This summer, Josh Sundquist’s Best Foot Forward set a new standard for amputee storytelling on TV. (If you haven’t binged it yet, head over to Disney+ right away.) The momentum has continued into the fall, with a handful of new shows that portray limb loss in compelling fashion.
The most recent entry, The Midnight Club, debuted last week on Netflix to overwhelmingly positive reviews. It headlines our lineup of fall TV shows featuring amputee characters. Happy viewing!
The Midnight Club
It only took a few days for this horror/thriller series to reach #3 in Netflix’s top 10. Set in a hospice for terminally ill teens, the show co-stars former TikTok sensation Ruth Codd, a below-knee amputee from Ireland. (You can’t check out her social media stuff anymore, unfortunately; Codd deleted her accounts when her acting career took off.) Like any teens, the dying protagonists of The Midnight Club care about their friends above all else; the eight main characters establish a pact that when one of them dies, they’ll attempt to contact their still-living friends from the Hereafter. This creepy premise gives rise to a lot of cheap shocks (including an inordinate number of jump scares), but it also supports some gutsy characters who keep searching for meaning in their lives, even as death stares them in the face. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Codd describes her character as “a firecracker. She has such a big personality that, most of the time, you don’t even notice really the wheelchair, which is what I hope comes across. Because, as anyone with a disability will tell you, it’s a really tiny part of them. It is a part of them, but it’s not everything.” Ten episodes; watch at Netflix.
Read more at: https://livingwithamplitude.com/amputee-tv-series-new-shows-2022/
