The first scene of Below shows a house being dragged into the ocean, and that image sets the tone for the whole series. The six-episode Canadian show quickly became Netflix’s biggest debut from that country. The story takes place in Snook’s Arm, a real Newfoundland fishing town where the government is pushing residents to accept a resettlement check and leave. Calvin Penny refuses. Played by Josh Hartnett, he is a single father and an iceberg ice harvester who chips ice for vodka makers. His own father was pulled underwater years earlier, and now the water around the town is acting strangely again.

A foreign trawler disappears, odd material appears in the ice, and people begin to vanish while officials continue to insist everyone should simply go. Mackenzie Davis plays a marine researcher who arrives with too many questions. Charlie Heaton plays Calvin’s eldest son Wade. A wealthy family is quietly purchasing land while the rest of the town is told to evacuate. The show draws on the real history of Newfoundland villages being emptied last century and adds a layer of immediate threat.

After reading the first scripts in under an hour, Hartnett learned the accent from a fisherman’s daily radio show. Heaton prepared by spending time in bars outside St. John’s. It helps the series feel like a campfire story told by people who already know the sea can kill them. The rugged, isolated setting does a lot of the work.

Seventeen million people watched the opening episodes in four days, yet critics and audiences split sharply over the same material. The early episodes build a steady sense of dread that feels grounded in the place and its people. That tension is what the series does best before any larger questions surface.