Apple TV Plus deploys originality of M. Night Shyamalan with ‘Servant’

M. Night Shyamalan – who shot to fame with his supernatural hit film The Sixth Sense – hasn’t worked much in television, but he’s bringing his uncanny aesthetic to the new Apple TV+ platform with the series Servant. 

Although only 10 episodes have so far been filmed – the remaining seven will be released one by one until 17 January – Shyamalan says he hopes to shoot 60 in total, and he’s already worked out an ending.

“When we think of long-form shows, how many are great from the first episode to the last? Can we count 10? I’m not sure,” the director told journalists in New York. “It’s because of so much content, so much speed and we don’t know where the end is. ‘Hey, if everybody’s watching, we’re going to go on forever!'”

“Well, no, that’s not how storytelling works. We have to know where we are.”

Going up against competitors

As Apple TV+ tries to muscle into a crowded streaming market dominated by the abundant content of Netflix and Disney+, Shyamalan wants to set himself apart with his distinctive style of storytelling.

“There’s now ubiquitous content. So how can you differentiate yourself? I’m banking on non-spectacle as the way to make the ingredients extremely excellent. I’m banking on the sushi,” he said.

He presents himself as an artist of the onscreen image, capable of creating every aspect of an immediately identifiable universe, as he did with “The Sixth Sense,” which made him a hot global property. 

“That why I moved the camera at that speed, at that moment, at that lighting, at that angle — it was thought through and you inherently feel that. When you see 500 (series) but one has that kind of integrity, you’ll stop.”

Buried trauma

While Shyamalan usually writes his own screenplays, allowing him to imbue his work with his own distinctive character, Servant was scripted by British television writer Tony Basgallop.

The show is infused with the director’s trademark anxiety-inducing music, dark lighting and suffocating atmosphere. 

The story centers on a couple, Dorothy (Lauren Ambrose) and Sean (Toby Kebbell), who are struggling to cope with the death of their baby. The mother in particular slips into denial.

Enter Leanne, who had been hired as the baby’s nanny but who now joins the mother in her new alternative reality – and eventually starts to take it to new and unexpected levels.  

Find the balance

The suspense builds slowly, but viewers are drawn in by the underlying tensions and unsettling characters who are sometimes reassuring, and sometimes disturbing. 

Nell Tiger Free, who plays Leanne, said it was all about “finding the balance between being creepy and unnerving and also trying to be accessible. Because you want to be unnerved and you want to be freaked out by her, but you also want to care about her.”

Co-star Rupert Grint – Ron of Harry Potter fame – chimed in: “It poses so many questions. It’s so mysterious.”

The series is set inside a house in Philadelphia, where the India-born Shyamalan was raised, creating a self-contained world that is reminiscent of the theater. 

“This felt like a stage, rather than a set,” said Kebbell.

Defining the platform

Basgallop said that he and Shyamalan “both like to tell stories that are a little bit uncomfortable, that don’t take the easy option all the time.”

“We’re entertained but there’s something darker underneath it,” said Shyamalan. “We’re really talking about some human trauma that’s underneath it all.”

More than any other series marking the debut of Apple TV+, Servant could help to define the new streaming platform with a kind of originality that the tech company has always prided itself on. 

“I secretly wanted to be at Apple. Even before Apple was ready to stream, I said, if I can tell a long-form story for someone and help define them, that’s really where the dream is.”

The series has already been renewed for a second season, ahead of its premiere.