4 ways to figure out that a thriller OTT is not worth your time

We’ve all been there: enticed by a shiny trailer, we snuggle in for a psychological rollercoaster ride only to be half-heartedly doom-scrolling halfway through episode three. The sheer amount of stuff available on streaming sites means that not every new thriller can be a masterwork. But before you invest hours of your life, watch out for these four tell-tale signs that an OTT thriller is not worth your time.

Four signs your OTT thriller is a waste of an evening

The ‘unreliable narrator’ is a cheap trick

The ‘unreliable narrator’ is a thriller staple, set to keep you on the edge of your seat. But if the show withholds information just so they can deliver a ‘gotcha’ at the end of the finale, then you've been done dirty. A good unreliable narrator foreshadows their instability or deception, so that the eventual twist seems deserved. A poor one just keeps the reader (and the protagonist) unexpectedly uninformed about the important happenings, and the entire story feels jarring and manipulative. If the lead character continues to make inexplicable decisions due to knowledge they ought to possess, it’s a warning sign.

The police are comically incompetent

In most thriller stories, the lead must investigate on his own because the ‘police are utterly ineffective’. Where a little bit of tension with the authorities is okay, when the detectives are jumping to all the wrong conclusions or disregarding glaringly obvious hints in every single scene, it’s lazy writing. This trope is there merely to make the amateur detective seem more intelligent, at the expense of all sense of reality in favour of a neat plot setup. Observe detailed sleuths, not cartoon bobbies.

Every character is a red herring

A good mystery employs one or two carefully placed ‘red herrings’ to throw the audience off the scent. A bad thriller employs every single supporting character—from the chatty neighbour to the hero’s sibling—to be suspicious. When the number of suspects is so high and their motives so tenuous that you don’t even care who did it anymore, the plot is stuffed. This is usually padding, and it’s meant to fill an eight-episode season of thin material. It’s infuriating, not exciting.

Shock value instead of story

A good thriller creates real suspense and tension. A bad one mistakes ‘shock value’ for real fear. When the story relies too much on gruesome, abrupt violence or extremely unpleasant scenes that have no actual function except to give a fleeting start to the audience, the author is usually making up for lack of story depth. When the horror is gratuitous rather than integral to the characters or theme, you’re essentially watching trash designed to provoke, not captivate. Give it a miss; your time is better spent elsewhere.

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