This Emmy season has seen the rise of lots of strong new programs that could well attract the attention of voters, from dramas like “The Pitt,” “Paradise” and “Landman” to comedies “The Studio,” “Nobody Wants This” and “The Four Seasons.” But nothing has made the impact of “Adolescence,” the four-episode British limited series about a 13-year-old boy who is arrested in the stabbing death of a classmate.

The series, created and produced by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham (who also stars as the boy’s father, Eddie Miller), has had more than 140 million views on Netflix, making it the second-biggest English-language series ever on the platform, trailing only “Wednesday.” It also topped all other shows by winning three awards at the Gotham TV Awards: Breakthrough Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Limited Series for Graham and Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Limited Series for Owen Cooper, who plays the boy and had never acted professionally before being cast.

All four episodes in the limited series were shot in single, uninterrupted takes of at least 50 minutes, shot twice a day for a week after two weeks of rehearsal and blocking. The first episode moves from a car to the Millers’ home, where son Jamie is arrested, to the police station where he’s detained and interrogated; the second roams the halls of the school Jamie attended as detectives try to understand a brutal crime that seems connected to the online incel culture of frustrated young men; the third is a harrowing conversation in jail between Jamie and a psychologist played by Erin Doherty; and the fourth follows the Miller family a year later.  ‘

“Our objective was to create something that would spark conversation, and it really has done that,” Graham said in an interview with TheWrap. “We threw a beautiful stone into a pond, shall we say, and the ripple effect has been…” He paused. “Well, we didn’t expect it to create a bit of a tsunami, do you know what I mean?”

That tsunami puts “Adolescence” in a similar spot in the Emmy race to last year’s “Baby Reindeer,” another provocative British drama on Netflix. TheWrap’s Limited Series/Movies awards magazine devoted its cover story to Cooper, but we also spoke to Graham about the genesis of the show, its wrenching final scene and why it never tries to explain the crime at its center.  

When I spoke to Jack Thorne, he said that one of your stipulations from the beginning was that you didn’t want to do anything that blames the parents. What were your priorities in telling this story?
I just wanted it to be a story that people could relate to. I think when we see these stories on the news, we always think, “Well, that happens to other people.” And I just really wanted the audience to come away thinking, “That could happen to us, or it could happen to someone I know.” To have that kind of relationship with it, where it’s a plausibility.

I didn’t want Jamie to come from a family where his father had beaten him as a child or was violent with his mother or his sister. I didn’t want his mom to be an alcoholic, or for somebody in his family to have molested him in any way, shape or form.

As a conventional kind of storyteller, I understand that. But I wanted to look at everything and say maybe we’re all slightly accountable, the educational system as well.

Click below to read the rest of the interview with Stephen Graham.