'The Replacement': A Show About Maternity Leave and Paranoia Becomes BBC One's Newest Hit

BBC's "The Replacement" just recently started, with its first episode leaving viewers wanting more. The show that starts with an employee's maternity leave is quickly becoming a highly anticipated drama. The main character is becoming paranoid that her replacement will take over her job permanently and things escalate when someone dies.

"The Replacement" revolves around Ellen (Morven Christie), a successful Edinburgh architect who takes a maternity leave while on a big project. She leaves the task to Paula (Vicky McClure), who is ready to get back to work after raising a daughter ten years ago. The problem starts when Ellen becomes paranoid that Paula might be trying to take her job permanently. Ellen is starting to doubt her own sanity when she sees her friend Kay (Neve McIntosh) fall to her death from a skylight Paula created.

Director Joe Ahearne of "The Replacement" said that he has always liked stories where only the main character can see that something wrong is going on. According to the Evening Standard, this British paranoia thriller will follow some themes in "Rosemary's Baby", "We Need to Talk About Kevin", and "The Babadook", which are also maternal thrillers.

British viewers will be familiar with many of "The Replacement" cast members like Morven Christie, Vicky McClure, Richard Rankin, Dougray Scott, Neve McIntosh, Navin Chowdhry, Sarah MacRae, Kim Allan, and Gilly Gilchrist. The BBC series is being compared by fans to "Single White Female" and "Doctor Foster" as an intense and edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Ahearne continued to express that "The Replacement" is going to be about a lot of shifty and mysterious people. According to BT TV, it will focus primarily on women in the workplace and will be a lot like "The Social Network" or "Nightcrawler" where work politics will come into play. The show will be a three-part series and main actor Morven Christie thinks that there will be no clear cut protagonist or antagonist.

The 35-year-old actress went on to say that BBC One's "The Replacement" will show a genuine depiction of human relationships, both good and bad. The series will also depict how both Ellen and Paula deal with motherhood and how their principles in life differ. The show airs on BBC One every Tuesday at 9 PM.