With killer performances from Brown as a top Secret Service agent and James Marsden as the president he is sworn to protect, this twisty, thought-provoking thriller is an absolute winner
Why, 2025 television broadcasting schedules, with this run of hugely entertaining drama-slash-dramedies you are really spoiling us. First there was Prime Target, about a brilliant young mathematician whose work with prime numbers has made him the – well, prime target – of a shadowy cabal of conspirators whose influence goes, naturally, all the way to the top. Then there was High Potential, about a brilliant cleaner-slash-intellectual who becomes her local homicide department’s most dazzling crime solver. Now there is Paradise, a shinier, more prestigious and higher-concepted endeavour that provides just as much entertainment bang for your watching buck as the others. Basically, the last 10 days or so have been like working your way through an absolutely winning box of audio-visual chocolates.
Paradise is hard to write about without spoiling an important part of the concept, but here goes. The story is set in what seems to be the classic American idyll – an affluent town full of professionals and large houses in the ‘burbs, with neat gardens and safe streets for children to play in. Sterling K Brown (maintaining his recent run of great roles and performances) stars as Xavier Collins, a widower and Secret Service agent appointed five years ago – we see, as we see many things, in flashback – to lead the recently re-elected president’s protection detail.
