Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 4

 "I'm an avenging angel of dearth, from Newsnight. And you're Prince Andrew."

Wow. This episode is a tour de force of television scriptwriting and performance, and surely the extraordinary highlight of Karen Gillan's career so far. She truly is superb as Madeline here, as she finally and cleverly takes down Douglas, an unstoppable righteous force in an episode that brilliantly examines all of the issues arising from #MeToo. Wow.

So many elements here compliment the core message personally. We have the hapless, thick, casually misogynisic "comedian", tasked with coming up with "family friendly misogyny from a happier time". We have Douglas's increasing panic, followed by misplaced confidence. We have the slow destruction of Claudia's faith in her father. We have that gloeious confrontation between Madeline and Sheila in the ladies'.

And yes, we have Douglas cancelled, hot unfairly, because of a joke that truly was awful. There's nothing really unjust about that, despite the twist that his career ends because of an entirely separate joke for which he bears no real blame: the joke he did tell was inexcusable. And yet... Toby gets away with far worse, because Madeline, in a world of double standards, woukd bring herself down with him. And perhaps the point, the real point, as Madeline says, is that we men who are not like Toby really do need to step up.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 3

 "You do want the job, don't you...?"

Wow. This is a sudden, effective and blatantly deliberate shift of tone from the previous two epidsodes. And it's incredible.

The whole episode is a flashback to Madeleine's past, her first meeting with Douglas... and how she got the job. By the end, we pretty much know what Douglas said at the wedding, and how utterly unforgiveable it was.. And that isn't even the point.

The vast majority of the episode is a two hander between Madeline and Toby. Ben Miles is excellent but Karen Gillan is utterly sublime, playing the discomfort, fear and resignation of a woman who, despite her poise, despite being wise to the gaslighting, The script is outstanding here, showing us the horrible reality of #MeToo as experienced in reality by so many women. So many nuances are there in the script. The gaslighting, the power imbalance, the sheer horror.

And, in the end, Douglas opens the door, sees what Madeline is going through... and advises her, in those words we've heard before, that whatever she has to wade through, it's worth it.

Wow. This isn't the type of first class television I was expecting after the first two episodes. But it's certainly first class television.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 2

 "They execute gay people and it won't stop raining!"

Two episodrs in... and this is wonderful. Rain in Dubai, the crap comedy writer, the awkwardness between Toby and the taxi driver. But mostly, it's the wit, and the characters. Oh, the characters.

Madeline is much more centtre stage this time. We get to see first hand how she manipulates Douglas. On this occasion he's gone in there all cross and about to demand she remove the tweet... and she gets him to retweet it. But the whole thing is a kind of fight over Douglas between Madeline and Sheila, both of whom want to prep him for the interview he's going to have to endure soon... and then we end with Madeline dropping that bombshell. She's an utterly fascinating character, with far more depth to her than initially meets the eye, and so much cleverer than everyone else.

This is masterful storytelling, and halfway through the series we still don't know what Douglas' joke actually was. But the whole thing is engrossing. The entire cast shines, but Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston and Ben Miles are utterly superb. The real star, though, is the script. Steven Moffat can sooo do comedy thst makes you think.#

Is it me, or is Douglas inexorably headed towards absolute doom?

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 1

 "That's not ambiguity.That's plausible deniability."

Yes, I know, I've sort of had to temporarily pause my ongoing series that I'm blogging in order to frantically catch up with The Boys after three episodes bloody landed at once. Now ITV have gone and released a new comedy drama by Steven Moffat, so my schedule lies even more in tatters. Grr.

I must say, though, this first episode is bloody brilliant. The premise seems very ho-hum and meh: a news presenter is overheard telling a sexist joke at a wedding and suddenly his career is in the balance. At first glance it looks as though we're in for a tiresome, heavy-handed rant about "cancel culture"... but of course, not.This is Steven Moffat, and he's much cleverer than that.

What's particularly clever is the actual joke itself is held back. It's "Schrodinger's joke". We end the episode on tenterhooks not kmnowing how bad it is or how bad things are.

Hugh Bonneville is excellent as the eponymous Douglas, and so is Karen Gillan as his subtly clever co-host Madeline. But utterly standout performances from Ben Miles as the most cynical producer, and Alex Kingston as the gloriously weary Sheila, utterly steal the show. This is clever, witty, topical (we get lines like "I work with people who hack your phone") and very thoughtful comedy drama. I'm hooked.