https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2023-03-20/sxsw-tv-recap-rabbit-hole/

SXSW TV Recap: Rabbit Hole

By Sarah Jane, March 20, 2023, 4:10pm, Picture in Picture

“Thriller” and "Kiefer Sutherland." Two great tastes that go great together. In new series Rabbit Hole (premiering March 26 on Paramount+), Sutherland plays John Weir, a “consultant” (aka corporate spy) who wants to make money for his clients and isn’t afraid of doing some sketchy-ass shit to get it for them.

The first two episodes of the series, which premiered during the SXSW Film and Television Festival, go deep into his world of financial espionage. He doesn’t own a phone, a computer, and his motto is “Trust no one.” As the series begins, Weir doesn’t seem to know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. He’s beyond paranoid and he can’t trust anyone. Not even himself.

The episodes introduce a few other characters, including Meta Golding as Hailey Winton, a do-good lawyer, and Enid Graham as Jo Madi, who is following Weir to try to catch him in the act. Both episodes have several flashbacks to when Weir was a young boy during a period when his parents were breaking up. There’s some real trauma going on there that Weir is still dealing with as an adult.

Showrunners John Requa and Glenn Ficarra explained that they wanted to make a political thriller in the vein of All the President’s Men, The Parallax View, and Three Days of the Condor. Mistrust of the government was high in the 1970s after Watergate and, as the pair explained after the show's SXSW premiere, the pair wanted to make a modern version of that. With date privacy issues, conspiracy theories, and the misinformation that abounds in today’s world, Requa and Ficarra felt the time was right for their spy thriller story.

Sutherland (the first and only choice to play Weir, according to Ficarra) added that when he first heard the idea from the showrunners he told them, “Send me a script” and, to his surprise, six weeks later, it was on his desk.

As costar Charles Dance added, knowing the writing is great and it stars Sutherland was all it took for him to say yes.

Rabbit Hole

TV Premieres, World Premiere

Catch up with all of The Austin Chronicle's SXSW 2023 coverage.