Sundance Now: Cheat with Katherine Kelly a Thanksgiving weekend must-see.

Just like politics the high stakes world of academia is just as fraught with hazard. One misstep and all that you worked for your entire life can be gone.

Cheat starring Katherine Kelly, is a four-part miniseries and a Sundance Now original. This is one of the most interesting and unique mysteries I have seen in quite a while.

After the first ten minutes of the first episode, I was all in and it does not disappoint. Cheat has all of the great traits, of the best mysteries. Interesting characters, brilliant acting, and a stunning backdrop that in many ways is part of the story.

Second, you need to check out the four-part mini-series on Sundance Now called Cheat. I spoke with the star Katherine Kelly who plays a college professor by the name of Dr. Leah Dale who seems to have it all.

Kelly plays Dr. Leah Dale who is a professor at a world-class university, on the fast track tenure route, she has a great husband who wants to have a child, a beautiful house and what looks like the perfect life. But is often the case in mysteries all that is perfect may not be what it seems on the surface.

With the cutthroat world of elite academia as a backdrop at Cambridge things begin to go sideways for Leah when she notices that one of her students Rose Vaughn (played by the talented Molly Windsor), who has been a bit of a slacker all semester suddenly at the end of term turns in a brilliant final paper. Leah has a dilemma, she feels Rose has indeed cheated, and she wants to help her, but Rose is steadfast in her own defense that the paper was indeed hers, and that she did not cheat.

Leah left with no other option fails Rose serving as the trigger kicking off a series of events that will lead these two characters on a ride that you the viewer will not want to miss.

So far there are two of the four episodes available on Sundance Now, with the final two set to drop on the next two Thursday’s.  

Here are a few highlights from this week’s Stream On conversation with Ms. Kelly and what we can look forward to on Cheat.

Williams: From the first episode I was hooked and want to see more of this complex story. What drew you to wanting to play Leah?

Kelly: They sent me the scripts for the first two episodes and I said more, please. We have such a wonderful team of writers, I was on board from day one because this is far from your normal mystery and I really wanted to be part of the show.

Williams: The title Cheat represents more than Rose possibly having someone else take her test. What can you tell me without giving the farm away on the subtext?

Kelly: Sure, we have cheating on tests, you have my character not sure she wants a child, so perhaps I am cheating my husband out of a child and there is the infidelity. So, there is more to the title than what you see at first glance.

Williams: It is a great time for producing quality TV. With streaming, we in the United States can see your work done in the UK in almost real-time instead of the old days when it could take years for us to see shows from outside the US.

Kelly: Agreed! We over here love the shows on HBO or I know the one that I really wanted to see but it took a while to get here and that was Breaking Bad. But now both in the US and the UK that is no longer an issue for we can see these shows not long after they are produced and I that brings us all a little closer together.

Be sure to listen to the entire interview of Stream On

I highly recommend Cheat it is a solid five out of five stars and well worth some time to watch this holiday. Also, take a chance of the seven days free trial of Sundance Now because it has plenty of great programs from around the world.