Big Sky, review: Disney's pitch for an adult audience is a humdrum, hokey affair

Kylie Bunbury stars as private detective Cassie Dewell - Darko Sikman
Kylie Bunbury stars as private detective Cassie Dewell - Darko Sikman

Having charmed us with The Mandalorian’s Baby Yoda and given us more Mickey Mouse content than we could shake a set of giant plastic rodent ears at, for its next trick Disney+ is serving up a heart-warming tale of sex-trafficking, feuding lovers and corrupt cops.

Big Sky is obviously a teeny bit of a departure for a streaming service that has to date marketed itself as the home of wholesome family fare. As if to underscore that point an otherwise cliché-devilled and predictable opening episode concludes with a jaw-dropping twist straight out of Game of Thrones (though unlike GoT it doesn’t go so far as to push any children out of windows – it’s still Disney after all).

This is called extending the brand. After clocking up 95 million global subscribers, Disney + is hoping to broaden its appeal with a new “Star” channel, slotting alongside its Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar offerings. The slate will largely consist of older programming repackaged for the streaming generation, with highlights including Donald Glover’s Atlanta and classic movies such as The French Connection (don’t get excited but Golden Girls arrives over the summer).

Big Sky is one of Star’s loudly-touted original productions – though, actually, it isn’t all original having already aired in the US on ABC last year. It’s from David E Kelley, the hit-whisperer behind Big Little Lies (starring Nicole Kidman in a glamorous kitchen) and The Undoing (starring Nicole Kidman in a glamorous overcoat, walking around New York).

However this series, adapted from a sequence of airport thrillers by CJ Box, has almost nothing in common with those sophisticated smashes. There’s no Nicole Kidman for one thing – and no glam kitchens or iconic overcoats either. As per the title, the setting is the “big sky” country of Montana. Here, as the action begins, private detectives Jenny Hoyt (Vikings' Katheryn Winnick ) and Cassie Dewell (Kylie Bunbury) are taking a break from solving crimes to engage in a spot of romantic rivalry.

They’re doing so because Jenny has just discovered that Cassie is carrying on with Jenny’s estranged husband, Cody (Ryan Phillipe). Any pretence to class or sophistication on the show’s part is immediately jettisoned as we are treated to Jenny and Cassie scrapping in a bar as the singer belts out Stand By Your Man. It’s so cheesy you can feel your cholesterol shoot up while the scene plays out.

But the feud is set to one side as Jenny and Cody’s teenage son reveals that his girlfriend and her sister (Natalie Alyn Lind and Jade Pettyjohn) have vanished while driving across the state. Big Sky can’t be bothered dressing up their disappearance as a mystery. Instead, we see Norman Bates-esque trucker Ronald (Brian Geraghty) abduct them as part of his prostitute-kidnapping ring (they aren’t prostitutes but then he really isn’t all that good at his job).

With the girls held captive alongside singer/prostitute Jerrie (Jessie James Keitel), Cassie, Cody and Jenny set out in hot pursuit. Their inquiries put them on the trail of creepy state trooper Rick Legarski (John Carroll Lynch, who at least looks like he’s having fun – everyone else is visibly thinking of their pay-cheque). And then Kelley unleashes his big curveball – a jack-knife in the plot that carries its reverberations into part two.

Jesse James Keitel plays singer Jerrie Kennedy  - Darko Sikman
Jesse James Keitel plays singer Jerrie Kennedy - Darko Sikman

The puzzle most likely to grab the viewer, however, has nothing to do with the kidnappings. It is connected to show’s occasional references to a “pandemic” (Big Sky was filmed under lockdown conditions). Does that mean Covid? If so, apparently it has left Montana largely unscathed: nobody wears masks and the bars and restaurants are all open.

Disney + subscribers may be intrigued to stumble upon a hokey yet very adult thriller amid the avalanche of Marvel spin-offs and Star Wars cartoons. Yet that novelty is sure to wear thin as Big Sky lurches from wacky to tacky. If this is Disney’s opening salvo in a campaign to conquer streaming for grown-ups, Netflix can rest easy.