The Hunting Party (2025): A Tense Game of Cat and Mouse, but who is hunting who?

Follows a small team of investigators who are assembled to track down and capture the most dangerous killers ever seen, all of whom have just escaped from a top-secret prison that's not supposed to exist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRCTscQdZRY

Let me just say right off the top, if you’ve ever thought to yourself, “What if Criminal Minds, The X-Files, and a CBC cop drama got blackout drunk together and woke up in a decommissioned missile silo?”—well, congratulations, you’re either an executive at the CBS or the conceptual godparent of The Hunting Party.

So there I was, nestled into my couch with a ginger ale and even colder expectations when I hit play on this new series starring Melissa Roxburgh, Nick Wechsler, and Patrick Sabongui. Melissa, as you may remember, moonlighted as an NYPD detective in Manifest, that gloriously convoluted show about time-traveling airline passengers and metaphysical voice-mails from the beyond. Patrick Sabongui, for his part, spent several seasons of The Flash giving the "stern but supportive" cop face as Central City’s Chief of Police. In other words, if there’s a casting call for a show involving badges, search warrants, or emotional trauma buried deeper than a government black site, these two are on speed dial.

And speaking of black sites—The Pit. Yeah, that’s what they call the prison in this show. A panopticon-style facility buried in what might be an old Cold War missile silo, which screams, “We watched a YouTube video about Jeremy Bentham once and then promptly ignored 80% of it.” This thing is apparently so top-secret it makes Area 51 look like a Taco Bell. Of course, as the plot would have it, almost every single inmate escapes. All of them. At once. And not a whisper about it leaks to the public. You’d think a mass prison break involving the most dangerous killers known to man would trend at least somewhere on Twitter. But nope, not even a Reddit thread.

Our heroine Melissa—playing a character who signs up for this top-secret, off-the-books mission with all the skepticism of someone agreeing to join a multi-level marketing scheme at brunch—jumps on board without batting an eye. No NDA, no background check, not even a wellness quiz. It’s like, “Hey, do you want to help track down multiple serial killers who just escaped from a supermax facility that technically doesn’t exist?” and she’s like, “Sure, what could go wrong?”

Whodunit DNA with a Conspiracy Chaser

I’ll give the show this: the “whodunit” DNA is strong. Each episode gives off that satisfying, click-and-connect energy that makes you want to put on reading glasses and mutter, “Interesting…” while sipping hot chocolate and ignoring your responsibilities. There’s definitely a Criminal Minds vibe, with case-of-the-week killers and team huddles in dimly-lit rooms covered in corkboards and red string. If you’ve ever wanted to feel smarter than fictional federal agents, The Hunting Party is your moment to shine.

But then there’s that other vibe—the one where the show tries a little too hard to have a secret sauce. Maybe it’s just the age we live in, but if your series doesn’t involve either deep state agencies, ancient bloodlines, time loops, or some guy with a name like Dr. Cornelius Bleak summoning ancient evil in a basement, it doesn’t get greenlit anymore. This show leans into the conspiratorial angle harder than a flat earther at a NASA conference. You’ve got shady government types, hushed conversations in candlelit corners, and the kind of institutional secrecy that would make the Illuminati say, “Okay, dial it back.”

And while I enjoy a good conspiracy like anyone raised on The X-Files and post-9/11 cynicism, this one sometimes feels grafted on. Like it was bolted to the chassis of an otherwise functional cop drama because someone in the writers’ room muttered, “But what if the prison is run by aliens?” and nobody told him to go take a walk.

Cliché Buffet with a Side of Eye Rolls

Let’s talk about the clichés for a hot second, because The Hunting Party doesn’t just lean into them—it cannonballs. We’ve got the haunted female lead with a past so tragic it probably has its own LinkedIn profile. We’ve got the brooding male co-leads, all competing for who can be the most emotionally unavailable while staring at Melissa like she’s the last sip of whisky during the apocalypse.

