Though we're sill mourning the unceremonious end of The OA, cancelled by Netflix before creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij could wrap up the story properly, we're heartened by news that the pair is working on another show, a miniseries for US cable channel FX called Retreat.
The "limited series" to give it its usual US phrase should mean that the whole tale can be told, and thank goodness, since it appears to be a murder mystery. We say "appears", because nothing from these two is quite that simple.
In addition to co-creating, Marling will play a key role in the story of Darby Hart, a Gen Z amateur sleuth, who is invited along with 11 other guests by a reclusive billionaire to participate in a retreat at a remote and dazzling location. When one of the other guests is found dead, Darby must fight to prove it was murder against a tide of competing interests and before the killer takes another life.
FX boss John Landgraf provided more details about the show at the company's executive session during the summer Television Critics Association press tour. According to him, it "has a pretty good chunk of it set in an ultra luxury hotel adjacent to a glacier in a very forbidding northern place, and also has a very substantial chunk that takes place in the desert and various other locals."
He's also excited by the show: "We absolutely loved what Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij came to us with, which is radical reconceptualization of whodunit with a really, really original set of characters, particularly a really strong and original young woman at the center of the story whose back story and present-day story form a strong emotional core. There obviously is a mystery unfold too. It’s a distinctive and unique show that is not that easy to produce." Given the show's FX backing and that channel's link to Hulu via their Disney corporate umbrella, we can expect it to appear on Disney+ Star here around the same time as it emerges in the US.