Apple TV’s New Mystery Drama Is A Must-Watch
If book-to-screen adaptations are your thing, Apple TV is the place to be with thanks to its recent influx of shows, from The Last Thing He Told Me to The Big Door Prize. Now the stream is busy turning yet another book into a series. The 2015 novel City on Fire tells the story of the aftermath of a shooting in New York’s Central Park.
Here’s everything you need to know about City on Fire
The novel, written by Garth Risk Hallberg in his debut, is set in the 1970s on New Year’s Eve. The Apple series however brings it forward a few decades to 2003 and instead sets the pivotal shooting on US Independence Day on 4th July. The victim is Samantha Ciccirao (Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Chase Sui Wonders) a New York University student, who left a downtown club where her friend was performing to meet someone, but never returned. Her close friend Charlie, played by Wyatt Oleff (I Am Not Okay With This, Guardians of the Galaxy) is left to try and put the pieces together of her disappearance and murder.
In the novel, the backdrop of the 1970s served as a setting of a city ill at ease, with financial crises and crime gripping New York. The Apple version, explained by showrunner Josh Schwartz, shows NYC in another time of uncertainty following 9/11 and amidst the War on Terror- and Charlie is still coping with the death of his father in the attacks two years prior.
As the troubled teenager searches for answers, the official investigation into Samantha’s death finds that she formed a connection to a series of fires that mysteriously occurred around the city, and it appears there’s more to the murder case than first appears.
Links to the NY music scene and a secretive wealthy family further complicate things, and Charlie soon finds himself unravelling a mystery beyond what he could’ve imagined. The rest of the cast meanwhile includes Jemima Kirke (Girls) as Regan, Nicolo Tortorella (The Walking Dead: World Beyond) as William and Ashley Zukerman (Succession) as Keith.
The first three episodes of city on fire will premiere on the platform together on 12th May, with the following five parts airing weekly until 16th June
