phenomenon<\/a>. Wherever she goes, whatever she does, the ringing follows. Sound designer Steve Fanagan\u2019s rendition of that soft but eerie thumping noise is essential to and helps ratchet up the tension, as does Janicza Bravo\u2019s direction. The constant buzz disrupts Claire\u2019s day-to-day activities, slowly dismantling her picture-perfect life of a big house, lovely family, and cool job. Her loved ones, colleagues, and therapist can\u2019t fathom why she\u2019s distant, suffers from insomnia, and loses focus. No matter how much she discusses the droning sound that\u2019s driving her to madness, no one else (ironically) hears or comprehends her issues.\u00a0<\/p>\nIn other words, the hum can be considered an allegory of how some people are forced to move through life without support, and that not being taken seriously or feeling abandoned can affect their mental health. It\u2019s easier for Claire\u2019s husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah), and 17-year-old daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia)\u2014two extremely underwritten characters\u2014to dub her unwell than to empathize with her sudden changes. It pushes Claire to seek comfort elsewhere, starting with her young student, Kyle (Ollie West), who confesses he also hears a similar hum. As both of them try to find out the truth behind their affliction, Claire and Kyle get close\u2014uncomfortably, disastrously close in a way that begs addressing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Listeners explores the repercussions of their unconventional bond from the peripheral POV of Paul, Ashley, and Kyle\u2019s understandably concerned mother, Siobhan (Niamh McCann). But the show also goes so far as to frame them as the unreasonable ones for wanting Claire and Kyle to stay away from each other. Even though Claire and Kyle aren\u2019t sexual or romantic per se, the connection is intimate. The show does itself a disservice by not digging deeper into the weird, gross power dynamics at play, instead of only painting Claire\u2019s choices as a way for her to dodge societal expectations. Kyle\u2019s own desire to be perceived takes an unfortunate backseat as well. With his attention so divided, Tannahill is unable to sustain The Listeners\u2019 ambitious, philosophical material.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Listeners isn\u2019t concerned with what the hum is and why it impacts only a few people. While the tense opening hour is about the mysterious sound, the series\u2019 stakes spiral into something else entirely when Claire and Kyle discover others like them. They eventually join a group\u2014a cult, rather\u2014run by a couple, Omar (Amr Waked) and Jo (Gayle Rankin), who are a little too nice at first before exerting a suffocating amount of control. After meeting other \u201clisteners\u201d in the cult, Claire and Kyle become closer to them and are alienated from their families. If The Listeners is effective at anything, it\u2019s the chilling depiction of how people like Omar and Jo can prey upon the vulnerable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, even the show\u2019s pivot to being more about mass hysteria is unoriginal and, by the end, quite underwhelming. The Listeners loses other interesting ideas that it plants along the way, primarily about investigating the source of the hum. A lot of conspiracy theories are flagged: Phone tower lines for 5G networks, secret government devices, something supernatural, physical ailments, electromagnetic charges, anxiety, and even something psychosomatic. But anyone expecting a wild resolution is bound to be disappointed: The Listeners\u2018 conclusion is somehow both anticlimactic and melodramatic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Characters making infuriating, nonsensical decisions\u2014none more so than Claire\u2014and a lack of definitive answers isn\u2019t exactly what derails what at first looks like a promising psychological thriller. Rather, it\u2019s the fact that The Listeners isn\u2019t confident about executing its absurdity and is simply incurious about Claire beyond her trauma. It also doesn\u2019t help that Hall and Rankin are the only actors truly committed to the chaos, while the rest flounder because their characters are thinly sketched. Titillating and abstract by nature, with a tragic conclusion to boot, The Listeners ultimately ends up like the allegory at its center: Didactic and forgettable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club\u2018s TV critic.<\/p>\n
The Listeners, which originally aired on BBC One in 2024, premieres in the U.S. on Starz on June 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At one point in The Listeners, the main character\u2019s former coworker bluntly tells her, \u201cBeing your friend is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-485909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}