Teacup
All eight episodes of it Teacup are now streaming on Peacock and I definitely recommend giving it a watch. It’s a terrifying new supernatural thriller that is, in many ways, a remake The Thing, John Carpenter’s classic 1982 horror film about an evil body-grabbing alien on a remote arctic station. Light plot spoilers follow.
Teacup takes place in a bucolic rural setting of lush green crops and picturesque forest. It’s not nearly the cold, bleak, lifeless ground The Thing, but the predicament our cast of characters find themselves in is no less terrifying than the summer atmosphere.
The series, created by Ian McCulloch, is based on the novel Stinger by Robert R. McCammon. Yvonne Strahovski and Scott Speedman star as Maggie and James Chenoweth, a married couple in rural Georgia who find themselves, along with their family and neighbors, trapped in a strange and deadly scenario where nothing makes sense and death lurks around every corner.
There are some survival elements similar to shows like Lost or FROM but The Thing still the best comparison I can come up with. The big difference between this show and this movie is that there’s more than one body-hopping alien, and not all of them are bad. Harbinger is an alien presence on a secret but terrible mission and is being hunted by the Slayer, an assassin who tries to stop Harbinger from completing his quest. The aliens have no bodies of their own, but live inside whoever they inhabit, controlling their every move and accessing their every thought and memory.
There are some surprising twists and you honestly don’t know who might die next or find themselves possessed, which makes for a lot of tension.
Where the show falters is in its sometimes stupid character decisions, forcing the team to split up at times when they know all too well how stupid that is. But I guess that sort of thing comes with the territory in the horror genre. The acting is mostly fine, with a few exceptions, but the writing is mostly solid and the characters are mostly good, if a little undercooked.
The end of the season opens the door for a very different Season 2, but I won’t spoil where it goes. Suffice to say it ends on a brutal cliffhanger and I hope we get a second season. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely fun and worth watching. Good end credits music choices, too.
Check out our weekend streaming guide here.
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