Netflix scores a hit with Patrick J. Adams’ 6-part bombing series

If you think true-crime dramas on Netflix are starting to look a bit samey, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is busily proving the appetite is very much still there. This six-part miniseries — led by Patrick J. Adams and a genuinely solid cast — has raced up the platform's US Top 10, elbowing aside various crime procedurals and generic thrillers to claim one of the top spots.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103 currently sits second on Netflix’s US TV chart, just behind the streaming platform’s most-watched shows.

For those who don't recall their late-80s headlines, the show digs into the real-life Lockerbie bombing, which saw Pan Am Flight 103 blown out of the sky over Scotland in 1988 — one of the most notorious terrorist attacks in aviation history. But instead of just showing the disaster, the series tracks the painstaking investigation on both sides of the Atlantic and, crucially, the aftershocks in a devastated Scottish community. You actually spend time with the families haunted by the crash, not just the detectives and politicians looking for culprits. That’s no small thing for a dramatisation like this — and helps explain why it’s connecting.

The ensemble and approach

The main draw for many will be Patrick J. Adams, but he's backed up by Connor Swindells, Tony Curran, Eddie Marsan, Phyllis Logan, Lauren Lyle, and Merritt Wever. If you’ve been watching British telly for any length of time, at least a couple of those names will ring a bell. All pulled together under the direction of Michael Keillor, who’s handled more than his fair share of no-nonsense dramas over the years.

• Patrick J. Adams leads, playing one of the central investigators
• Lauren Lyle and Connor Swindells bring in the Scottish perspective
• Eddie Marsan, Tony Curran, and Merritt Wever round things out with supporting turns

It’s all based closely on the real events rather than any one person's memoir, combining solid research with just enough drama to keep it moving. What’s impressed viewers — and apparently critics — is just how much restraint the series shows. There’s no heavy-handed emoting, no lengthy monologues about justice, and none of those ‘let’s re-stage the explosion for the fourth time’ moments. Instead, most of the runtime winds carefully through the investigative rabbit hole and the mess it left in real people’s lives.

Critical and fan reception

That approach seems to have paid off in the numbers. The public response is more or less glowing. As of right now, Rotten Tomatoes gives the series a 100% critics' score — not something you see every day — while audiences give it a very respectable 84% ‘popcorn meter’ rating. IMDb rates it 7.5/10, which is nothing to sniff at for this sort of docudrama.

If you’re wondering why it’s topping the charts, it’s not all down to the shocking subject matter. Reviews and viewers are both singling out the careful blend of procedural, period detail and the kind of graceful storytelling that doesn’t feel the need to wring every bit of drama from tragedy. The performances get praised, but so does the series’ basic respect for the memory of the victims.