The Breakfast Club with a murderous twist

NBCUniversal continues to reinforce its humble streaming service Peacock with original content. The latest new series, One of Us Is Lying, launches this week and features a group of teenagers brought together by murder, all of whom are hiding their own secrets as they try to erase their names.

Peacock has certainly got its basics covered, putting out prestige shows in various genres to compete with the big services like Netflix, Amazon, and HBO Max. One of Us Is Lying joins big titles like Brave New World, Dr. Death, The Lost Symbol, AP Bio, Departure, The Amber Ruffin Show and more.

Peacock shared the first three episodes of One Of Us Lies Android authority before the series premiere on October 7th.

Here is what we thought.

It’s the first day of high school and five unfortunate seniors are already in custody.

Among them is Simon, the vicious creator of the gossip blog About That, which he runs openly and attracts the well-deserved wrath of his classmates. His reputation makes things difficult when he dies under suspicious circumstances. The only witnesses? The four students in custody with him. And it doesn’t take long before they become prime suspects too.

When Simon’s cause of death becomes known, we learn that all four had an opportunity. But the series also reveals that they all had their own intricate motifs. Simon was preparing for a series of major About That revelations. But nobody knew exactly who the targets would be. While his classmates try to avoid suspicion, they also grapple with the secrets Simon may have revealed about them.

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Karen M. McManus, One of Us Is Lying combines teendrama with an exciting little crime thriller.

The eight-part season will be rolled out on Thursdays over three weeks, with three episodes being released on October 7th, three more on October 14th and the last two on October 21st.

Everything old is new again

One of us lies is not subtle in its innuendo.

The Breakfast Club is the clearest intentional reference point, with director John Hughes even being mentioned explicitly in the first episode. The basic format of bringing together different high school archetypes – the jock, the nerd, the popular girl, the rebel and the outsider – via the large equalizer is practically a direct allusion to the genre-defining teen classic.

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But the whole thing is just as much, if not more of a riff on CW’s Original Gossip Girl and Netflix‘s 13 Reasons Why, with just a hint of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

By giving us the identity of the creator of About That, the show bypasses an important part of Gossip Girl’s premise: the anonymous nature of Gossip Girl, who similarly spreads her high school’s dirty laundry on social media. Instead, we have Simon here, whose motives are unclear. What is clear is that his alternate outsider role is no justification for the cruelty of his posts. This may include outing his gay classmates, mocking girls with anorexia, and meaner revelations.

Refocusing gives us the slow burn and fear of exposure – or worse – of 13 reasons why and I know what you did last summer.

In One of Us Lies, everyone has skeletons in their closets, even the less expensive deceased.

One of Us Lies Review: The Verdict

The nice thing about One of Us is Lying, which has its inspirations on its sleeve, is that it can casually play with our expectations. It knows what it’s up to and it is obviously fun reusing familiar stories and conventions.

The characters are addicting and there are plenty of secrets to keep things alive. None of the four students seem like the guy to kill, even though they all had reasons to silence Simon. But if it wasn’t one (or all) of them, who was it and why were these four put up?

It’s a pretty classic crime thriller where everyone is a suspect and no one is talking. By getting involved in teen drama – refreshingly unadjusted to satisfy network censorship – it keeps things interesting while also feeling comfortably familiar.

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The show is certainly far from perfect. Attempts to feel nervous can become tiresome. And the dialogues sometimes sound a little too much like how adults think teenagers are talking to each other. (That last feature, however, didn’t stop Dawson’s Creek from becoming a time-defining hit in the late 1990s.)

But still, one of us definitely has attraction to lies. I found myself racing through episodes to know what happened next. I look forward to finding out who is behind all this chaos.

Check out One of Us Is Lying on Peacock starting October 7th.