Blame what you will, television is feeling the effects of interruptions in the entertainment supply chain. That isn’t to say there isn’t as much TV as ever, but up and down the platforms and around the dial, streamers and broadcasters are filling the gaps with shows bought from abroad.
As with cars and microchips, the patriotic thing would seem to be to advocate for products made in America with American labor — and, as a local booster, made in Hollywood. But art, of course, is international, we are long past the time when studio back lots doubled for anywhere on Earth, and imported content, even of a middling sort, offers its own distinct slant on the world and how people live in it.
Debuting domestically Wednesday are two shows from opposite ends of the English-speaking world. From our closest television cousin, the United Kingdom, comes “Joan,” a true-crime story airing on the CW at 9 p.m.; “The Last Days of the Space Age,” on Hulu, flies in from Australia, the country that is also a continent. Both are period pieces, set in the later decades of the 20th century, and both feature actors who have been in “Game of Thrones,” though the odds of that happening are, after all, relatively high.
Read more: These feel-good Canadian comedies on the CW tackle growing up, parenthood and suburbia
Set in a Perth suburb in 1979, “The Last Days of the Space Age” has something of the vibe of American dramedies of the 1990s — “Picket Fences” or “Northern Exposure,” though not as quirky or well-written — flirting with serious subjects but in such a way that you note the seriousness without taking it seriously. (It’s a small-town dramedy, attached to a larger town.) The series is full — very full — of characters, each with their delineated problems or aspirations, but in the four busy episodes (out of eight) available for review, only a hint of narrative drive. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily — television is generally more about character than conclusions, and some of these people make decent company.
Radha Mitchell plays Judy, mother to Tilly (Mackenzie Mazur), an A student who dreams of going into space, and Mia (Emily Grant), a school-skipping surfer who dances to Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça plane pour moi.” I was going to make a joke about how little the copyright owners must charge to use that song, given how often it appears on TV soundtracks, but research reveals that it was in fact No. 2 in Australia in January 1979, so perfectly appropriate. The difference between the sisters is neatly shown by Mia drawing a mustache on Tilly’s poster of John Glenn.
Judy is married to Tony (Jesse Spencer), a labor leader at the power company that keeps the lights on, except when they turn them off — there’s a strike going on. It’s hard to imagine that this ramshackle organization, teetering on the edge of collapse, and run by a complete clown, could light more than half a block, but having no idea how Australian utility companies are organized, I’m just going to let that go. Judy works in administration, which as you might imagine causes some marital stress. Money is tight, the rented TV is about to be repossessed, Tony hasn’t paid the mortgage and Judy is half dead managing work and the household.
But wait, there’s more. Indigenous next-door neighbor Eileen (Deborah Mailman) is having an affair with Judy’s dropout dad, Bob (Iain Glenn), who lives in a trailer on the beach, near where a family of Vietnamese refugees (also neighbors), including Tilly’s friend Johnno (Aidan Du Chiem), sell pho and fish and chips, mourn the loss of a child and are harassed by young surf-thugs, who are also rude to Mia. (Just as Tilly’s ambitions are dismissed by a hidebound sexist guidance counselor, who suggests she find work at a local department store, Mia’s surfing skill are mocked by the boys. Feminism is just getting to Perth.) And then there is Mick (George Mason), Tony’s gay brother, an ambitious video journalist (“TV’s going to be huge in the ’80s,” he says, without irony).
Meanwhile, real-life events frame the action. It’s the sesquicentennial of Western Australia, and everyone on Tony and Judy’s cul de sac is excited. The orbit of the American space station Skylab is deteriorating; history tells us that parts of it came down in … Western Australia, in 1979. And the Miss Universe pageant is being held in Perth, with an international planeload of contestants determined to cut loose and party, and Mick determined to use the occasion to advance his career, focusing on Svetlana (Ines English) who is Miss USSR, and her handler, Yvgeny (Jacek Koman).
Everybody knows everybody.
In “Joan,” set in 1980s London, Sophie Turner plays Joan Hannington in an adaptation of her 2004 memoir, “I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief.” That Harrington herself met with screenwriter Anna Symon and has given the series a stamp of approval does not mean that the series is a documentary representation of the facts, even as Harrington previously set them down. Indeed, this being television, one would expect the opposite.
The main thrust of the season — the end suggests there’ll be more, but maybe not — is Joan’s desire to reclaim her young daughter, Kelly (Mia Millichamp-Long), whom she has put into care to protect her from the child’s father, an abusive thug. All she wants is to make enough money to provide the “stable environment” that social services tells her she needs, but — after some unsatisfactory encounters with straight jobs and harassing bosses — as her preferred method is absconding with other people’s diamonds (she swallows them), she’s continually undermining her case.
A short way down this career path she meets Boisie (Frank Dillane), an antiques dealer with a side in stolen goods and a sincere appreciation for nice things. He’s a criminal, but he isn’t a thug, and they become partners in theft and love. (Cue soft lights, romantic guitar music.) To the extent the pair are likable and intelligent — which isn’t exactly to say smart — one wants the best for them, but despite Joan’s occasional insistence that it’s time to go straight, something always gets in the way. Creepy bosses. Terrorists. Joan herself. She’s a natural, a self-starter, a quick learner, a hard bargainer, a mistress of disguise — really just putting on a wig, some good clothes and a posh British or American accent. And she insists on running the show.
Boisie: You love all this, don’t you? Dressing up, pretending.
Joan: Job satisfaction isn’t a crime.
Boisie: But the rest of it is.
It’s a straightforward production, with what I think of as classic British visual values — not exactly kitchen sink, but unfussy, realistic. Turner is very fine in a role meant to be at once empowering and tragic — which makes the series a little frustrating. As Maxwell Smart used to say, if she had only used her power for good instead of evil. But that would be another story.
Sign up for Screen Gab, a free newsletter about the TV and movies everyone’s talking about from the L.A. Times.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
