The Bodyguard was the most-watched new drama in the UK in 10 years. Photo / Netflix
The Bodyguard was the most-watched new drama in the UK in 10 years. Photo / Netflix
Maybe you've been hearing about it for weeks, watching your British cousins' excitement clog up your social feed.
Bodyguard, the addictive, thrilling and obsession-inducing TV show finally has a date and a platform in New Zealand.
It will drop on Netflix on October 24. Yes, that's a Wednesday and nota Friday but it's only six episodes so you can definitely polish that off in one night. But it does mean you'll have to spend another month blocking out spoilers.
Starring Game of Thrones' Richard Madden and Spooks' Keeley Hawes, Bodyguard is a political thriller that's gripped millions of people in the UK — and in an excellent sign, the ratings for the show had actually gone up week-to-week. When's the last time that incredibly rare thing happened?
(Killing Eve, actually, was the last that happened and we all know how brilliant that show is.)
In the UK, Bodyguard has become the most-watched new drama in 10 years at a time when audiences are increasingly abandoning broadcast television. More than 10 million Brits watched the finale this past weekend.
Madden plays a former soldier named David Budd who is assigned to be the bodyguard for the Home Secretary Julia Montague (Hawes), an ambitious but controversial figure.
He suffers from PTSD and she's trying to push through tough new counter-terrorism bills — putting her squarely in the crosshairs.
The show's mission to thrill audiences starts at the very beginning by opening on an extended sequence of a bomb plot on the London Underground.
Bodyguard has been praised for its pulse-racing plotting and layers of intrigue that keep you guessing from one moment to the next, not to mention its high octane action and seductive sex scenes.
Even the real-life former Home Secretary Amber Rudd has admitted to being completely captivated.
Bodyguard has been airing on the BBC in the UK but the show was produced by ITV Studios as part of a co-licencing deal with Netflix which is why the streamer has global rights to the series and not, for example in Australia, BBC First.
