Amazon’s Truth Seekers Season One Review

The paranormal genre of TV is typically skewed to drama so that the horror and scares can be the central focus of the series. However, there have been an increasing amount of paranormal comedy films in the past decade and that success has translated to networks attempting to make supernatural sitcoms. However, many of them haven’t been able to find a good fit for their comedic style and spooky setting. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency was the most successful attempt, but it ended abruptly and cable TV’s Ghosted was all sorts of problematic. Could Truth Seekers fill the Dirk Gently-sized hole in our paranormal-loving hearts?

The first season of Truth Seekers follows Gus Roberts (Nick Frost), an engineer for Britain’s largest internet service provider Smyle, who doubles as a part-time paranormal investigator. His boss Dave (Simon Pegg) partners Gus with Smyle’s newest employee Elton John (Samson Kayo) who he brings onto his spooky side business. As the supernatural stake outs and investigations start to hit closer to home, they begin to uncover an apocalyptic conspiracy of the grandest proportions.

Truth Seekers instant selling point is the return of duo Simon Pegg and Nick Frost who haven’t worked together since 2014’s The Boxtrolls. Since then they paved their own paths: Pegg in two film franchises and Frost in a few TV series, but they’ve been brought back together for this supernatural series. However, Frost is given the typical Pegg leading man role this time around while the Frost role is given to Samson Kayo with Pegg being relegated to a supporting role as Frost’s boss. This is certainly a different dynamic than we are used to seeing between these two, but its a welcomed change to keep things fresh.

Surrounding these three is a very memorable and affable cast including Emma D’Arcy as Astrid, Julian Barratt as Dr. Peter Toynbee, Kelly Macdonald as Jojo 74, Malcolm McDowell as Richard, and Susan Wokoma as Helen. The latter two are especially charismatic in their roles bringing a sense of heart and humanity to this clever horror story. And that is what makes this story work so well is the pairing of these engaging characters with its fun, yet frightening narratives.

The first half of the season focuses on a monster-of-the-week procedural story as Gus and Elton dive deeper into the paranormal world, but the second half ramps up the drama and brings more serialized elements into the story. This causes a shift that only works at times as the self-contained supernatural stories were a great focal point for the themes and characters to develop in, but it appears as if the series wants to expand its world beyond just this small paranormal investigator team.

The series is chock full of horror as well as the ghosts and scares are thrown directly at the audience rather than placed in the backdrop of a comedic story which would have been expected from this duo. Instead, the true comedy comes from the reactions of these situations which is severely downplayed by their British humour. This humour develops through the friendships that happen between the oddest pairs on the series, which is the perfect accent for a series like this.

In the end, Truth Seekers may be silly at times, but the high-concept sci-fi paired with the true horror brings classic Pegg/Frost misadventures into the worlds where their careers have developed. It is cheesy, scary at times, but above all its addictive making the worst part of the season being that it seems to be over before it even began. We want more!

What did you think of Truth Seekers? Was it a good season? Let me know in the comments!

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Dylan Phillips