3 out of 5

Created by: Joe Cornish (adapted by)

covers season 1

My favorite aspect of Lockwood & Co. is also likely what keeps it from really landing: it doesn’t care about its viewer.

Lockwood & Co., adapted from the book series, has a healthy amount of lore to work through, to establish its alt-present in which ghosts totally exist, kids can see them, and various organizations – some licensed, some not – have sprung up to deal with infestations, employing ghost-seeing kids in various fashion. That’s graspable enough, but it gets another layer of history with references to “The Problem,” a decades-back event during which the hauntings started and most other forms of technological progress have halted; and continual additions to our grasp of What’s Going On with the various levels and learnings of the agents who handle ghosts – different kinds of abilities, and spells, and paranormal rankings – tossed at us; and lots of backstory churn, not all for our leads – Lucy (Ruby Stokes), new ghost-hunter at Lockwood & Co.; George (Ali Hadji-Heshmati), L&C’s resident researcher; and Anthony Lockwood (Cameron Chapman), the boss – but also for several spectres with which the group interacts, whose pasts become integral to a longer running quest for information and relics that link through all these backstories and history and rules.

SO, the show’s solution? Just start in the middle of things, and without one of those annoying voiceover narrators to tell you what’s what, and without many forced explanatory moments, since, naturally, everyone already knows what’s up.

On the one hand, I love this. I love how naturally it allows the story to unfold, and for the characters to act, not required to tack tons of set-up dialogue onto the beginnings and ends of conversation. I love that it rewards engagement, and respects that, y’know, we’ve seen Harry Potter and Stranger Things, and we can likely catch up with enough context.

On the other hand… you do start to realize the reason we kind of need that stuff, at least in some form: because it’s really hard to get much invested in the world of Lockwood without it – to understand who Lucy and George and Anthony are, and to understand why we should care about them moreso than someone else (just because they’re on screen?), and, maybe most importantly, why the core story matters, as the trio’s hunt for some MacGuffin is treated with escalating importance, and I’m not sure we necessarily ever feel that.

But there’s such great casting here, and an effective use of CG (the ghosts are a little uncanny valley, but the whole series has a heightened visual sense that allows it to work), and amazing production design that grounds us in an 80s-steeped UK, that you’re willing – more than willing, you want – to get swept up in the adventure, and just kind of go with it. Stokes, Hadji-Heshmati, and Chapman are just a joy to watch, forming variously entertaining sides of an at-odds group who slowly start to mesh and become friends, and the dialogue is written with that same intended level of respect as the story structure, but without its detraction: in this world, children and teenagers are trained to be warriors, and thus garner respect; at the same time, it’s acknowledged that they’re still children. The result is that everyone speaks to them, and they speak amongst themselves, with this fascinating balance of emotional immaturity but worldly maturity. That equation works wonders to help us feel settled in an established world, but also get the new-kid discomforts that are just part of being a teen.

I just wish the show knew how to care about its viewer more, though without sacrificing its otherwise confident tone. And I can’t say I know how to solve for this equation, which is also muddled by the need to adapt a several book series with mindfulness that A. you definitely want to get interest in a second season, but B. you very likely might not get a second season, so it’s a lot of hurry up and wait.

It’s very imperfect as a result, and misses the marks where it could’ve made some better impressions. But: I was down to waiting through its 8 episodes, and wish it would’ve gotten the chance to do 8 more.