The BBC has acquired Australian comedy-drama He Had It Coming, starring Lydia West (Big Mood, It’s a Sin), Natasha Liu Bordizzo (The Voyeurs) and Liv Hewson (Yellowjackets). The eight-part series arrives on BBC iPlayer on 8 August before beginning on BBC Three at 11.15pm on Friday, 14 August.
West plays Elise, an awkward British scholarship student who forms an unexpected friendship with fashion influencer Barbara, played by Liu Bordizzo. After several bad experiences with men, the pair decide to make a statement through a late-night feminist art project. Their plan quickly spirals when, after drunkenly defacing a statue of the university’s male founder, Elise and Barbara wake to discover the campus’s star athlete has been murdered and displayed beside their work. Cody Simpson makes a special appearance as the victim.
Knowing their protest now links them directly to the crime scene, the pair must erase the evidence connecting them to the statue and uncover who committed the murder. Their efforts become increasingly difficult as Detective Shepherd, played by Hewson, begins following the trail they have tried to hide.
As tensions rise across the university and more bodies are found, Elise and Barbara are drawn deeper into the case. The series mixes a campus murder mystery with questions around activism, privilege and what happens when a political statement is hijacked by a killer.
BBC Head of Programme Acquisition Nick Lee described He Had It Coming as “a fun, pacey campus whodunnit with a vibrant poke into gender politics”, adding that the series is “deliciously dark, comic and has a very bingeable vibe”.
The series was created and written by Gretel Vella and Craig Anderson. Emme Hoy, Belinda King, Nick Coyle and Hannah Samuel also contributed to the writing team, with Rachel House and Anne Renton directing.
He Had It Coming is produced by Jungle Entertainment for Stan. West and Liu Bordizzo also serve as executive producers alongside Vella, Chloe Rickard, Shay Spencer, Bridget Callow-Wright, Robert Taylor, Ellie Gibbons, Cailah Scobie and Alicia Brown.
For CultureCues, He Had It Coming sounds like a brilliant dark comedy. We are particularly looking forward to seeing Lydia West after loving her in Big Mood and It’s a Sin, making her a major reason to watch. The mix of feminism, activism and murder makes the series even more interesting, and it sounds funny, tense and very easy to race through. This could easily become our next BBC iPlayer binge.
All eight episodes of He Had It Coming arrive on BBC iPlayer on 8 August 2026.
Nikki Murray is a UK-based writer, screenwriter and founder & editor of CultureCues, covering film, television, music and pop culture. Her work focuses on storytelling and the moments shaping modern entertainment.