and liken their limited series, , to being about a parent’s worst nightmare. “It is a fable about the cost of losing sight of what is important, and that is costly to the child within us and the children outside of us that we’re responsible for in the world,” Cumberbatch tells in a joint interview with Hoffman. Created and written by Abi Morgan ( , , ) and directed by Lucy Forbes ( , ), the six-part series tells the story of Vincent Anderson (Cumberbatch), one of New York’s leading puppeteers and the creator of a hugely popular -esque children’s show called , who struggles to cope with the disappearance of his 9-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Howe).
Full of guilt and self-loathing, and prone to emotional outbursts, Vincent finds Edgar’s drawings of a blue monster puppet named Eric, which his son had unsuccessfully pitched to him the night before he disappeared on his way to school. Vincent begins to cling to these drawings, believing that Edgar will return home if he sees a life-size version of Eric on . But as Vincent’s progressively self-destructive, narcissistic behavior begins to alienate those around him — including his unhappy wife Cassie (Hoffmann), who has begun to seek comfort in the arms of another man — Vincent begins to see Eric as his only ally in the search for his only child.
“Eric is the voice of guilt or shame or accusation; the persecutory inner critic; the buddy; the reckless id; the kind of farting, burping, fucking crude, impulsive creatu.