TV shows we love: Dear Child

I was expecting Dear Child (Netflix) to be the story of people kept locked in a basement (along the lines of the likes of Room), starting as it does with a woman and two young children locked in a very sparsely furnished ‘room’.

When their keeper appears, an indication of their strange existence is reflected in them showing him their hands to indicate they are not hiding anything. But they must eat, use the toilet and sleep at set times.

That is not the real story here though. Who is the woman and how did she end up in the room, with what are presumably her children? Who is their father? And will they ever get out?

The show starts when the woman seen in the room is injured in a traffic accident and a cop informs the parents of a student who disappeared 13 years ago that it might be her. Do they find their happy ending? Or is that just the start of the mystery?

As police trace who is the injured woman, and the uninjured 12-year-old girl, a dark web of trauma gradually unfolds, as the girl, in dark glasses, gradually gets used to the world around her and reveals to police her brother has been left behind, to clean bloodstains off the rug.

And then there is the mystery of the man who has been holding them, who also is not who he appears to be at first. After a couple of red herrings and plot twists that seem designed to steer the viewer in the wrong direction the inevitable stand-off occurs.

Based on a novel of the same name, the gripping, tense German drama Dear Child (in six episodes) combines throwbacks to the past with the latest developments in the story in addition to scenes from life in captivity to spin a gradually more complicated tale and finally answer the questions initially raised.