A Brief Review of Season One of Servant (M. Night Shyamalan, Tony Basgallop) and Some Possibly Errant Speculation

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen all ten episodes of season one of Servant, you may want to stop reading right now. Since this brief review entails speculation and descriptions of particular occurrences and “dramatic surprises” from multiple episodes, you would be depriving yourself of the suspense which is arguably this series’ greatest asset.

I’ve read some reviews here and there of Servant, created and written by Tony Basgallop for Apple TV+ and executive-produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who directed the first episode. Season one consists of ten episodes and the series has been renewed for a second season. Shyamalan has stated that he wants the series to go for six seasons and to consist of sixty episodes. That’s super-ambitious.

I really enjoyed this creepy, atmospheric confection and don’t want to be Debbie Downer, but I’m wondering whether the show will survive the recent charge of plagiarism. I checked out the movie The Truth about Emanuel. I didn’t watch the whole movie, as I really couldn’t get into it. But it’s hard to ignore the central premise of a doll being substituted for a living baby, used to blunt the grief of loss, and the inclusion of a nanny, as striking similarities. The thing is you can’t copyright an idea. You can copyright words and melodies and images. This copying falls into a somewhat gray area.