Darling

SERIES SYNOPSIS Darling is a cosmic/psychological horror series set in the desolate Prairie Pits of Saskatchewan, Canada. The story spans eight hour-long episodes, and follows an lonely, newly adrift writer as she tries to solve the mystery of DEBORAH MILLER, a teen girl, who - along with her abusive mother - disappeared from Darling fifteen years ago. The story begins when Calgary true crime author ANNE SHEPTON arrives in town. She’s working on a new story and looking for information surrounding Deborah’s case, until now unresolved; the blame falls on Darling’s lackluster police force, piloted by the mysterious and brooding CHIEF HARVEY WHITE. Anne is equally closed-off. She suffers from severe memory loss, wears a wedding ring she won’t talk about, and refuses to take her prescriptions - often triggering strange and sometimes terrifying dreams. She finds an unlikely ally in Harvey due to her remarkable talent of getting useful information out of even the most guarded subjects. Together, the pair work to uncover the mystery surrounding Deborah’s disappearance and potential murder, while Anne begins to face her own trauma through cryptic images in her nightmares she believes are messages from the missing girl. Meanwhile, a supernatural force emerges to torment Darling’s residents. A politically-savvy council member stumbles into a conspiracy involving a local rye farm, and a brilliant teenage girl finds herself repeating Deborah’s history when she begins to explore her identity in a town with rigidly conservative values. Ultimately, Darling will bring the dawn of a new era of Canadian cryptids - visceral manifestations of the pain, ignorance and hatred present in rural towns steering towards abandon in the modern age. The drive of the series will be Anne’s journey into discovering her own past, and learning why exactly she was chosen to solve Deborah’s mystery. Just as her dreams have told her: the answer can only be found in Darling. PILOT SYNOPSIS ANNE SHEPTON arrives in Darling, looking for information about a missing teen girl named Deborah Miller; she hopes to make Deborah the subject of her newest true-crime novel. She catches the attention of CHIEF HARVEY WHITE, who learns that he may lose his job under the watchful eye of ice-cold town councillor SOPHIA TASTAWITS if he doesn’t prove himself more valuable to the town. TAYLOR DESJARDINS, spending her first summer in Darling, attempts to impress her new friends by stealing some prescription pills from Anne’s room at the local B&B. The teens host a party in an abandoned quarry where the group are attacked by a deranged and mysteriously infected old man; Taylor is left as the key witness when she fails to save the life of one of her friends.