Writer Stephen Moffat Has Created An Insightful Comedy Drama About Social Media & Modern Tech Troubles.
Ironically It Highlights The Power of Traditional Television As A Powerful Platform For Game-Changing Storytelling.
This All-Consuming ‘Do’s And Don’ts’ Guide To Crisis Management, Damage Limitiation, Self-Awareness, Self-Belief, And Self-Preservation Applies Across The Ages!
There’s A Comment. A Joke. A Story. Call It What You Will, It’s Almost Irrelevant Really.
Is Not A Rose Still A Rose By Any Other Name…?
Ultimately The Telling of It Was Overheard, Condemned As Sexist And Posted About On Social Media. Which Included Naming Its Maker.
It’s Breaking News And It’s Breaking Bad!
Madeline Is Out For Redress. But She Presents Herself As A Friend. Godfather Style She Clearly Figures ‘Friends Close. Enemies Closer’. By Doing So She Perfectly Positions Herself To Execute The Merciless Machiavellian Manipulation of The Man She Believes Has Wronged Her.
That Man Is Douglas And Social Media Is Her Tool of Choice As She Plots For Him To Manifest His Own Downfall As He Succumbs To Her Mind Games And Feminine Wiles.
But Are They ‘Wiles’ or Simply ‘Wicked Ways’? Suffice To Say There’s A lot of Inappropriate Touching And Commanding On Her Part Which She Strangely Gets Away With As ‘Complascent With Life’ Dopey Douglas Tolerates It (Notwithstanding He Makes A Few Lame Ineffective Protestations In The Process).
These Two Lead Characters Are Co.Presenters of A Fictional Long-Running TV News Programme Called ‘Live At 6’ On A Fictional TV Channel. Ordinarily They Get On. Madeline Has Always Looked Up To Him And Wanted To Get Into Television. He’s A Complascent TV Cliche Being Circa 20-30 Years Old Than Her And Really Rather Ordinary In Looks, Personality, And Midddle-Class, Middle-Aged Existence.
Madeline, Excellently Portrayed By Karen Gillan, Is A Seemingly Cold, Contemporary, Premium Social-Poker Player-Come-Brutal Bluffer. Simultaneously She’s A Much Younger, Attractive, Flame Haired, Modern Woman, Dealing With A Much Older Man, Dishing Out Ancient Shoddy, Shabby, Sexually Inappropriate Behaviour In A Work Situation, Which She’s Forced To Navigate. (Like So Many Women Before Her, In This World Where Certain Egotistical D–k Obsessed Dinosaurs Think That That’s Okay Behaviour Because Its Their Gender Privilege As It Were. Which of Course It Is Not.)
But Here’s The Thing. There’s A Twist. And You Don’t See It Coming. Notwithstanding It’s Obvious Madeline Is On Manoeuvres From The Very Beginning. The Joke, The Comment, The Story – What Ever You Want To Call It – Is Almost Irrelevant Because This Is Actually A Tale of Crisis Management. Both Hers And His. Irrespective of The Particular Technological Age.
Madeline Is Many Things. Complex. Multi-Dimensional. A Popular TV Star With A Large Band of Social Media Followers. Sexually Active On Her Own Terms. Just As Men Are As Standard. And She Takes Us On A Rollercoaster of Emotions As She’s Likeable. Then Not Likeable. Then Even More Not Likeable. And Then Actually Seriously Unlikeable.
But Then – Okay, As An Inreasingly Potentially Terrifying Situation Requires A Certain Robust Reaction, She’s Finally, Arguably, Possibly, Understandable.
We Sense Her Vulnerability. And Yet She Still Simultaneously Acts As Though She Doesn’t Need Anyone.
To Some People She May Appear To Want To Have Things Both Ways.
To Other’s There’s A Realisation That Even Heroes Need Playmates.
Therein Lies The Age-Old Recurring Question Which Has Never Yet Been Definitively Answered. Can It Be A Reasonable Expectation of A Modern Contemporary Woman In This Day And Age of So-Called Gender Equality, Female Independence And Women’s Liberation, That There Be Chivalry, Gentlemanly Civility, Unsolicited Assistance Or Basic Common Decency From A Member of The Opposite Sex? And For The Record, In This Country, Chivalric Orders Still Exist, And Are At The Heart of The New Years Honours List. So Technically, Officially And Facutally Chilvalry Is Not Dead!
Nonetheless, She Should Without Question, Have Every Expectation That She Is Not Sexually Harassed By Anyone At Anytime – Especially In the Workplace. And Especially By A Workplace Senior Level Colleague Abusing Their Power.
The Answer May Come Easier If We Look At Her As Simply A Human Being. Or If We Momentarily Place A Man In The Same Position As She Found Herself In. Or If We Look At Her Simply As A Friend. A Genuine Friend. Douglas’s Friend. And If We Remember The Truism That No Man (Nor Indeed, Woman) Is An Island.
