What to watch

👁 Baby Reindeer | 🤝 The Diplomat

26 April 2024

TV

Netflix

Baby Reindeer

Given the title, and the fact that it was created by a former stand-up comedian, you’d be forgiven for assuming Baby Reindeer was a “light-hearted sitcom”, says Dan Einav in the FT. In fact, “you’re unlikely to come across a rawer, more unsettling series this year”. Inspired by real events, the hit Netflix show stars Richard Gadd as a fictionalised version of his younger self: a jobbing comedian called Donny, whose life is upended when he becomes the target of stalker Martha (Jessica Gunning). Yet even as she makes his life increasingly miserable, he effectively does nothing to stop her. The question, as Donny keeps asking through this “self-interrogating narration”, is: why?

There are no “easy answers”, says David Opie in Empire. Moral lines shift and blur “in ways that are as unpredictable and unforgettable as Martha herself”. It’s brilliantly acted: Gadd, who originally told his story in a one-man stage show, is a “consistently charming presence”; Gunning will “break your heart one minute and threaten to break your legs the next”. It’s certainly not an easy watch – despite its comedy roots, this is essentially a tragedy, covering everything from “shame and mental illness to inept policing and internalised homophobia”. But it’s brave and it’s moving, and well worth a watch.

Baby Reindeer is available on Netflix, here.
Seven episodes.

In case you missed it

Netflix

The Diplomat

There’s no shortage of edge-of-your-seat geopolitical thrillers, says Matt Kamen in Wired, but The Diplomat – one of Netflix’s biggest hits of 2023 – is a cut above the rest. Keri Russell plays Kate Wyler, the newly appointed US ambassador to the UK. Expecting “an easy assignment in a friendly country”, she finds herself at the centre of an “international crisis” after an attack on a British aircraft carrier – a situation not helped by the antics of her ex-diplomat husband Hal (Rufus Sewell).

It’s Sewell’s performance that makes the show, says Mike Hale in The New York Times. Hal is “petulant, childish and arrogant”, but smart and charming enough to get away with it. Sewell manages to both embody the charm and show us the “flashes of doubt and nobility that redeem him”. Making a character like this feel so real is a feat “right up there with saving the world from global war”.

The Diplomat is available to watch on Netflix.

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