SummaryMike Sweeney moves his family to Durham County after his partner is murdered. Sweeney is sure that his next-door neighbor is the serial killer responsible for the deaths of two teenage girls as well as his partner's untimely demise.
SummaryMike Sweeney moves his family to Durham County after his partner is murdered. Sweeney is sure that his next-door neighbor is the serial killer responsible for the deaths of two teenage girls as well as his partner's untimely demise.
Durham County, in short, is very, very creepy and unsettling, and entirely addictive, a modern murder mystery with a touch of Patricia Highsmith misanthropy.
Atmospheric and strange (images of power lines abound for no discernible reason), Durham County is not much of a murder mystery--viewers know who the killer(s) are by the end of the first episode--but it is an intriguing crime drama that's more character-driven than it is procedural.
No fictional conceit can possibly match the darkness of the Manson family. But Durham County, a series about a cop's growing realization that his bland suburban neighborhood may house a serial killer, is genuinely creepy.
Viewers willing to put in the work tonight could be rewarded with a complex, nicely turned drama. Those less interested can wait a week, when the 10 p.m. options will expand to include Jay Leno telling jokes. No scorecard needed there.
When everything and every moment is studiously and heavy-handedly unpleasant, and each humorless, colorless detail seems designed to impress us with its “edge,” the overall effect ironically becomes somewhat monotonous.