It’s really hard to create a successful series about the behind-the-scenes craziness involved in the making of a film or TV series, mainly because most of the audience watching doesn’t really care that things were crazy, as long as the finished product is good. Strong personalities, touchy auteurs, bottom-line-obsessed executives are interesting to people who work in the business, but it’s less interesting to those outside of it. A new series, created by Sam Mendes, Jon Brown and Armando Iannucci tries to take this formula and apply their signature bawdiness to it.
THE FRANCHISE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A studio lot in London. A woman walks through a revolving gate on her way into her first day on a new job.
The Gist: Dag (Lolly Adefope) is on her first day as the 3rd assistant director on Tecto: Eye Of The Storm, reporting to the first AD, Daniel (Himesh Patel). But it’s actually day 34 of a planned 117-day shoot of the superhero franchise film, and Dag finds Daniel on the soundstage in mid-panic attack.
Even though he’s the first AD, working for director/writer Eric (Daniel Brühl), Daniel is more or less in charge of making sure everything on set runs smoothly, which is why he’s mid-panic attack. He’s got a star in a fish man costume who continues to feel hot and stressed out; Adam (Billy Magnussen), who plays Tecto, is yelling his lines because of the CGI thunderstorm that will be on the green screen after post-production; and Peter, (Richard E. Grant), who plays The Eye, is ticked that that Adam is higher than he is on the call sheet.
Eric is a temperamental sort, so much that his assistant Steph (Jessica Hynes) is tracking his sleep with an app. Then Daniel finds out that Pat Shannon (Darren Goldstein), the studio executive in charge of the franchise, is coming to the set. His nickname on set is “The Toyman.” One request Daniel has for Eric is to add some lighting to the scene being shot, just to show the studio that, you know, he cares that the audiences can see what’s on screen. Eric responds by bringing in a light so bright that it gives both Adam and Peter eye sunburn.
Pat also bears some bad news: The fish people that Daniel has hung his entire script on were slaughtered in the sequentially pervious film in the cinematic universe, which is being shot at the same time this one is. Also on set is Anita (Aya Cash), the producer of the television side of the Maximum cinematic universe, who seems to have a history with Daniel.
While Pat tells Daniel that he seems to be the only grown-up around there, he does want to help, but knows the movie is over budget and behind schedule. Which is why, when Justin (Alex Gaumond), the movie’s producer, comes back to set to serve as a buffer between Pat and the crew, Daniel really goes in to a panic when Justin gets fired.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think the tone of Veep — Armando Iannucci is one of the co-creators, along with Sam Mendes and Jon Brown — with the on-set chaos of a show like Reboot.
Our Take: Brown wrote the first episode of The Franchise and Mendes directed it, but in a lot of ways it has Iannucci’s fingerprints all over it. How can we tell? The copious and creative cursing of course. In once scene, for instance, Daniel has Siri read his texts back to him and one is from his soon-to-be-ex-wife telling him he needs to talk to their son. “I don’t care if you’re busy with your shitty movie for masturbating fuck-nerds,” recites the phone’s very British Siri voice.
There are funny moments like these throughout the first episode, and the second episode sets up some of the relationships a little better, especially as Anita takes over as the film’s producer. But the inside baseball aspect of the show leaves us just as cold as almost any other show we’ve seen that takes place behind the scenes of a film or series being made.
Brown, Mendes and Iannucci aren’t the first ones who want to show audiences how the sausage is made on a big, expensive production, and the shows in this vein that stick around generally have characters that are relatable beyond just being irritating archetypes. And there’s a chance for that to happen. But all we see so far is Daniel being overworked and regretting ever going into show business and the rest of the characters mostly hating being on this film.
The only character we like is Adefope’s character Dag, who is alternately too chatty and very insightful. She seems to be the only character who isn’t a complete asshole. Now, any series Iannucci is involved in doesn’t have characters that give you the warm fuzzies. But, for some reason, assholes in show business seem to be much less tolerable than assholes in politics or the news business, to give two examples of other Iannucci shows.
Sex and Skin: None in the first two episodes.
Parting Shot: Over the credits, Adam and Peter are both asked about what the film is about in a BTS interview, and neither seem to be able to articulate it well.
Sleeper Star: We already cited Adefope, so we’ll cite Aya Cash as Anita here, mainly because we’re Aya Cash fans.
Most Pilot-y Line: “Could you shut the fuck up?” Pat says to Dag as she uncomfortably babbles while he’s on the phone.
Our Call: STREAM IT. There’s enough we liked about the first two episodes of The Franchise to recommend it, but we wonder how far the show’s accomplished producers can push the “crazy production of a high-budget film” theme without making things either absurd or annoying.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
