BELOW is Netflix’s new sci-fi thriller series coming to the platform on October, with a first season consisting of six episodes. The series, set on the Canadian island of Newfoundland (Newfoundland), stars Josh Hartnett (Trap), Mackenzie Davis (Speak No Evil), and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things). There’s a new thriller creeping onto Netflix this fall, and it’s got three things I’m personally incapable of resisting: Josh Hartnett in a leading role, a small coastal town with buried secrets, and something lurking in the water that really shouldn’t be there. The series is called Below, it’s a six-episode limited run, and the first details and photos just dropped.
The premise sounds like it was engineered in a lab to appeal to anyone who grew up loving Jaws, The X-Files monster-of-the-week episodes, and those quiet character dramas where the setting is practically a character itself. But there’s more going on here than just a creature feature. The creative team behind this thing has a serious pedigree, and the location they chose to film in is genuinely integral to the story they’re trying to tell.
BELOW TV Series: Story Plot
The story centers on a guy named Calvin Penney, played by Hartnett. Calvin is a fisherman in a tiny Newfoundland town called Snooks Arm, and from the sound of things, he’s carrying around more baggage than the cargo hold of a trawler. His father died years ago under circumstances that were never fully explained, and that loss has shaped him into someone who feels permanently unmoored. He’s stubborn, he’s big-hearted, and he’s a single father of three kids who are probably the only thing keeping him tethered to anything at all.
Then the creature shows up.
Something unidentified starts terrorizing the waters around the town. Boats go missing or come back damaged. The community, which depends on the sea for its entire way of life, starts to fray at the edges. Calvin finds himself in the position of having to hold things together while also figuring out what’s actually happening beneath the surface. A marine researcher named Fonda Howander, played by Mackenzie Davis, arrives to investigate, and the two of them end up working together to uncover whatever the island has been hiding.
But this isn’t just a monster hunt. The official description mentions local myth, family drama, and themes of community and inevitable change. The creature is the catalyst, but the story seems to be about whether a way of life that’s been vanishing for generations can survive one more existential threat. That’s the kind of layered storytelling that separates a good thriller from a great one.
Hartnett’s Take on Calvin
Hartnett has been on a bit of a roll lately. Between Oppenheimer, Trap, and a handful of other projects, he’s reminded everyone that he was never just a pretty face from the early 2000s. The guy can act, and he seems drawn to roles that let him explore men who are carrying some damage.
His description of Calvin gives you a sense of where this character is coming from emotionally. Hartnett talks about a man who has experienced a series of setbacks and tragedies starting from a young age, someone who genuinely believes he’s cursed. Calvin feels like his own community doesn’t see the point of him, which, in a place as small as Snooks Arm, means there’s nowhere to hide from that judgment. He’s untethered, Hartnett says, and that word choice feels deliberate. A fisherman who’s lost his connection to the place and people around him is a man who might be looking for something to fight for.
What apparently hooked Hartnett on the project was the writing. He read the first two scripts in under an hour, which is the kind of detail actors always share in press materials but still means something when it comes from someone who’s been around long enough to be picky. He also mentioned being drawn to the Newfoundland setting specifically. He didn’t know much about the province’s history before signing on, didn’t realize it had been its own country with its own dialect and ancestry. That sense of discovering a place that feels distinct and real apparently came through in the scripts, and it’s part of what made him say yes.
The Team Behind the Scenes
The creator of Below is Jesse McKeown, who’s been writing for television for a while now. He’s got credits on The Umbrella Academy and the Canadian series *19-2*, which suggests he knows how to balance genre elements with grounded character work. But what’s more interesting is his personal connection to the setting. McKeown has been visiting Newfoundland for years. It’s become part of his life, and he’s clearly been waiting for the right story to tell there.
He describes the province in terms that sound almost contradictory, which is probably why it works so well as a setting for this kind of story. The landscape is rugged, dangerous, isolated, and genuinely scary in certain conditions. But the people are warm and funny, with eccentricities that could only develop in a place that’s been cut off from the rest of the world for long stretches. That push and pull between the harsh environment and the tight-knit community is exactly what you want in a thriller about a small town under siege.
