'Paradise', the Disney+ series that everyone is talking about

Paradise is a series with a mystery within a mystery. In the first episode of the new proposal by Dan Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown, creator and protagonist respectively of This is us, we are introduced to the main character, Xavier Collins, a member of the secret service, in his morning routine in a seemingly typical American suburban neighborhood. Collins works for the young president of the United States, Cal Bradford (James Marsden). When he arrives at the ruler's house that same morning, he finds him murdered in the bedroom. While an investigation is launched to find out who is behind the assassination, a series of flashbacks They place us in the past of the protagonists to explain, among many other things, the relationship of loyalty between the president and his protector.

In this way we also discover the other mystery, the dystopian framework in which a series is framed that at first seemed to occur in a realistic fictional context. The characters are part of a select group of citizens who have taken refuge in a new underground city after an unexplained disaster destroyed the world as we knew it. What did this catastrophe consist of? Are there survivors out there? How does this "paradise" of the title work to reproduce life outside underground? How was it decided who would live in this shelter and who would stay outside?

Fogelman points out these questions while trying to find out who killed Cal Bradford. What interests the creator the least is the instruction manual of this fictional universe. As for the staging, most of the time Paradise works as one thriller A realistic drama in which only the somewhat artificial lighting reveals that we are not in a natural environment. The science fiction context, therefore, does not condition the landscape as much as the framework of moral conflict that is being drawn. The series raises the question of what ethical limits would be to maintain the security and privilege of a few in a scenario of global collapse, a situation that is entirely plausible right now. In this plot, Samantha takes center stage. Sinatra Redmond (Julianne Nicholson), the architect of the underground construction, a Machiavellian character with a tragic experience. Sinatra represents a new, very identifiable power figure, a millionaire who got rich with a technology company and now controls the system from the shadows. A person who seems willing to do anything to maintain thestatus quo.

The solidity of the characters

From the start, Paradise plays hard, and sometimes abusively, on surprise twists and the dosage of mysteries. The series is engaging as thriller, but it finds its strength in the solidity of the characters, who gain depth as the episodes progress, and in the ethical dilemmas they face. Xavier Collins embodies a typical American fictional moral hero from the moment we are introduced to him exercising in the morning and preparing breakfast for the children. He represents a servant of the law with an ironclad ethical code. As often happens with this type of male action hero, Collins is a widower. His wife stayed behind when he moved to that safe zone. The details of this stage of his past is one of the other secrets waiting to be revealed in Paradise, one of the most successful titles of the season in the increasingly arid panorama of television fiction.