Daisy Jones and The Six (TV series) - rating
TV series review #1
Overall rating: 71/100 ~ would recommend if you want something entertaining that isn’t a full-on “guilty pleasure” but doesn’t require profound engagement, but if you’re looking for quality shows there’s loads better than this
**Breakdown**
Entertainment (viewer engagement, pacing): 18/20
The series knows how to serve the viewers a solid dose of soapy drama to keep them entertained. Granted, it does have some slow bits here and there across its 10 episode run, but overall it does keep you hooked.
Technical features (cinematography, editing, score, etc): 16/20
Make up, hairstyling, set and production design are to die for. It doesn’t come off as costumey - where it definitely could have - and it elevates the overall feel of the scenes. That said, this masterfulness underscores the lack of inventiveness in the cinematography, score, editing, etc. Rather than take the superb aesthetic to the next level, these aspects of the series do their job, but not much else. Finally, for a show ostensibly centred around its protagonists’ songwriting talents, the songs showcased vocals more than lyrics. Personally, I liked a couple of them (Let me down easy, Aurora) but most were forgettable and some became annoying to listen to at one point (Regret me — just a personal opinion though, I can see how others like it).
Characters (casting, performances, relationships, character development & arcs, etc): 12/20
This category is where my main issue with this series lies. Daisy Jones - in my opinion, no hate to the actress - was either not well casted or well written. Though she does have a gorgeous voice, she lacks the X factor her character is supposed to have. Daisy Jones ends up coming off as an annoying, bitchy wannabe manic pixie dream girl all throughout — which is not what you as a show runner should want your viewers to think of one of the two leads, especially if it’s not deliberate or controlled. Though Billy’s writing was pretty formulaic as well, Sam Claflin brought a personable tinge to the character that made Billy more sympathetic in spite of a predictable, lackluster arc. Karen, Graham, Warren, and the other guy - who was so irrelevant I can’t even remember his name - were so one dimensional it was appalling. Simone and Teddy were surprisingly humane and well written standouts, as was Camila — but they didn’t get enough screen time to fully delve into their arcs or development.
Story (plot, rise and fall of action, flow, credibility, central events, etc): 11/20
Like I mentioned at the beginning, most of the entertainment comes from tropey twists that can either be easily predicted or are so far fetched they ask the viewer to suspend disbelief to a point that no serious TV series does. The rise and fall of action, especially at the beginning, flows awkwardly and relies on shock value events that are then not properly incorporated into the latter parts of the story. The final events and ending are both cliché and horribly written relative to the higher quality moments in the show. I salvage the choices made in terms of choosing what actually happens between Billy and Daisy, as well as the moments where characters’ actions consequences caught up to them.
Messaging/themes (central symbolism, choices in relation to message, overarching themes and their development, etc): 14/20
The film deals primarily with the themes of family, art, mental health and addiction — and in my view, it does so in a fairly clear, effective way. Nothing groundbreaking, but nothing wrong either for the most part at least. However, in terms of the overall messaging, the choices made at the end fundamentally change the impact of the series as whole in what in my view is a negative way. I have serious qualms with how they went about wrapping up the character arcs, specifically in cases where these were intertwined because of the story. Thankfully, the high level messaging that there is a way out of struggles with mental health and addiction remains and is the reason why this category gets a higher rating than others.