,” “Dead Boy Detectives” et al should be warned the finale leaves more questions than answers: Even the most experienced showrunner would struggle to wrap up so many different stories (we’ve not even mentioned a suspicious death, apparent curse, and the introduction of a shady organization named The Pangaea Initiative in a tidy bow in just six 45-minute episodes.) “This is good but completely undecipherable,” Threlfall recently revealed about his first reading of the script.

Still, while the destination so far remains out of reach, “Passenger” is an often fun and occasionally frightening journey, which thanks to its litany of blatant influences, is also likely to be reassuringly familiar.

“Passenger” is now streaming on BritBox.