And can we talk about this secret organization? It's so out of touch, it makes the Vatican look like a TikTok trendsetter. These guys pop out of the shadows in trench coats and start barking orders like they’ve just emerged from a bunker built in 1978, and nobody questions it. It's like, “Hey, we’re the Authority for Dangerous Things You’re Not Allowed to Know About -sign here, and maybe we’ll explain in Season 3.”

Support Cast or Male Model Convention?

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m picking on Canada—because let’s face it, we gave the world Schitt’s Creek, maple syrup, and the cultural gem that is The Littlest Hobo. But this show unfortunately falls into the Canadian TV trap: glossy production, decent acting, but the writing occasionally feels like it was edited by committee between two hockey intermissions and a Tim Hortons run.

Also, I don’t know who’s casting these supporting male characters, but it’s like they’re trying to corner the market on rugged jawlines and meaningful stares. Every episode feels like an episode of The Bachelorette where Melissa has to choose between the brooding bad boy, the sensitive tech guy, the “I lost my badge but not my honor” rogue, and maybe a reformed convict with piercing blue eyes and a tragic backstory involving a dog.

Story Arcs: Overlapping Like Venn Diagrams on LSD

There are so many storylines. I mean, you’ve got the escaped convicts, the mysterious origins of The Pit, the personal trauma of each investigator, the internal politics of the shady agency, the romantic tension, the odd flashback to someone’s childhood trauma in a cornfield—and that’s before we get to the subplot where someone’s dad may or may not be one of the escaped convicts.

It’s like the show’s writers found a narrative salad bar and just decided, “Yes, we’ll have a little of everything and we’ll stack it precariously high like a drunk at Old Country Buffet.” And while it makes for juicy cliffhangers and dramatic reveals, it also makes the plot harder to follow than a toddler in a sugar coma.

The Bentham Reference: Someone Did Their Homework

Now, I do have to tip my hat to the inclusion of the Panopticon concept. That was a deep cut, and someone in the writers’ room clearly took a Philosophy 101 class and actually remembered it. The Pit, with its omniscient central watchtower and architectural paranoia, is a direct nod to Jeremy Bentham’s vision of ultimate surveillance. It’s a nice touch of thematic depth - prisoners who never know if they’re being watched, characters who can’t trust what’s real, and viewers who are probably Googling “What is a Panopticon?” halfway through episode two.

But let’s be honest, the show doesn’t fully commit to this metaphor. It’s more of a “look how smart we are” Easter egg than a guiding philosophy. If they really wanted to go Bentham on us, they’d have the characters start doubting reality, questioning free will, and eventually just staring into the camera for 30 seconds in existential dread.

Final Thoughts: A Maple-Flavored Thriller That Tries Harder Than It Needs To

The Hunting Party is like a student film with a million-dollar budget. It’s earnest, stylish, a little messy, but you want to root for it. It knows the kind of show it wants to be: gritty, gripping, with just enough moral ambiguity to make you stroke your chin thoughtfully and mutter, “Hmmm.”

But it also wants to be too many things at once. It's like the showrunners were afraid someone might get bored and switch over to Law & Order, so they crammed in subplots, shadow agencies, and a small nation’s worth of unresolved daddy issues.

That said, Melissa Roxburgh is compelling as hell. She brings that weary determination that says, “I’ve seen things,” even if what she saw was probably the catering table at Manifest. Patrick Sabongui adds a grounded, world-weary presence. Nick Wechsler is… present. Mostly brooding. Occasionally blinking.

The show’s got potential. If it trims the fat, tones down the melodrama, and picks one conspiracy to die on, it could evolve into a tight, binge-worthy drama. But for now, it’s a stylish, overstuffed crime thriller with just enough intrigue to keep me coming back, even if it means rolling my eyes once or twice an episode.

Final Rating: 6.5/10

It’s no True Detective, but it’s got better lighting than Manifest and fewer jump scares than The X-Files, so that’s something.

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