A wannabe gothic thriller wrapped in melodrama, Shaque: Trust No One series doubts what it wants to become. It is the kind of series that wants to be taken seriously only up to the point where the food doesn’t burn in the kitchen.It throws in plenty of curated surprises to evoke curiosity, but it refuses to abandon the steady beat of a daily soap opera. OTT doesn’t have commercial breaks. So you pause, step away, and come back with a fresh mind to join Anvita’s (Parineeti Chopra) meandering search for her daughter in the misty Shimla. The newborn vanishes from the hospital room, leaving a trail of red herrings.

The plot thickens when the abductor subjects Anvita and her husband, Alok (Tahir Raj Bhasin), to a kind of psychological torture by sending an anonymous birthday photograph showing their missing Apeksha growing up. The yearly reminder keeps Anvita’s trauma fresh and gives director Rensil D’Silva time and space to weave a string of suspects into the story, underscoring the tagline: trust no one with a bleeding pen.

Eight years later, a new lead surfaces when Sakshi (Jennifer Winget) arrives in Shimla with a young daughter, leading an obsessed Anvita to claim the child as her own. The writers know we live in the age of DNA testing, but the script frequently leans on itnot as an investigative tool, but as a narrative convenience to delay the outcome.

To stretch the narrative into a seven-episode format, the makers overstuff the plot with subplots. The series detours into everything from infidelity and illegal surrogacy to typical saas-bahu friction, hallucinations, and hints of witchcraft. Instead of building tension, this approach creates artificiality, dilutes the pace, and blunts the primary suspense, turning it into a potpourri of pretentious thrills and a bloated family melodrama.

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Amid this artificiality, Anup Soni’s understated portrayal of Inspector Khurana stands out. Navigating an otherwise cliché-ridden territory, Soni breathes life into a man fighting a convoluted criminal conspiracy on the outside and a terminal cancer diagnosis within. It is a dual battle against decay, and Soni handles it with remarkable restraint and distinct Punjabi flair.

As the grieving mother, Parineeti brings vulnerability and intensity to the screen, but the script traps her in a single emotion for the entire series. At some point, the desperation becomes one-dimensional, and the performance stays strictly on the surface, without meaningful psychological shading. The rest of the cast spends seven episodes exchanging dramatic side-glances and muttering ominous warnings, reminding us OTT is the new GEC.

Shaque is currently streaming on Netflix.