'Departure' Trailer: Christopher Plummer Hires Archie Panjabi To Search For A Missing Plane In Peacock Series

Christopher Plummer loves a plain old mystery, having recently appeared in the Rian Johnson whoddunit Knives Out. But this time, he gets a plane mystery, in the new Peacock series, Departure. All right, that sentence doesn't make much sense, but I couldn't resist. Watch the Departure trailer below.

For some reason, the sentence "Christopher Plummer stars in a Peacock series" depresses me. But that's what's happening in Departure, a six-episode mystery series set to debut on NBCUniversal's new streaming service. The first trailer for Departure makes a meal out of Plummer's starring appearance, making sure to get that "Academy Award winner" title in big, bold letters in front of the actor's name, which even appears in front of the show's lead, Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife). Plummer plays the mentor to Panjabi's "brilliant" investigator Kendra Malley, who is hired to crack the case of a passenger plane that mysteriously vanished over the Atlantic Ocean. But when they find one lone survivor, the mystery only deepens and Kendra begins to discover a web of conspiracies.

Departure looks like a procedural meets twisty conspiracy thriller, but may feel like a bit of a creaky premise with the NBC sci-fi series Manifest treading similar ground, and Lost setting the standard for disappearing planes over 15 years ago. But with a short six-episode run and an international cast that includes Kris Holden-Reid (Umbrella Academy), Rebecca Liddiard (Run This Town), Tamara Duarte (Longmire), Mark Rendall (Versailles), Peter Mensah (Midnight, Texas), and Sasha Roiz (Suits), perhaps Departure can set itself apart.Departure is produced in association with Starlings Television and Corus Entertainment, and produced by Shaftesbury (Canada) and Greenpoint Productions Ltd. The series actually aired last summer in the U.K., making Departure the latest international acquisition that Peacock has made to pad out its collection of original titles.

Here is the synopsis to Departure:

When passenger plane Flight 716 shockingly vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean, brilliant investigator Kendra Malley (Archie Panjabi, The Good Wife) is brought in – alongside her mentor Howard Lawson (Christopher Plummer, Knives Out) – to find the truth and stop it from happening again. Still reeling from the recent death of her husband and struggling to parent her troubled stepson, Kendra isn't sure she's up to the task — especially when the whole world is watching. At every turn, new discoveries only deepen the mystery surrounding the disaster, revealing a host of motives and suspects.

Departure premieres on Peacock on September 17, 2020.