We live in a time of controversy and shocking headlines, of shifting and uncertain ground – so what better time for shows about crooked media dynasties, historic sex scandals, and the lurid story of rocketry’s founding father? June offers all this and more.
Succession (June 3)
They say the old adage ‘write what you know’ is why there are so many novels out there about mediocre English professors contemplating having an affair – or, indeed, angsting over their writer’s block. Succession follows in this proud lineage, being an HBO show about a global media conglomerate.
The series stars Brian Cox (Manhunter, Churchill, and plenty more) as patriarch of the Roy family – under his leadership, the firm became one of the biggest media outlets in the world, but now, with him getting on in years and stepping back from the business, his cushily-employed children are starting to worry about their positions. Nothing in the press pack even mentions the words ‘Fox’, ‘Rupert Murdoch’, or ‘phone hacking debacle’.
The show was created by Peep Show co-creator Jesse Armstrong – who, in a crazy coincidence, has had a screenplay about the Murdoch dynasty knocking about since 2010, but was never able to get it produced. And, as a British media figure, probably personally knows a good number of the people whose phones were hacked.
Dietland (June 4)
With Harvey Weinstein in chokey, and Morgan Freeman the latest beloved Hollywood figure to have accusations of sexual misconduct raised against him, Dietland seems particularly timely as a feminist revenge fantasy. Based on the 2015 novel by Sarai Walker, who conceived of it as a female version of Fight Club, it follows Joy Nash (Twin Peaks) as Plum Kettle, ghostwriter for a popular teen style magazine – and, as such, keenly aware of how society tends to treat people as fat as her.
After endless diets, exercise regimes, miracle cures, and what have you, Plum finally bites the bullet and schedules weight loss surgery – but, in one of those weird turns that happen in TV shows, instead finds herself recruited by an underground feminist group. At the same time, high-profile men who have been accused of sexual assault start turning up dead. What could the common thread be?
Nash is a particularly apt choice for the role – she first entered the public consciousness in 2007 with her viral video ‘A Fat Rant’, in which she encouraged women to stop obsessing about their appearance and weight.
Strange Angel (June 14)
For most television programmes you can be fairly accurate in saying ‘it’s not exactly rocket science’, but, happily, in this case it doesn’t apply. This CBS series chronicles the life and times of Jack Parsons, rocketman, co-founder of Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and genuine card-carrying sex magician. Thus proving that no matter how much TV tries to sex up history with the likes of The Tudors and Game of Thrones, it simply can’t compare to what people were just wandering around getting up to over the 20th century.
The series has been rattling around in the pipes since 2014 – originally it was to be broadcast on AMC, though that fell through sometime in 2016. Since the beginning, legendary director Ridley Scott has been attached as a producer, and Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction) was cast as Parsons earlier this year.
It perhaps isn’t hard to see why AMC were reticent – while rocketry is decidedly the sexiest of sciences (certainly more so than any actual study of sex), the fact remains that the long, boring calculation of trajectories and fuel burn rates is not traditionally considered edge-of-your-seat viewing. And as sexy as the sex magick sounds, in this practice Parsons was drawing heavily on the teachings of ‘wickedest man in the world’ Aleister Crowley, which, while occultish and fascinating, are a little too oblique for the average audience. Still, if CBS have cracked it they may be on to a winner.
Castle Rock (June 25)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14tqKZYhgg
If New England turns up in fiction, as likely as not it’ll be a backdrop for spine-freaking terror. Between H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe alone, it would be America’s indisputable horror capital – and that’s without even mentioning the daddy, the one who stands above the rest, Steven King. The man’s been going for over fifty years, and has the kind of output more typically associated with spambots than with human writers.
King’s works have been adapted for screens large and small ever since the 1970s, with the best-known recent example probably being the film It in 2017. Now, Castle Rock brings it home to the fictional town of Castle Rock, somewhere in Maine, where André Holland (Moonlight) returns after many years’ exile after he was blamed for his father’s death.
The show draws on many of King’s novels – and there’s plenty to choose from – and will also star Sissy Spacek, who made her name as the lead in the 1976 film adaptation of Carrie.
A Very English Scandal (June 29)
Although it began airing in Britain in May, this miniseries comes to Amazon on June 29th, and dramatises the Thorpe affair of the 1970s, in which Jeremy Thorpe, the then-leader of the Liberal Party, was accused of attempting to murder a man who – allegedly – had once been his lover.
While by 1967 homosexuality was no longer strictly illegal in Britain, it was still looked down upon by most, and crucially, still had the potential to torpedo the career of anyone seeking to hold public office. Further complicating the matter was the fact that the Liberals – official bronze-medallists in UK politics for the past hundred years – were, under Thorpe, close to achieving a place in government.
The series is written by Doctor Who-reviver Russell T Davies, who cut his teeth on works that dealt with gay relationships, and stars whore-happy leading man Hugh Grant as Thorpe himself and Ben Whishaw (James Bond’s Q of recent years) as his bit of rough Norman Scott. Davies was quoted in Variety as saying “I’ve wanted to write this story for years, ever since I was 16 and saw it unfold on the news.”
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