The writing team includes Karen Walton, who worked on Orphan Black, and Perry Chafe, who created Saint-Pierre. The directors include Jamie Childs from The Sandman and His Dark Materials, Helen Shaver from The Penguin and Station Eleven, and Stephen Dunn, who directed Closet Monster. That’s a mix of people who understand both big genre spectacle and intimate character moments, which is exactly the combination this show is going to need.
The executive producer roster is similarly stacked. Jessica Rhoades, who worked on Black Mirror and Station Eleven, is involved through her company, Pacesetter. Chris Hatcher, Louise Sutton, and Sharon Hall round out a producing team with experience on everything from The Expanse to Utopia.
The Cast Beyond Hartnett
Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, Penny Dreadful, Black Hawk Down) stars as Calvin Penney, a big-hearted but burdened bayman from Snooks Arm, Newfoundland. A single father of 3, he’s desperate to keep his fractured family together.
“He is a guy who has had a series of setbacks and tragedies in his life starting at a young age,” says Hartnett. “He’s felt that he’s cursed and that his place in the world is untenable, that even his community doesn’t see the point of him, and he lives in a very small community, so he feels untethered.”
In addition to Hartnett, the series stars:
- Mackenzie Davis (Station Eleven, Speak No Evil) as Fonda Howander
- Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things, The Souvenir Part II) as Wade Penney
- Willow Kean (The King Tide, Away from Everywhere) as Ruth Penney
- Ruby Stokes (Lockwood & Co, Sunny Dancer) as Mary Penney
- Rohan Campbell (Halloween Ends, The Monkey) as Jay Penney
- Kaleb Horn (Revival, Chucky) as Noah
Mackenzie Davis plays the marine researcher Fonda Howander. Davis has been quietly building one of the most interesting careers in the business. She was phenomenal in Station Eleven, held her own in Speak No Evil, and has a way of playing intelligent, determined women who are also dealing with their own internal complications. Pairing her with Hartnett feels like a smart move. They’re both actors who can do a lot with silence and subtext.
Charlie Heaton, who most people know from Stranger Things, plays Calvin’s son Wade. If the father-son dynamic is going to be central to the story, Heaton is a good choice for it. He’s got the kind of intensity that suggests he’s been through something, even when he’s just standing still.
The rest of the Penney family includes Willow Kean, Ruby Stokes, and Rohan Campbell, and there’s a character named Noah, played by Kaleb Horn, who seems to be connected to the family somehow. It’s not a massive cast, which makes sense for a six-episode limited series. You want enough people to populate a small town, but not so many that you lose track of who matters.
Why Newfoundland Matters
A lot of shows claim their location is integral to the story, but Below seems to mean it. The Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Dr. Andrew Furey, released a statement about the production that goes beyond the usual boilerplate political endorsement. He talked about the province’s commitment to storytelling, the talent of local crews, and the way the landscape itself shapes the narrative.
The head of the provincial film commission, Laura Churchill, echoed those sentiments, emphasizing the deep storytelling traditions of the region. This isn’t just a production that filmed in Newfoundland because of tax incentives. It’s a production that wrote Newfoundland into the DNA of the show.
That matters because a story about a fishing community threatened by something in the water needs to feel authentic. If the town doesn’t feel real, the threat doesn’t feel real either. From the first-look photos, it looks like they’ve captured something genuine. The boats look like actual working vessels, not set dressing. The coastline looks cold and forbidding in a way that no amount of post-production can fake. Hartnett looks like a man who’s spent years hauling nets in rough weather.
Release Date
Six episodes drop on October 8. That’s a manageable binge, the kind of thing you can watch over a weekend without feeling like you’re signing away a month of your life. The limited series format suggests a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, which is refreshing at a time when so many shows seem designed to stretch on forever.
The marketing materials promise a blend of thrills, heart, and humor. The presence of people like McKeown and Walton suggests the humor will be dark and character-driven rather than quippy Marvel-style banter. The creature design hasn’t been revealed yet, which is probably smart. Let the mystery build.
I’m going in hoping for something that balances the monster movie elements with genuine human stakes. Everything I’ve read about Below suggests that’s exactly what they’re aiming for. Newfoundland has been waiting for a story like this. Josh Hartnett has been waiting for a role like this. And honestly, I’ve been waiting for a show that makes me scared to look at the ocean again. October can’t come fast enough.