The Five to Premiere on Prime

A British crime serial that one critic likened to “a blood-splattered Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” is coming to Prime.

It’s an apt observation given The Five will air in HD after Top Gear (8.45 Sundays, from June 12).

Mystery author Harlan Coben wrote The Five specifically for Sky 1 in the UK. The 10-part series centres around the lives of four childhood friends whose pasts are re-examined when the DNA of the younger brother of one is found at a murder scene — 20 years after he mysteriously disappeared as a five-year-old.

The obsessive Coben predicts “audiences will be left with their jaws agape by the end of the series” but critics weren’t convinced they’d still be watching (although initial ratings suggested otherwise).

“The Five grabs you by the hand and doesn’t let go,” The Guardian said of its April premiere.

“I’m gripped, happy enough to be dragged along for the ride. But I’m also strangely unmoved by the whole experience.”

The Telegraph praised the “decent cast” led by Tom Cullen, O-T Fagbenle, Lee Ingleby and Sarah Solemani but described the plot, which descends “into a kind of blood-spattered Chitty Chitty Bang Bang“, as “gorily unsubtle” and “vacuously unbelievable“.