TL;DR: 56 Days delivers a slick, bingeable mystery with attractive leads and a killer hook, but its chilly tone and emotionally distant storytelling keep it from reaching full erotic-thriller greatness. It’s worth watching for the intrigue and aesthetics, just don’t expect it to haunt you after the credits roll.

I went into 56 Days expecting the kind of slick, addictive psychological thriller that hijacks your brain at 2 a.m. and forces you to whisper “just one more episode” like a sleep-deprived goblin. Instead, what I got felt like a prestige-TV situationship. Attractive, promising, occasionally exciting, but emotionally unavailable and weirdly cold to the touch. Adapted from 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard, the series tries to bottle lust, paranoia, and murder into one bingeable package. It mostly succeeds at the packaging part.

The premise is pure airport-novel catnip. A decomposing corpse is discovered in a luxury Boston apartment athtub, reduced to a grotesque stew of human remains and chemical soup. That image alone should hook any thriller fan with a pulse. The show, streaming on Prime Video, clearly wants that opening shock to function like a jump scare for your curiosity. It works. I leaned forward immediately. Then I slowly leaned back as the story unfolded and realized the series might be more interested in posing than in actually playing.

The meet-cute that launches everything is between Ciara and Oliver, played by Dove Cameron and Avan Jogia. She’s a tech worker with a photographic memory and a suspiciously vague past. He’s a wealthy architect with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and secrets lurking behind every polite smile. Their first interaction over a NASA tote bag feels like it was engineered in a lab that specializes in flirtation algorithms. It’s charming, calculated, and just a little uncanny.

The chemistry is there, at least on a surface level. Watching them flirt is like watching two extremely attractive chess pieces glide across a board. Every move is precise. Every glance is deliberate. The problem is that chemistry alone isn’t heat. Heat requires friction, unpredictability, risk. 56 Days keeps promising those elements but keeps them locked behind narrative glass like rare collectibles you’re not allowed to touch.

Visually, the show is pristine. Cinematography leans into cool tones, reflective surfaces, and sterile luxury spaces that scream “something terrible is about to happen here.” The production design practically winks at you, daring you to suspect every polished countertop and shadowy hallway. Executive producer James Wan’s influence is noticeable in the horror-adjacent atmosphere. There’s a faint echo of his style in the way tension is framed, like the camera itself is holding its breath.

But tension needs emotional stakes to sustain it, and that’s where the creators, Lisa Zwerling and Karyn Usher, make a gamble that doesn’t fully pay off. They structure the series around nonlinear reveals, withholding key information about Ciara and Oliver until late episodes. In theory, that’s a classic suspense tactic. In practice, it creates a distance that kept me from ever fully investing in either of them. It’s hard to fear for characters when you’re still trying to figure out who they are three quarters of the way through.

I kept thinking about how the best erotic thrillers operate. They don’t just show attraction; they weaponize it. Desire becomes dangerous, volatile, almost radioactive. Here, the sex scenes are plentiful but oddly safe. They’re shot beautifully and performed confidently, yet they feel like demonstrations rather than detonations. I never sensed the kind of reckless obsession the plot insists these two share. If the story is trying to convince me that passion drove someone to murder, I need to feel that passion in my bones, not just observe it like a museum exhibit.

Parallel to the lovers’ timeline is the police investigation led by detectives played by Karla Souza and Dorian Crossmond Missick. They’re solid performers doing their best with material that never quite finds a rhythm. Their scenes often feel like they wandered in from a different show, one that’s more procedural and less sultry psychological chess match. The tonal split creates narrative whiplash. One minute I’m watching attractive people flirt in designer lighting, the next I’m listening to job-complaint monologues that stall momentum.

The detectives’ storyline also commits the cardinal sin of modern streaming thrillers: it mistakes withholding for depth. Instead of layering complexity, the script parcels out information in tiny increments, as if rationing mystery like wartime sugar. Twists arrive regularly enough to keep the plot moving, but they rarely land with the satisfying thud of revelation. They feel more like obligatory checkpoints.

Despite all my griping, I didn’t stop watching. That’s the sneaky trick 56 Days pulls. It’s undeniably bingeable. Each episode ends with just enough intrigue to nudge your curiosity forward. It’s engineered with the precision of a theme-park ride. You may notice the tracks and gears, but you still stay seated until the end.

Part of that persistence comes from the central question: how did a whirlwind romance end with a liquefying corpse? That hook is strong enough to drag the story through its slower stretches. The show understands that mystery is a powerful narcotic. Even when character depth runs thin, unanswered questions can keep viewers tethered.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the series was playing it safe when it should have been fearless. Erotic thrillers thrive on danger, moral ambiguity, and emotional volatility. This one keeps its characters’ darkest corners hidden so long that when they finally surface, they feel less like revelations and more like last-minute patch notes.

Cameron brings a controlled intensity that works beautifully for scenes requiring calculation or secrecy. Her eyes constantly look like they’re running background processes. Jogia leans into Oliver’s polished charm with the ease of someone who knows exactly how disarming a smile can be. Individually, they’re compelling. Together, they’re visually magnetic but emotionally muted.

It’s like watching two powerful magnets facing the same pole. They look like they should snap together, but something invisible keeps them just slightly apart. That missing spark is the difference between a good thriller and an unforgettable one.

From a technical standpoint, the show is undeniably polished. Editing is tight, the score is sleek and ominous, and the sound design subtly amplifies unease. I especially loved how silence is used in key scenes, letting tension simmer instead of blasting it with music cues. The production team clearly understands the grammar of suspense. They just sometimes forget the poetry.

The pacing across eight episodes is brisk enough for a weekend binge, which helps mask narrative thinness. If you watch it slowly, the cracks show. If you devour it quickly, the momentum papers them over. That makes it perfect background obsession material, the kind of series you inhale during a rainy Saturday while pretending you’re analyzing it academically.

Verdict

56 Days is the TV equivalent of a gorgeous stranger who dazzles you at a party, flirts outrageously, then ghosts you before you learn their last name. It’s stylish, watchable, and intermittently gripping, but it never quite achieves the emotional combustion its premise promises. I enjoyed the ride, yet I kept wishing it would slam the accelerator instead of coasting in neutral.