Thanks to the present-day television landscape, navigating through the endless amounts of content at our very fingertips to try and figure out what's even worth watching can often be a game in and of itself. Unfortunately, while Netflix's Anatomy of a Scandal (adapted from the book by Sarah Vaughan) feels primed to capitalize on the recent trend of twisty, soapy thrillers taken from page-to-screen, the results (as developed by Melissa James Gibson and David E. Kelley) leave a lot to be desired, almost directly in spite of the clear star power that makes up its central cast. Although the episodes themselves are truly made up of all the right ingredients for good storytelling — political intrigue, the persistence of privilege amidst the rich and elite, the complicated power differential in an affair between boss and employee, tense courtroom dynamics — the show as a whole can't quite assemble those pieces in a way that gives the plot the gravitas it's trying to achieve.

The first season of this planned anthology series follows the trial and societal downfall of a prominent U.K. politician, James Whitehouse (Rupert Friend) — who, by all appearances, has the perfect life in his marriage to longtime college sweetheart Sophie (Sienna Miller) and the family they've established with their two children. However, just as he's set to propose a new amendment to an upcoming immigration bill, a scandal breaks: James has been having an affair with a young employee in his office, Olivia Lytton (Naomi Scott). Although the Whitehouses are initially prepared to weather the oncoming tabloid storm, there's an even darker side to this uncovered professional misconduct, and we quickly learn that Olivia is also accusing James of raping her. As the case heads to the courts, skilled and competent prosecutor Kate Woodcroft (Michelle Dockery) prepares to take down James for his alleged crime — but once the trial begins to play out, it's evident that the series isn't just focusing on what happened in recent months, but what these current events dredge up by way of each central character's past, too.

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Image via Netflix

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What Anatomy of a Scandal succeeds in illustrating is the murky nature of memory — and how, all too often, one person's recollection of an event can wildly vary from what the other can remember on their side. The series spends the first half of its six episodes replaying how the initial affair between James and Olivia began, with the two of them equally consenting to pursue a physical relationship in and outside the office; it was after their breakup, though, that their last encounter, a spontaneous moment of passion in an elevator, waded into an area that each of them has very different perceptions of. From Olivia's perspective, James most definitely crossed the line into assault, but James responds with seemingly-genuine confusion — and in several instances, strong defensiveness — against his former lover's accusation. Both of them are strong in their respective beliefs about what happened, though consent in that scenario was dubious at best. Still, Olivia's case is so convincing that even Sophie starts to question everything she thought she knew about her husband as the trial continues.

Maybe unsurprisingly, it's in the courtroom where Anatomy of a Scandal pulls off most of its interesting visuals. Director S.J. Clarkson approaches the likely mundane reality of witness testimony with creative ingenuity, blurring the lines between past and present thanks to some clever set design and quick edits — like when Olivia responds to Kate's questioning from within a flashback with a fourth-wall break before the scene snaps back to the present moment, or exits the notorious elevator where the crime occurred and takes her seat in the courtroom in one continuous, uninterrupted motion. But those clever tricks are overshadowed, in many cases, by other filming choices that undercut the weight of the scene, like an overreliance on tilting camera angles and blurred edges that only contribute to a sense of queasiness rather than intrigue.

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Image via Netflix

However, after a certain turning point in the narrative, Anatomy of a Scandal swerves significantly away from focusing on Olivia's story, rendering her an afterthought in the story in favor of everyone else around her — and the reality is that none of the three characters at the center are riveting enough to demand focus or lingering attention. Friend commits to a certain level of hubris in his performance as someone who has grown up fully benefiting from a life of wealth and advantage through his time at Oxford and beyond, but the script stops just shy of declaring Whitehouse a villain at too many points, which results in him feeling more like a two-dimensional avatar of white male privilege instead of a fully-realized character. Miller, meanwhile, has tragically even less to do in the role of James' forbearing wife Sophie, installed mostly as a reactive presence to cut to in order to enhance the drama of the courtroom trial. The only cast member who fares slightly better than the two of them is Dockery, who manages to toe the line between Kate's more collected professional demeanor before skillfully descending into the character's lowest emotional moments behind closed doors.

Perhaps the biggest advantage Anatomy of a Scandal has working in its favor is its brevity; at only six episodes, the show manages to be compulsively bingeable in spite of itself, with a sufficient number of intriguing narrative threads to keep viewers hooked through to the end. That said, it also suffers from a lackluster ending, one that may call into question whether watching in the first place was time worth spending at all. Out of all the thriller fare that Kelley has adapted for the small screen to date, the whole of Anatomy of a Scandal is disappointingly much less compelling than the sum of its parts.

Rating: C

Anatomy of a Scandal premieres April 15 on Netflix.