Quietly, with almost zero resonance in Israel (except in the English-speaking Israeli media, which is mainly intended for American Jews in Israel and abroad), the Peacock streaming service (belonging to NBC and Universal) has released another adaptation of an Israeli TV series – “The Calling”, based on Keshet 12’s “Missing Case” and here 11 – is in turn an adaptation of Dror Mishani’s series of excellent detective books. But based on the initial reviews now published in the United States, we don’t have another “euphoria” case here, nor even another “in treatment”, to put it mildly: The series was shunned by almost every media outlet that covered it. Variety called it “ridiculous,” Slant called it “an intriguing investigation that ends up empty-handed,” and The Hollywood Reporter said it was “a waste of a good idea”: overall, it currently holds a score of Only 52% on the Rotten Tomatoes site (the audience score is even worse: only 33%).
It should be said that the central theme of “The Calling” is quite far from those of “Missing Case”. Avraham Avraham, the good-hearted, sharp and at the same time somewhat innocent detective of Dror Mishani, keeps his name here (but is often referred to as Abi), but played by Jeff Wilbush (“The Rebel”) he suddenly becomes an Orthodox Jew with a black cap on his head , who prays at his crime scenes – a religious motif that does not appear at all in Mishani’s books or in the series made in Israel. Abraham’s religiosity and spirituality also become a central characteristic of his character here, and it is constantly emphasized that his super ability to solve crimes comes from the fact that he is a religious, spiritual and empathetic person. Not that such a character does not have the potential to be interesting, but in the end “it is a righteous lip service, even if it comes from a gentle character like my father”, as written on the website RogerEbert.com (a review site founded by the legendary film critic Roger Ebert and which continues its work even after his death). This is also a very different character from the Avraham Avraham known to the Israeli viewer/reader – who knows a character without any religious or spiritual pretensions, who is much more familiar with detective novels than with the Bible.
And that’s not all: “The problem here is the way the investigations connect to Abraham’s life story, or more precisely, the way they don’t connect to it,” Slant wrote. “We start from the premise that Abraham’s worldview gives him a firm belief in humanity, but nothing ever challenges this worldview. Wilbush portrays his character with humor and intelligence, but the character never fulfills the potential of a religious man trying to save his soul In one piece even in the face of the horrors to which we are exposed on a daily basis.” The investigations of “The Calling”, by the way, are taken from the first season of “The Missing Case”, and are in turn based on a combination of the plots of “The Missing Case” (the novel) and “The Possibility of Violence”, the first two books in the series.
In any case, the (justified!) fans of Dror Mishani in Israel, who want to meet Avraham Avraham on the screen, will be happy to hear that its Israeli version was recently renewed for a second season. The first season, with Maurice Cohen in the role of Avraham Avraham, was broadcast in 2019 on Khan 11 and in 2020 on Keshet 12. “Missing Case” was also adapted in 2017 into a motion picture in France, starring Vincent Cassel.