A few years ago you could barely move for pulpy mysteries about privileged communities with skeletons in their closets, a trend set off by David E Kelly’s adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s hit novel Big Little Lies . But just when I thought the rich kid crime drama genre had had its day, another wave has arrived. With another Nicole Kidman vehicle, The Perfect Couple , dominating the Netflix charts, and now the arrival of the equally star-stuffed Apples Never Fall on BBC iPlayer, it’s feeling like 2017 all over again.
The latter drama, however, feels like a poor imitation – a trope-laden pastiche of an already soapy genre. It’ll sate anyone wanting their latest fix of waspy families and their scandalous secrets, but has little original to offer. Apples Never Fall is also a Moriarty story – by no means her best loved and certainly her most clunkily titled.
Led by Annette Bening and Sam Neill , the show claims Big Little Lies as an obvious point of reference, but with its hazy hues and elitist characters , it’s clearly trying to invoke The White Lotus too. As the series greets us with a washed-out colour palette, palm trees and a wailing voice, it’s hard not to think of Mike White’s wealth satire about the highly strung guests at luxury resorts. In comparison with The White Lotus , however, the only comedy here comes from the clunkiness of the dialogue, and it’s not intentional.
We’re welcomed into the elite community of West Palm Beach in Florida, and the De.