Channel 4 will be adding a little dark comedy into its broadcast mix before the end of the year as it picks up Turner’s Search Party for All 4. Following on from its highly acclaimed transmission in the US in November the show is unconventionally as much a mystery as it is a comedy and with a relatively unknown cast it’s managed to be a bit of a sneaky hit.
Air date
It’ll be coming to All 4 over the Christmas hols in a move that sounds more like Netflix than terrestrial television. All ten 30-minute episodes will be arriving on the on-demand channel on the 26th December 2016, so you’ll be able to binge through the box-set release to your heart’s content in the runup to the New Year.
Story
The plot centres on the troubled twenty-something existence of Brooklynite, Dory, as she becomes obsessed by the disappearance of Chantel, a girl she only barely knew in college. Putting aside her fragility and long-standing existence of being put upon by everyone around her, she throws herself in at the deep end, bringing her self-obsessed friends along for the ride, in a bid to find Chantel and subsequently bring a little meaning to her life.
However, things take a dark twist as the stumble ineptly into the thick of a dangerous hunt to find the girl as a grim plot starts to take shape. With her drippy boyfriend Drew, her narcissistic best friend Elliot, and actress pal Portia, she doesn’t really have a great support network to rely on, but can the dysfunctional bunch crack the secret behind Chantel’s disappearance before they come to a sticky end? All will be revealed in the UK on Boxing Day.
Cast
Alia Shawkat, who starred as Maeby Fünke in Arrested Development when she was a kid, leads the cast as Dory Stewart, an unfulfilled personal assistant to a rich housewife. She’s joined by John Reynolds as Drew Gardner, Dory’s sheltered muppet of a boyfriend; John Early as Elliott Goss, her gay best friend; and Meredith Hagner as Portia Davenport, her spotlight-craving actress pal.
The cast also includes Clare McNulty as the missing Chantal Witherbottom, along with Ron Livingston (Boardwalk Empire), Rosie Perez (White Man Can’t Jump) and Christine Taylor (Zoolander 2).
Production
Search Party was created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter for Turner Broadcasting System in the US. If you watch the show and wonder who theme music is by, the song is called Obedear and it’s by Purity Ring.
First impressions
The show looks and sounds intriguing and if you’ve ever seen Arrested Development then you’ll know that Alia Shawkat is pretty good at deadpan humour, so we’re expecting a possible cult classic. We don’t get that many dark mystery comedies, so we can’t wait to see it all come together when Search Party arrives on All 4.
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