She Also Brings To Mind Another Old Adage. The One That Says One Should Never Meet Their Heroes Because They Are Always A Disappointment.
Throughout The Progressive Four Episodes Which Include Revelatory Flashback Scenes We Are Presented With Excellent, Edgy, Classy, Intelligent Storytelling Which Has The Mind Racing, Wondering, Trying To Work Out What Happened At What Point And Exactly What Douglas Did Wrong – If Indeed Anything – And The True Exact Extent of His Offence.
In Episode One We Learn There’s A Joke There’s A Comment. A Joke. A Story. As We Say, Call It What You Will. And We Get An Interesting Insight Into Madeline And Douglas’s Respective Lifestyles And Their Colleagues And Families.
In Episodes 2 And 3 There Are Two Great Cliffhangers – The Kind That Make You To Shout “No-o’-o’-o’-o’-o” At The Telly When The Episode Ends At A Critical Moment Just When You’ve Totally Gotten Into It And Are Totally Televisually Invested.
Episode Three Is An Especially Hard Watch As We Witness And Recognise Cringey Weinstein-Esq Behaviour For What It Is, In A Hotel Room Set Against The Backdrop of A Lifetime Achievement Award Presentation At A Glossy TV Award Ceremony. All Taking Place On London’s Southbank. The Home of Many A Famous Real Award Ceremony And Glamorous Event In Real Life.
Madeline’s Manipulation Is Machiavellian, But The Murky, Mid-Life Crisis, Culminating In The Messed-Up Corporate Power Abuse That Provokes It, Gives Rise To A Will-She-Won’t She Dramatic Tension Which Is Almost Unbearable. And Is Utterly Nauseating.
What Makes It Such A Particularly Hard Watch Is The Fact That The Jurassic Moves That The All Powerful Office Offender Endeavours To Execute Are Based On Real Life Recognisable Truths. Lived Experiences. Some Exposed In Court Cases. Some Suffered In Real Life Everyday Offices. Prince Andrew And Harvey Weinstein Spring To Mind. Yet Women Across The Nation Will Know That Not All Cases Are Such High Profile. Possibly Some Power-Abused Men Too. Not All Sexual Predators Are Hetrosexual or Possess A Penis.
The Office Ogre’s Onslaught Seems Horribly Familiar And Relentless. Especially His Insistence That She Have A Drink, Only Later To Try And Excuse Himself By Saying “We Were Both Drinking” Which Is Especially Egregious And Highlights The Fact That Madeline’s Manipulation Manoeuvres Were Provoked By Another. But Is Provocation Justification?
It’s Not Just The Weinstein-Esque Element And Prince Andrew Style Self-Destruction That Is Based On Reality. There Are Some Humdinger Lines That People May Recognise In Terms of The Various Husband And Wife Teams That Have Appeared On Our Screens Presenting Programmes Together Over The Years. We’ll Mention No Names But One In Particular Did Come To Mind On Hearing These Lines, Which Raise A Controversial Debate.
Such Debate Might Be Couched With The Metaphorical Question ‘Should There Always Be Steak At Home?’ And If There’s Not, What Should Be Done About It And Who Is Responsible For Dealing With It And How? Afterall, A Restaurant Never Runs Itself. There’s Front of House And Back of House. Teamwork Makes The Dream Work!
This Particular Exchange Between Madeline And Her Co.Presenter’s Wife, Sheila, Sent The Jaw To The Floor Because of The Boldness, Bravery And Brazen Tackle On A Widely Reported Commonplace Situation In Marriage.
Wife, Sheila: Are You F—–g Him? Are You F—–g My Husband?
Madeline: No! Are You?
(Ouch!)
Wife, Sheila: You Act As If You’re F—–g Him!
Madeline: You Don’t!
(Double Ouch!!)
Coupling, Doctor Who, And Sherlock Writer Steven Moffat Was Definitely Keeping It Real When He Wrote Those Lines. That Sounds Like The Stuff of Real Research And Makes For Great Debate. A Debate Controversial And A Long Time Coming. A Particular Real Life TV Couple Actually Came To Mind. Mention No Names. And Moving Swiftly On.
Another Great Line Delivered By Madeline Is – “A Law For Women? Made By A Man?”
Again A Real Life Case Comes To Mind. The Recent Overturning of Roe v Wade And The Old Man That Took Credit For Reversing The Right of Young Women of Childbearing Age To Decide What They Do With Their Own Bodies When It Comes To The Decision To Take Their Pregnancies To Full Term or Not.
The Realtime Radicalisation of The Republican Party ‘Who When They Say Make American Great Again (MAGA) Mean Get Those Women Out of The Workplace And Back In The Kitchen Barefoot And Pregnant, As Well As The Re-instatement of The Enslavement of Black People, Is Real. And People Need To Get Real. Here Moffat Does And In So Doing Creates Real Life Relateable Debateable (In A Good Way), Deep Drama – With Intelligent Humour. And Yes, Politics Is Everywhere.
