The Resort on Stan a round trip to trouble in paradise

Personally, I blame Bobby Brady. The little fool just had to go and muck about with that tiki idol, bringing all sorts of bad luck to his family on their Hawaiian vacation.

Poor Greg's surfing accident is still too shocking to talk about.

Thank goodness Mr Brady's company paid for the trip, otherwise it would've been a real disaster (if you can't bring your maid on vacation, what's the point?)

Fifty years later, we still can't go anywhere without causing a fuss.

Last year's stinging take-down of white privilege in paradise, The White Lotus, is at the more subtle end of what can go wrong on a break, while Broken Lizard's Club Dread might be an example of taking the idea to its schlockiest degree.

Eight-part Peacock series The Resort sits somewhere in the middle on the banged-up-abroad spectrum and, as is so often the case these days, its gumbo of genres seems to reflect modern-day audiences' appetite for everything everywhere all at once.

Now streaming on Stan, The Resort is part screwball comedy, part true-crime caper, part love story, part spiritual/existential/transcendental self-exploration.

It's also great fun and an example of how genre-bending works best when handled with a light touch (and a good soundtrack - Byrne, Eno).

The lion's share of that light touch is thanks to creator Andy Siara, who was able to bring something fresh and exciting to the time-loop genre with 2020's Palm Springs.

Wisely, Siara once again takes Cristin Milioti along for the ride in his new vehicle and the actor continues to bring a kooky complexity and genuine warmth to each character she inhabits.

Milioti plays Emma, a childless woman harbouring doubts about her marriage to nice guy Noah, played by William Jackson Harper. The pair sleepwalk into a seemingly pointless and superficially doomed Yucatan luxury holiday to celebrate a decade shackled to each other and, from the get-go, we're filled with a sense of foreboding, at least for Noah, who seems blissfully ignorant his missus is precariously close to calling the whole thing off.

READ MORE:

Enter a quad bike accident, a flip phone and a 15-year-old missing persons mystery and we're suddenly (and thankfully) on a whole new tangent.

We're also introduced to a whole new couple and a whole new romance, that of Sam (Skyler Gisondo) and Violet (Nina Bloomgarden in "manic pixie dream girl" mode) - the pair are younger and less weary (and wearisome) than Emma and Noah, so inject the viewer and our original couple with a renewed enthusiasm that means we might be able to stick this thing out after all.

The clapped-out flip phone serves as a bridge between the two different couples and the different decades they inhabit and there is something almost literary in the way Emma and Noah learn about Sam and Violet's blossoming relationship via text messages to each other.

The device brings to mind A.S. Byatt's 1990 Booker Prize-winning Possession: A Romance - a novel about a couple of modern academics piecing together the love story of a pair of Victorian-era poets.

We pretty much have the Victorians to thank for such shows as The Resort in the first place because it was that mob which took holidays (originally "holy days") to heart (and to the seaside) and we've been culturally hardwired to follow suit ever since.

Is it any wonder, then, we expect the very worst to happen watching holiday-making unravel on screen when our own idea of holiday-making is to take all the stress and trauma generated by our "work" lives and relocate that pulsating ball of anxiety to some unsuspecting strip of sand for two weeks?

What could possibly go wrong?

In many ways, The Resort, and The White Lotus before it, feel like the pop culture canaries in the coal mine when it comes to our collective view of putting our ugly issues of modern life on hold for the sake of a couple of mojitos under a palm tree.

Sure, we've been watching shows about lost luggage and risibly timed tummy bugs for years, but it feels like something deeper and darker is afoot with this new and enlightened commentary.

Post-COVID, resorting to a resort can no longer be entertained without considering everything from exploitation of the locals to our contribution to global warming, and these are serious issues formerly blithe travellers should indeed be made to confront before booking their next Bali booze-up.

Something to consider when plugging in your annual leave.

And steer clear of the tikis.