3 out of 5

Created by: Harlan and Charlotte Coben (developed by)

covers season 1

We’ve been trained on the Netflix run of Harlan Coben adaptations to kind of expect a format for such things: some secret from the past is revealed through the sudden appearance of a Something – a mysterious stranger; odd details in a recent murder that tie back to the oh-so-innocent leading character – and then we 8- or 10-episode our way through a mystery box of implausible reactions to revelations and really stretched ideas, and in general there’s a hate-watching vibe, just to see the final whodunnit to make us hate ourselves for sticking around.

That’s all pretty harsh; sometimes they can be much better than that, but very much in general: Coben works, at least in a serialized form, have been turned into pretty successfully addictive but kinda trashy TV.

Shelter – Amazon’s adaptation of the first book in the Mickey Bolitar series, a teen character related to the lead in Coben’s longer running Myron Bolitar detective series – shares the high level structure of any Coben project (Mickey – Jaden Michael – discovers the seeeeecret past of his recently deceased father, after the sudden appearance of a here-again-gone-tomorrow girl at his school), but either owing to skewing young adult, or because it’s showrun by the creator himself and produced by his daughter, or maybe simply because the character has the benefit of being fleshed out across several books… the series feels a lot less manipulative than previous Coben shows, and engenders a lot more appreciation for its cast, with whom we’re okay spending time, mystery aside. Some of the soap opera elements – lots of relationship and friend drama – or as unnecessary as ever, and often just the source of forced roadblocks, when characters A and B are fighting and thus can’t share some clue, but by the same token, setting this amongst a generally younger cast makes some of that bickering more tolerable, and also the quick turnaround back to friendship more believable. It helps that our fairly age appropriate cast are all quite excellent, especially Adrian Greensmith as resident nerd “Spoon,” and also that Shelter feels of its time in its approach to the high school setting of the 2020s, in which the resident nerd may be bullied, but also is completely at home in a social media-fed world of nerds, alongside Mickey’s and Spoon’s third triumvirate member, goth loner Ema (Abby Corrigan), another outcast / cool-on-her-own-terms. That is, we still have these stereotypes, and they’re still outsiders, but there’s more awareness of outsiders not being so uncommon nowadays…

True, this is a very sanitized version of the world, as there are plenty of nerds and goths being bullied to hell and back, but that’s acceptably not Shelter’s focus, and it chooses an acceptably “realistic” tone that balances class realities with keeping the plot moving.

Which, as mentioned, deals with a missing girl. Ashley (Samantha Bugliaro) and Mickey both start at a new school on the same day, and become fast friends. Then, when things seem to be developing beyond that… Ashley disappears, and Mickey, in trying to track her down, finds that the details he knows of her background seem to be obfuscated or flat-out false. This leads him to the house of the local bogeyman, the “Bat Lady,” and then, in an OMG-Coben twist, to revelations about his father, e.g. was his death truly an accident? and Was he up to some shady business? and Is he still alive??

The show stumbles very often in trying to clumsily tie things together, and the necessity of episode-ending cliffhangers leads to some pretty hilariously underwhelming moments. The core mystery inevitably gets pretty outlandish, but, again, there’s something about having a deeper bench of worthwhile lead characters that makes this work, and also makes the stakes involved – which are surprisingly pretty lethal, given the YA vibe – feel impactful.

Ultimately, Shelter’s story is an average one, pushing hard for some silly twists and extending the telling with soapy dramaturgy. However, whereas a lot of mystery box shows – Coben being far from the only offender – turn into drags where you just want to see the conclusion, and don’t much care about the rest, Shelter is somewhat the opposite, as pieces are put together well enough by about 2/3rds through, but the time spent with the crew is so worthwhile, you kind of wish they’d let it drag on a bit more so we could have some more time with them.