Lazarus Review
Director: Wayne Che Yip, Nicole Volavka, and Daniel O'Hara
Date Created: 2025-10-22 15:09
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Lazarus Review: Prime Video’s six-parter mystery thriller was the brainchild of bestselling author Harlan Coben and is helmed by Wayne Che Yip, Nicole Volavka, and Daniel O’Hara. The series stars Sam Claflin plays the role of Joel Lazarus, alongside Bill Nighy, Alexandra Roach, Karla Crome, David Fynn and others. The series presented on the surface as a mind-bending psychological drama of twists and turns of the heart and something of the paranormal, but, regretfully, the final product comes out muddled, overstuffed, and far too often painfully slow.
Lazarus Review
The premise centres on forensic psychologist Joel Lazarus, sent back home himself after his father’s supposed suicide. Before long, Joel discovers he is having bizarre visions of dead individuals, including the father, and old patients, and they all seem to beckon him toward the uncovering of long-buried secrets. Intriguing enough premise, grief, culpability, and ghostly curiosity, but on screen, it equates to little more than a disjointed puzzle where the pieces never seem to fully cohere.
Honesty, I have not actually read any of the novels by Harlan Coben, so how good they are, well, I’m not so certain, but each year, at least two or three of his adaptations are the ones my household views. Having, though, seen the vast bulk of these, my question, though, remains: Are the novels merely average, or is the weakness of the adaptations most of the time the inability to entertain? Lazarus, regretfully, falls into the latter list.
When I began watching Prime Video’s Lazarus, I honestly thought I was immersed in a dense, psychologically intricate mystery of the mind and of family trauma. The pilot episode creates an ominous tone and mystery. However, all too soon, the narrative prolongs too much. For a series which tries to blend the elements of the crime mystery, the visions of the paranormal, and the personal trauma, it cannot sustain balance. Many episodes creep along at glacial tempos, containing long, unfilled scenes of dialogue which add little, nonetheless, to the major plot.
And though Sam Claflin makes the most of his dedicated acting, his role is limited by the script, which doesn’t have the faintest idea where it wants to go. Ghost visions, once creepy and metaphorical, become circular and confusing. Now they are deployed to reveal secrets, and now they materialise and go nowhere. The dramatic intensity of Joel’s loss of father and sister gets diluted by several unnecessary plot twists and muddled thinking.
As the series progresses, the more confusing it becomes trying to remember who’s lying, dead, or haunting whom. That plot meant to engage you becomes convoluted in too many names and flashbacks. I found myself repeating scenes just so I could find out basic facts. They even go so far as to connect Joel’s dad’s suicide to so many cold cases, but the execution makes it all appear messier than magnificent.
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It tries so hard to be emotional, exciting, and meaningful all at once, but turns out to be none of the above. You’ll be fast-forwarding through the scenes where something juicy happens, only to have the tension be all dead seconds later on some endless monologue scene. You frequently felt the show was keeping you in circles, repeating the same points and not building actual tension.
It isn’t until the last couple of episodes, though, that any spark comes to Harlan Coben’s Lazarus. That’s the point, the bigger truths about Jonathan Lazarus, Joel’s father, start coming to light. By the time those surprising twists are revealed, though, I was fatigued and so didn’t give a darn. It’s the finale, and it reveals the repulsive secrets Jonathan and another major character are hiding, but it feels sudden and unsatisfying. Instead of shocking, it made me ponder how all the loose ends were tied together.
And just as you are expecting, you’ll be given some closure; the series just cuts off, as if the show had run low on time or interest. It teases you towards some broader generational curse and moral issues of psychiatric illness, but doesn’t quite ever follow through. I would have liked to have experienced the emotional impact of these revelations on Joel, but the series blazes through the latter moments and blacks out without giving any genuine answers.
The Coben novels always include: someone keeping secrets, some big expose down the line, and some twist to put the entire works on its head. That works for certain adaptations. Now, though, the episode falls short of the emotional impact. Rather than seeming brilliant, the show appears to be trying too hard. So the cold, intricate mystery seems like homework to be accomplished.
Where praise is due, it goes to the acting. Sam Claflin does his best to bring passion to the agony and confusion of Joel, and Bill Nighy, as his father, brings nobility to the rest of the unclear story. His direction does not benefit them. The tone of the program varies, and often, within the same episode, it varies, between psychological thriller, family drama, and ghost story, so the viewers are left knowing little of the kind of program they are to be presented with.
Visually, Prime Video’s Lazarus looks good, all dark shadows, grey skies, and blacked-out rooms, but all the atmosphere cannot make up for poor writing. The second significant flaw is pacing. Six episodes are short, but sometimes it feels like twelve.
Prime Video Lazarus Review: Summing Up
Overall, the quintessential good idea gone bad due to poor storytelling, Lazarus would have been much better off going through the theme of grief, mental illness, and inherited trauma. Going through would have been powerful, but execution makes it frustrating. It ends up not emotionally intense but emotionally exhausting.
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