Netflix’s Bodies Is Being Praised For Its Heroes’ Representation – & Rightly So

Have you watched Bodies on Netflix yet?

The time travelling murder mystery thriller (yes, all of those) dropped onto the streaming platform earlier this month, and has been confusing and delighting viewers since its first episode.

The series follows four detectives working in four different time periods trying to solve the same murder, after the body of a man is discovered in a lane way in White Chapel, London.

Bodies has got everything a solid detective procedural needs: a good cast, a grisly death, and a twist almost every episode.

But it’s also got some of the better representation seen in a crime series in recent years, characters and identities that feel real, natural, and aren’t shoehorned in for the sake of clout.

Amaka Okafor stars as DS Shahara Hasan, a Muslim detective who becomes the first to discover the body in 2023, while Jacob Fortune-Lloyd plays DS Charles Whiteman, a Jewish officer facing scrutiny for his religion in World War II London.

In 1890, there’s DI Alfred Hillinghead (Kyle Soller), a queer detective who falls in love with a journalist while investigating the body the first time it appears, and in 2053, DC Iris Maplewood (Shira Haas) is a disabled inspector who uses a government issued spine to help her walk.

Each of the characters conducts their own investigation in their own time period, before timelines start to blur and the mystery of the multiple dead bodies finally comes to light.

But it’s not just their professional skills that lead them to the truth, it’s their ability to act in the face of adversity, and their differences in largely homogenous societies, that ultimately allows them to solve the murder and become the hero of their own story (and figure out what the hell is going on while they’re at it).

Bodies will likely be one of those shows that comes and goes – a few people will have seen it, and others will watch a couple of episodes before being turned off by the sometimes convoluted story.

But if you stick with it, it’s worth it. After all, it’s time we got something new from a crime series.

• bodies
• Netflix