I’ve been looking forward to “Douglas Is Cancelled” (now on BritBox) since reading a glowing review of it in The Spectator last year. For one thing, nobody is killed in it, only cancelled. Plus, it seemed to address, as few shows do today, an important aspect of contemporary life. And to do it, as the review made clear, with great humor.
Watching the first episode, I occasionally laughed out loud. The writing is brilliant. (Husband to wife about their teenage daughter: “It’s like we’ve lost her to a cult.” Wife to husband: “We’ve lost her to a university, which is the same thing only you still have to do their laundry.”) But the characters seemed a little undeveloped, as if their sole purpose was to deliver great lines. The writing got in the way of the drama. I thought of "The White Lotus," where none of the characters utter witty lines but the show is full of understated humor and suspense.
Last night we watched the second episode, which was even more disappointing. The characters seemed to be caricatures, with fewer good lines and lot of exaggerated behavior. It’s still interesting, and better than a lot of things we stream, but not the modern classic I had hoped it would be.
