Clear a space in your stacked TV viewing schedule because the brand-new Stan Original series Last Light drops on September 8. Starring TV veterans Matthew Fox and Joanne Froggatt, the five-parter will have your ass firmly glued to its couch groove.
Last Light stars Fox (Party of Five, Lost) and Froggatt (Downton Abbey) as married couple Andy and Elena. They live in London where Andy works as a petro-chemist for a Big Oil company. Uh-oh, red flag.
Andy is urgently called to the Middle East to investigate some contaminated oil, and a whole chain of events kicks off seeing global infrastructure shutting down. Cars stop in the middle of the road, there’s mass power outages, and planes fall from the sky.
While Andy is in the Middle East, Elena is in Paris with the couple’s son Sam (Taylor Foy). He’s there to have experimental surgery for a degenerative eye condition that has left him blind.
Meanwhile the couple’s daughter Laura (Alyth Ross) is back in London hanging out with all her climate protesting pals. The first episode sets all this up, and you’re left with a sinking feeling that something bad is going to happen to not only this family, but the world as a whole.
“I could not stop watching it, so I ended up watching all five back-to-back. And I don’t think I’ve ever done that with a show I’ve been in before,” Last Light’s star Joanne Froggatt told PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“I obviously know what happened. But the cliffhangers at the end of every episode… I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness, I need to see the next one’. Which is ridiculous. Because I know the story.”
Last Light does an awfully good job of giving viewers a sense of foreboding, something that Froggatt says drew her to the project.
“I thought it was going to be incredibly entertaining and edge of your seat and a brilliant watch,” she tells PTV. “And also has a very important underlying subject matter, which is climate change and the environment — something we can’t ignore.
“But also at the heart of that story is our main family who are split apart in different countries. So ultimately, it’s about a family fighting to get back to each other. Literally, and metaphorically.”
Given that climate change has roared to the forefront of our minds over the past decade and countless natural disasters — including Australia’s own recent devastating bushfires and floods — have been linked to it, Last Light is an eerie warning of what could very easily happen to the world IRL.
Aside from the core story, Froggatt tells PTV that there were other bonuses from working on Last Light. The first: working with TV legend Matthew Fox.
“It was really exciting. He was lovely. I’ve obviously seen lots of his work, like Party of Five and Lost. And I think Matthew is quite possibly the person that all of my friends got the most excited about me working with,” Froggatt recalls with a laugh. Honestly, who can blame them.
The other element of Last Light that Joanne Froggatt enjoyed was getting her action-hero on. “I love doing the action stuff, I thrive on it. I love the challenge of it. I love working with a stunt team.
“I enjoy the technicality of it. You have to work really closely with your camera team to get the shot. It becomes a sort of dance and you have to really be in tune with each other. When you’ve got the shot, everyone’s just so thrilled and you feel like you’ve really achieved something together. I love those moments on set.”
Stan Original Series Last Light premieres September 8 on Stan. Check out the trailer below.
