• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 9, 2025

The key ingredient in a new, eight-part MGM+ drama coming this Sunday is the actor who plays the lead character.

He is Joe Freeman (pictured above), who takes up the role of a 14-year-old genius-prodigy named Luke Ellis in “The Institute,” a creepy and engrossing sci-fi thriller adapted from a 2019 Stephen King novel of the same name.

Freeman is the 19-year-old son of actor Martin Freeman, who has been seen in dozens of movies and TV shows, and is probably best known for playing Bilbo Baggins in the “Hobbit” trilogy.

The younger Freeman is well cast in “The Institute.” He looks the part of the nerdy, unassuming Luke, but as we gradually get to know him better, we realize there is more to him than meets the eye.

The “Institute” in the series’ title is a shadowy, unnamed facility housed in a drab brutalist building deep in the Maine woods (Maine being a frequent locale for the novels of Stephen King, a state resident).

The facility houses genius children who have been kidnapped from their families in order to fulfill a purpose at the Institute that is not revealed in the first episode previewed by the TV Blog this week.

The head of this institution is a Ms. Sigsby, played by Mary-Louise Parker. The only other members of management we meet in Episode One are a staff doctor and a disciplinarian.

The disciplinarian is the one in charge of the facility’s kidnap team, guards and other personnel who reveal various degrees of sadistic tendencies.

Luke and Ms. Sigsby are the main focal points of the drama inside the Institute, but a third character emerges in the outside world -- a nomadic cop, Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes), who was forced to resign from a police department someplace else.

The cop wanders serendipitously into the Maine town nearest to the Institute and takes up a job on the town’s tiny police force. 

Before being derailed by a shooting gone awry in his former post, Jamieson was one of the most decorated cops on the force he resigned from. 

Officer Jamieson is undoubtedly on a collision course with the Institute, but how he will become involved in the stories of Luke and Ms. Sigby is not revealed in Episode One.

The show is shaping up as a battle of intellect. Based on what I’ve seen so far, Luke seems best-positioned to win that battle. 

“The Institute” premieres Sunday, July 13, at 9 p.m. Eastern on MGM+.