It seems like we haven’t seen Benedict Cumberbatch for a while, which isn’t true—Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness came out in 2022, and he was in two of Wes Anderson’s Oscar-winning Roald Dahl shorts last year, as well as Jeymes Samuel’s The Book of Clarence—but still, the trailer for Eric popped up yesterday and I thought, “Bendybat Cumberloo, where are you!”
Eric is a new Netflix series from Abi Morgan, who wrote The Iron Lady and Shame, as well as the British drama The Hour. It stars Cumberbatch and Gaby Hoffman as the parents of a missing child in 1980s New York. Cumberbatch plays Vincent, a puppeteer who comes to believe bringing his missing son’s monster character “Eric” to life as a puppet will, in turn, bring his son Edgar home. It also stars Dan Folger, Adepero Oduye, and McKinley Belcher III as the detective tasked with finding Edgar. It looks super sad and upsetting!
The last time Cumberbatch did a drama series was the excellent and VASTLY underappreciated Showtime series, Patrick Melrose. He did win a BAFTA for that series, but it feels like Patrick Melrose got lost in the glut of prestige TV back when it aired in 2018. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we all watched Patrick Melrose and just don’t talk about it—let me know if that’s the case, I’m happy to be wrong. Eric being on Netflix is almost a guarantee it will get lost in the content firehose, too.
Maybe this is why it feels like Benedict Cumberbatch has been gone for a while—outside Marvel, the recent work he’s done is getting lost in the shuffle.
