(courtesy First Showing)
We think you’ll be very happy here.” 🚪 In the picture-perfect town of Tall Pines, sinister secrets lurk behind every closed door. Not long after police officer Alex Dempsey (Mae Martin) and his pregnant wife Laura (Sarah Gadon) move into their new home, he connects with two students Abbie (Sydney Topliffe) and Leila (Alyvia Alyn Lind) from the local school for “troubled teens” who are desperate to escape and could be the key to unearthing everything rotten within the town. As Alex begins investigating a series of unusual incidents, he suspects that Evelyn (Toni Collette), the school’s mysterious leader, might be at the center of all the problems. Created by Mae Martin, Wayward is a thrilling and genre-bending limited series about the eternal struggle between one generation and the next, what happens when friendship and loyalty are put to the ultimate test, and how buried truths always find a way of coming up to the surface.
Wayward is a new original series created by Canadian comedian / writer Mae Martin, creator of the Feel Good series, and a writer on the Baroness Von Sketch Show and Benefits with Friends podcast. It’s co-showrun by Mae Martin & Ryan Scott. Writing by Mae Martin, Ryan Scott, Evangeline Ordaz, Mohamad El Masri, Kim Steele, Kayla Lorette, Alex Elbridge, Misha Osherovich. Featuring episodes directed by Euros Lyn, Renuka Jeyapalan, John Fawcett. Made by Objective Fiction & Sphere Media. Executive produced by Mae Martin, Ryan Scott, Jennifer Kawaja with Sphere Media, Bruno DubĂ© with Sphere Media, Ben Farrell with Objective Fiction, Hannah Mackay with Objective Fiction, Euros Lyn. (courtesy First Showing)
Honestly, if you see the word “pines” in a place name, it’s best to run.
FAST.
It seems that any time a town or place might have a darker state of being beyond the obvious, they stick the word “pines” somewhere in the name and, hey presto! chills go racing down the spine.
Which is pretty much what happens with Wayward, which looks suitably creepy and intriguing, its allure aided by the fact that it features Toni Collette who is superb in roles that might be one thing but are likely quite another.
So, yeah, portentously unsettling it might be but when Wayward premieres on 25 September 2025, it looks like it’s definitely going to be worth the watch.