After tragedy strikes at an LA gaming firm a mysterious consultant is sent in to rescue the company.

There is much to like about Amazon Prime’s new genre comedy, The Consultant. Its biggest selling point is a charmingly demonic performance by Christoph Waltz as Regus Patoff, offering Faustian contracts to anyone hollow enough to seek immortality through commerce and capitalism.

So far, so enjoyably allegorical. Told in pacey thirty-minute episodes, the first half of the series bounces along nicely, setting up an array of intriguing puzzles for the audience to solve, which I won’t expand upon because that would spoil the most enjoyable aspect of the show. Unfortunately, the latter episodes lose their way. The pace slows, and nothing is really resolved. I found myself asking: ‘But why was…? And what happened to…? And is he…? And what about her…?’

It isn’t helped by the two slightly lacklustre protagonists trying to unravel the mystery of their new boss, Craig (Nat Wolff) and Elaine (Brittany O’Grady), whose objectives and character arcs are never particularly clear.

Verdict: It’s all very frustrating. I haven’t read the original novel by Bentley Little, where perhaps more is explained. I like Tony Basgallop’s writing and The Consultant is a fun, easy watch – but as a comedy it never gets past ‘quite amusing’ and as a serious commentary on ambition and the workplace it never gets past ‘not-as-good-as-Severance’. 7/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com