I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
Netflix Originals have been a bit hit and miss: for every House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and Daredevil, there’s been a Marco Polo, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Bloodline. To be fair, even the worst of that latter group are well made, well cast and not actually bad. But they’ve never excited in the same way or hit the heights of the former group.
Unfortunately, with Grace and Frankie, we have an addition to the miss group, rather than the hit. It reunites 9-5 stars Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as the eponymous stars of the piece and the wives of Sam Waterston (The Newsroom) and Martin Sheen (The West Wing) respectively*. Married for 40 years and both with kids, they all seem set for a happy retirement until Waterston and Sheen reveal that they’re both gay and have been having an affair together for the past 20 years. Now gay men can legally marry in US, they both want divorces so they can finally be with the man they love. That leaves Tomlin and Fonda stuck in a beach house together, trying to overcome their animosity to help each other through a divorce.
So, with Marta Kauffman (Dream On, Veronica’s Closet, Friends) and Howard J Morris (Home Improvement, According to Jim) as show runners, and the likes of Alexa Junge (Friends, The West Wing, United States of Tara) contributing scripts, you’d be forgiven for expecting this to be both a comedy and funny.
But as my brief summary above intimates, it’s really not. Certainly, the first two episodes are deeply depressing dramas about two heartbroken wives going through traumatic divorces. There are attempts at jokes in there, certainly, most of them revolving around Tomlin’s hippy-dippy qualities (she has a shrine, takes peyote and goes on spirit quests), but surrounded by the misery of the plot, they just fall as flat can be.
It has a central cast, each of whom has won an Oscar, and it has a supporting/guest cast that includes the likes of Craig T Nelson, Michael Gross, Ernie Hudson, Geoff Stults, Joe Morton, Corbin Bernsen, Barry Bostwick, Christine Lahti and more. And, as with everything Netflix, it’s very well made.
But Grace and Frankie certainly isn’t funny and unless you happen to be a 70-year-old woman who’s gone through a divorce because her husband is gay, I really wouldn’t recommend it to you – and even then, you should probably wait a while since it’ll just make you sad.
I think I’ll go and buy my wife some flowers now, while you watch the trailer: it’s basically got all the bits that might manage to make you smile even slightly.
As is tradition in upfronts week in the US, following on from NBC’s typically inept content, today we have trailers for Fox’s largely competent but stupid and soul-less productions. As there’s quite a few of them, join me after the jump for:
Grandfathered, in which ageing Peter Pan playboy John Stamos discovers that not only does he have a son, he has a newborn granddaughter, too
The Grinder, in which Rob Lowe, who’s an actor who plays a lawyer on TV, helps his brother Fred Savage to become a better real-life lawyer, whether Savage wants him to or not
The Frankenstein Code, which is the very definition of a ‘loose adaptation’ of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Lucifer, an adaptation of the DC comic, in which the devil gives up his day job, and decides to help solve crimes
Minority Report, a spin-off from the Tom Cruise movie
Rosewood, in which a Miami private pathologist with his own lab solves crimes the cops can’t
Only one of these looks any good. Can you guess which one?
Outrageous Fortune is one of the most popular and indeed seminal shows of New Zealand television. A comedy drama about the Wests, a family of New Zealand criminals trying to go straight under the leadership of their mother, Cheryl, while dad Wolf is in prison, it lasted six seasons and 107 episodes, making it the longest running drama series in New Zealand TV history. Without it, the New Zealand TV industry wouldn’t be what it is today as it launched the careers of many both in front of and behind the camera, and shows like The Almighty Johnsons, The Brokenwood Mysteries and The Blue Rose wouldn’t have been made at all.
In fact, the US TV industry would look a little different, too, as not only was there a US remake, Scoundrels*, but Banshee star Antony Starr got his big break in Outrageous Fortune as identical twins Jethro and Van West.
The show finished in 2010 but coming soon to its original home, TV3, is a prequel set in the 70s called Westside. Starting in 1974 and progressing to 1977, the six-part series will tell the story of safecracking granddad, Ted West, and his wife Rita – played again by The Blue Rose’s Antonia Prebble, who played both Rita and Rita’s granddaughter Loretta in the original series – as well as their son Wolf.
And here’s the first trailer! Fans of the original series might spot a few familiar faces, albeit with some fancy moustaches.
* In the UK, Sky Living aired the original series and ITV remade it as Honest, with Amanda Redman.
