Maggie and James Chenoweth (Yvonne Strahovski and Scott Speedman), live with their kids Arlo (Caleb Dolden) and Meryl (Émilie Bierre) and Ellen (Kathy Baker) James’ mother on a rural animal clinic. Their lives are defined by the quiet tension of James’ infidelity and the struggle they both have to try and fix a marriage it’s possible neither of them want. Then a series of odd events culminates in an armed man in a gas mask spray painting a boundary line around the property and warning them they’ll die if they step over it. He’s not lying, and the families find themselves in a very particular kind of Hell, alone with their neuroses, failings and more than one killer.

Written by Ian McCulloch, inspired by Robert R. McCammon’s Stinger, Teacup is a tightly plotted eight-episode season that starts well and finishes better. Strahovski and Speedman are the anchors here and the former’s exhausted competency is a neat throwback to her time on Chuck, filtered through years of life experience. Maggie and Ruben find themselves in the middle of a surprising friendship, united by the terrible choices others have made and struggling to cope with them in the face of mounting horror. It’s a nicely handled friendship, and there’s a lot of growth for a lot of the case.

Bierre and Luciano Leroux as Ruben’s son have some good scenes together and Rob Morgan’s McNab, who you see on the poster, is a fascinating anti-hero. A man whose curse is being right, and living to see it, his story is the most compelling of them all and carries the back third of the series. He’s in no manner whatsoever a hero but he wants to be one so badly and the parallels between McNab and the three differently broken men trapped by the line are the show’s strongest point. Conversely its weakest is it’s depressingly familiar fondness for murdering female characters to raise the stakes but that, at least, is given a cost and weight that’s so often ducked.

This is cosmic horror mixed with cosmic science fiction and it lands some very bleak notes like a hammer. I was reminded, more than once, of little known but much missed BBC show Invasion: Earth. There’s the same feeling of characters with just enough information to know how little they can do, forced to make the best choices they can. The final three episodes especially are full of moments like this and Bierre, Strahovski and Speedman benefit enormously from them. There’s a haunting moment where all Speedman is doing is leaning against a sink with his back to us that will ring you like a bell and the scene preceding it is an extended moment of abject brutality coloured by the cost everyone knows they have no choice but to pay. This is a show unafraid to get heavy and happy to pay the cost of that. It’s also got a strong cast to carry that, especially Dolden’s old before his years Arlo.

The final episode both resolves the arc and sets up a second season that seems designed to answer every perceived flaw. Unfortunately we won’t be getting it and when you look closely you can see why. The setting is a little too cut off, a little too contained. The real world implications are folded in a beat or so too late and the result is an episode or so where people are mostly just walking around waiting for the next beat to happen. It loses a lot of urgency there and does recover it. The phenomenal closing scene promises a lot and it’s a shame we won’t get to see it.

Verdict: If you can deal with that, and you should, there’s a lot to enjoy here though. A great cast, a cold and compelling premise and a lot of big, nasty, gooey fun. I’m sorry it didn’t get a year 2, but it does a lot with what it go. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart