Shaque: Trust No One

Netflix has made a killing out of Harlan Coben. At last count, the American writer had as many as 13 titles running on the streaming platform, with each generating massive watch hours. Case in point: The adaptation of Coben’s I Will Find You, released this year, accumulated 619 million hours watched (equating to over 112.9 million views) during its historic run on Netflix. Coben’s writing is formulaic and functional, with many describing it as “airport fiction”, the kind that employs relentless plot twists at the cost of literary depth. But in a world ruled by decreasing attention span, low patience for world-building and the preference for page-turning, high-velocity reading, Coben thrives.

We often hear how difficult it is to get a show or a film approved by Netflix. There are so many projects being developed, evaluated and discussed, and only a few eventually make the cut. Which is why a show like Shaque – Trust No One makes you wonder: what exactly does it take to get a project through, and how did this one make the cut? Poorly written and badly directed by Rensil D’Silva, Shaque doesn’t just test your patience as a viewer — it leaves me with even more shaque about how this one got approved in the first place. The story begins with a nightmare no parent should have to experience. Parineeti Chopra plays a new mother whose baby is kidnapped from a hospital. The first episode actually creates some intrigue. There are enough breadcrumbs to make you suspicious of almost everyone, and for a while, you genuinely want to know who is behind the kidnapping and why. Unfortunately, that’s where much of the interest ends.