Ben Miles (L) Plays Douglas’ Superficial Producer. Simon Russell Beale (C) Plays Douglas’ Useless Agent. Alex Kingston (R) Plays Douglas’ Hypocritical Tabloid Editor Wife.
Alex Kingston Is Always Great To Watch. Here She’s Loathsome As A Newspaper Editor Who Knows The Anatomy of A British Breaking News Story And A British Tabloid Scandal And Tries To Handle This PR Disaster Personally And Privately As She Has Skin In The Game. She’s Hypocritically Motivated As She Has No Desire For A Taste of Her Own Medicine In Her Own Family. But Yet She Is Simultaneously Miffed By Her Own Daughter, A Member of Gen Z, As Is Her Personal Assistant, Both of Whom She Seems Strangely Tolerant, As They Drive Her To Utter Frustration. Nonetheless The Levision (Press) Enquiry Seems To Have Had Little Impact on Her Newspaper’s Practices And Her Attitude To Destroying Other People’s Lives. So The Sympathy Levels Aren’t Very High.
But Spoilt Though She Is, As We See Her Daughter Talking To A University Friend It Brings Home Just How Much Such So Called ‘Cancel Culture’ Can Devastatingly Impact Otherwise Uninvolved Family Members.
Ben Miles (Above Left) As The TV Producer Working With Douglas Would Be Funny If He Was Not So Repugnant As A Male, Pale, Stale TV Producer Consumed By Mind-Blowing Racist And Sexist Ignorance. This Is The Ultimate Irony Considering His Occupation. And It Highlights Why Diversity In Media Is So Important.
Real Life Newsnight Presenter Kirsty Wark Makes A Cameo Appearance As An Interviewer At The Renowned Annual Media Event, The Hays Festival. As If To Add Another Element of Realism, On The Same Night The First Episode of This Excellent Drama Aired, She Was Wearing Exactly The Same Shirt On BBC Two’s Newsnight Whilst Discussing The Drama of Rishi Sunak Announcing A Snap General Election. Now That’s Hot off The Press And Also Up To The Minute Fashion! Concious Fashion Is So Important These Days. Fast Fashion Is Out. Recycling Is In. This Drama Is Keeping It Real On So Many Levels.
However The Problem For Douglas, Played By Downtown’s Hugh Bonneville, Is He That He Fails To Keep It Real At All. Between His Paranoid Co. Anchor, His Spoilt Daughter, His Hypocritical Wife, His Useless Agent, His Painfully Superficial Producer, And His Own Mildly Meandering Middle-Age, He Seems To Have No Idea Who He Is Any More.
Consequently He Finds Himself Trying To Navigate The Social Media Landscape, The Contrived World of Television Production, His Lost Soul And His False Bravado Without Any Genuine Self-Awareness, Inter-Personal Skills Or Integrity. Had He Retained A Stronger Sense of His Own Values And ‘Who He Actually Is And Who He Definitely Is Not‘ He Coulda’ Woulda’ Shoulda’ Remained Live & Wise To Machiavellian Manipulation – Irrespective of Any Paricular Technology And Who’s Exercising It. And So In This Sense Too, The Technology Is Also Almost Irrelevant.
Interestingly, It Appears That None of These TV Execs And Media Players Thought To Consult The Station’s Lawyers. As Legally Trained Problem Solvers, Sometimes Called ‘Fixers’ The Media Lawyers Coulda’ Shoulda’ Woulda’ Have Long Since Reigned In, Helping Douglas To Avoid His Ultimately Self-Inflicted Cancellation. Also There Coulda’ Shoulda’ Woulda’ At Least Have Been A Dialogue About The Pros & Cons of Super Injunctions In The Age of Social Media And Just How Surprisingly Effective – Or Ineffective – They May or May Not Still Be!
The Ageless Concepts of Self-Belief, Self-Respect, Self-Care, Setting One’s Own Standards, Integrity, Loyalty And Genuine Friendships Transcend Any Technological Age. Any Culture That That Trys To Cancel These Values, Clearly Isn’t Worth Belonging To. Sometimes It’s Simply Time For A Re-Set. The Development of Technology Does Not Automatically Have To Mean The Demise of Humanity. This Fact Comes Sharply Into Focus In Episode Four. For Various People!
The First Episode Was So Good We Couldn’t Wait Weeks For The Next Three And So Binge Watched Them. It’s That Good & That Gripping With So Many Interesting And Intriguing Decisions!
Douglas Is Cancelled Is An Excellent, Edgy And Intellingent Four Part Comedy Drama of Our Social Media And Tech Times.
ITV Thursday 9pm From Thursday June 27 2024 To Thursday 18 July 2024.
Streaming On ITVX
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