'The Red King' Will Grace AMC+ With Its U.S. Debut
UKTV's Alibi network doesn't produce many original series, but the few it has created tend to be major hits or at least interesting misses. Alibi was the original producer of Miss Scarlet, back when the title still included "and the Duke"; it was also the producer of the late, lamented Annika, which never quite worked but was always fun in its weirdness. They're also the network behind Showtime's We Hunt Together, BritBox's awkward but fascinating I, Jack Wright, and the forthcoming, highly anticipated PBS series Bookish.
Considering that just about everything Alibi has been involved with has crossed the pond, The Red King has stood as an outlier. Sure, the series lead is a relative unknown in America; Anjli Mohindra is probably best known for The Lazarus Project, which HBO Max mishandled, but now has a chance at success on Netflix. But the supporting cast features two major heavyweights: Marc Warren of the (currently on the shelf) Van der Valk reboot, and Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh.
The hold up has honestly been the subject matter. Created by Being Human's Toby Whithouse, the series revolves around DS Grace Narayan, a by-the-book detective assigned to the fictitious island of St. Jory off the coast of Wales and home to a century-old pagan cult known as the True Way. When a little boy goes missing, and no one in the town seems concerned, Grace makes it her mission to find out what happened. Think The Wicker Man meets Hinterland; far too weird for Masterpiece, Netflix probably has ten of them, and BritBox has bigger shows to spend money on. Unsurprisingly, The Red King finally found a home on AMC+.