Watching You: Aisha Dee and co-stars on their paranoid thriller with a hidden message

In June 2016, Mark Zuckerberg posted an image of himself from Facebook headquarters. He was smiling, posing inside a cardboard cut-out of an Instagram square, and thanking everyone for hitting 500 million users on the photo-sharing site.

But it was the background that got everyone talking. In the bottom left of the photo, on the desk was Zuckerberg’s laptop, and over where the built-in webcam was, a piece of opaque tape.

“It got me thinking, if he’s petrified of that, ohmigod,” actor Chai Hansen recalled.

When one of the world’s most connected tech founders has concerns about his webcam being hacked – and ask anyone who works in or peripheral to tech, they’ll tell you to cover your camera – then that is a red flag for everyone else.

The new Australian series Watching You taps into those fears about surveillance technology, and just how easily our sanctuaries can be invaded by silent peeping toms.

The six-part thriller was adapted from the novel by J.P. Lomare but transports the action from New Zealand to Sydney. If you weren’t feeling a little bit uneasy before, after watching the series, you’re going to be locking your phone in a drawer when you go to take a shower, and sweeping for hidden devices in every room.

Laura Gordon, part of Watching You’s ensemble cast, said, “Our psyche is very aware that we’ve got this technology, we’re all addicted to it, but we are not sure what the ramifications are going to be down the line.”

It certainly didn’t occur to Watching You’s lead character, Lina (Aisha Dee), a paramedic who is on the cusp of marrying her boyfriend Cain (Hansen). One night, on a whim, she sleeps with Dan (Josh Helman), a man she meets at a party but unknown to her, their tryst is being recorded by hidden cameras in the not-Airbnb.

It’s the start of a string of dramatic events as her trust in her friends and family is eroded, and she feels as if she’s constantly being watched and spied on.

Our surveillance culture is how Watching You hooks you in, but it’s being deployed to tell a story about coercive control and domestic violence. Those behaviours are not new, but Watching You makes it clear that the tools in an abuser’s toolkit has expanded.

“The story is a great example of how there’s no way for you to be immune from this,” Dee told The Nightly. “You can’t be so strong that you’re immune from being targeted by someone like this.

“We see Lina is actually a very confident, self-assured career woman, and she still found herself in this situation, despite thinking that, maybe deep down, she wouldn’t be able to be controlled in that way.”

Helman agreed that while the series comes in a package about surveillance, the real cautionary tale is this other element of the story, and how the two entwine.

“The show is having a conversation about coercive control relationships,” he said. “That is something that is a cautionary tale because we watch it happen in this show in real time. It’s an extreme example, but this sort of behaviour, in varying levels, is happening all across the country and the world.”

Gordon added that the intensity of the 24-hour news cycle means it’s hard to keep these conversations in public focus. Certainly the circus of world and local events with its minute-by-minute update of everything everyone says all the time has seen domestic violence and coercive control less top of the page than in years past.

The problem hasn’t gone anywhere though, and Gordon hoped the role of art, culture and storytelling can cast that light back on the issue.

“Anything that keeps it in the public discourse is a positive thing, and I hope that one day, there’s a world where it’s on the decline, but unfortunately, it is still going on.”

Watching You takes its tonal cues from the likes of 1980s and 1990s erotic thrillers, evoking the likes of Sleeping with the Enemy, Fear, Sliver and Body Heat.

Dee watched a different one almost every night before filming. “FYI, a lot of them are super problematic,” she said. “Every time I was like, ‘Wow, they were really doing that’.”

While Watching You was inspired by the genre, it was a gateway.

Gordon explained, “That’s what keeps us wanting more, to keep it entertaining, to have those jolts of adrenaline that make us pay attention.

“Then, underneath, you can create whatever you want the discussion to be, that you want audiences to come away with, and we are talking about surveillance and technology, and other thrillers can use it as a platform for anything.

“It’s a great guise for interesting psychological drama.”

Watching You is streaming on Stan from October 3