The Boy That Never Was review: new RTÉ thriller turns urban Ireland into the most depressing place in the universe

The Boy That Never Was (RTÉ One, Sunday, 9.30pm) is a new thriller from RTÉ – but it fails to solve the ongoing mystery of why the national broadcaster can’t make a decent potboiler. Despite the potentially intriguing premise of a father who believes he has seen his supposedly dead child at a Dart station, the adaptation of the Karen Perry novel flounders about in a haze of trowelled-on misery and achingly slow pacing. The real twist would be anyone rushing back to watch part two.
A generous reading of The Boy That Never Was is that it is a meditation on grief and how it can cause even a solid relationship to corrode from within. The story begins in Morocco, where Harry (Colin Morgan) is a hipster artist (he spends his days lounging around feeling pleased with himself) and wife Robin (Toni O’Rourke) the breadwinner for the family. One day, disaster strikes when an earthquake levels their house and apparently takes their toddler son, Dillon, with it.
Three years later, Harry and Robin are back in Dublin and remain haunted by the loss of their child. But then Harry sees Dillon on a Dart platform holding a woman’s hand and his grip on reality – already precarious – threatens to slip completely.
A good thriller can sell you any story, no matter how hokey (occasionally the hokeyness is part of the charm). But The Boy Who Wasn’t There commits the worst sin for a Sunday night crime drama, which is to take itself painfully seriously. It wants to be a moochy rumination on loss and renewal when viewers may have preferred to round off their weekends with a snappy caper.
The series also pulls off that RTÉ trick of making urban Ireland look like the most depressing place in the universe. Someone needs to tell Montrose that miserabilism is not always a virtue – contrast the grim vibes of The Boy That Never Was with the trendy Dublin Bay chic of Sharon Horgan’s Bad Sisters.
Glum performances don’t help (there is a strange cameo by the British stage actor Simon Callow as a kindly local in Morocco, while the actors playing Robin’s brother and husband are dead ringers for one another). The show also relies on what may strike some as wonky logic. Are we really supposed to believe Harry would instantly recognise his son three years on from across a Dart platform?
There is further silliness as Robin obtains a hard drive full of CCTV recordings from the Dart station from a garda friend (as if). Scrolling through the grainy footage, she sees the child and the woman. Their features are grainy and obscured – smudges in a sea of grey. But she, too, recognises Dillon – and immediately deletes the file for fear of causing further upset to her husband (she is pregnant – further upheaval is the last thing she needs).
It’s all stonkingly ludicrous and a smarter drama would have leaned into that feverish quality. Alas, the Boy That Never Was is ponderous and joyless. How paradoxical that a show revolving about child coming back to life should lack a pulse.