The answer to the question looks something like "Twin Peaks," "Oz," "Lost," and "Weeds," another Showtime series that subverts normalcy in homes shaped like little boxes. Meadowlands is the tarnished utopia where people in government custody are kept separate from the real world and monitored, reality-TV-like, on hidden cameras. It's the only place these relocated wrongdoers are safe, thus the peaceful name; and yet the confinement gnaws and pries at them. Despite their new names and invented histories, and despite Big Brother's unblinking eye, dirty old secrets emerge. "Fiction, not fact, eh?" Danny Brogan strongly urges his wife, Evelyn, upon their arrival at their new life. "It's a good habit to get into."
We don't know exactly what has brought Danny (David Morrissey), Evelyn (Lucy Cohu), and their 17-year-old twins Mark (Harry Treadaway) and Zoe (Felicity Jones) to Meadowlands, but Danny's paranoia and flashbacks to a house fire make it clear the Brogans will be murdered if they leave. As Danny and Evelyn struggle to focus ahead, and consider having another child, Zoe is prepared to act out her frustration sexually and the alienated Mark refuses to speak. Indeed, a Brogan family change-up will not be easy. Looking like a mix of Edward Scissorhands and Jack White of the White Stripes, Mark wears women's clothing and begins a silent game of sexual peekaboo with middle-age neighbor Brenda (Melanie Hill).
Into the Brogan tinderbox comes Caliban in the form of Jack Donnelly (Tom Hardy), a fix-it man who despoils women with his leering eyes. He sets the Brogan home on fire figuratively, as he and Zoe flirt and Danny puts a stop to it. Jack is brimming with overt creepiness, panting like an animal; the family doctor, David (Tristan Gemmill), is more subtly and effectively creepy, as he tries to seduce Evelyn with pretty words and the occasional inappropriate comment. David looks like a centered romantic hero, but like everyone in Meadowlands, he is probably a big fat fraud.
