It’s a bit late but that’s on brand for me but I finally made time to sit down and write out my thoughts on the TV Show adaptation of Daisy Jones and the Six.
For those of you who do not know what Daisy Jones and the Six is, feel free to check out the full length goodreads summary of the book here. In short, this book is structured in an interview, documentary style format, where an interviewer is going through the timeline of the rise and fall of a popular fictional band from the 70’s known as “Daisy Jones and the Six”. You’re led into the story knowing immediately that this famous band has broken up and is no longer together and are led through the story from multiple different perspectives on why and how the band broke up.
It wasn’t an outlandish bet to predict that Daisy Jones and the Six would do well on screen whether or not you’ve read or even heard of the book prior to the show’s release. A lot of money was clearly poured into the production and promotion of the show and it casted two big named celebrities as the leading actors in the show. We’ve got Sam Claflin playing the leading man of The Six and Riley Keogh, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, as Daisy Jones. The casting was excellent and the perfect hook for a show set in the 70’s.
My high level review for the show is that it was pretty well done but I personally thought the first half of the show was better than the second half. I thought the pacing was a bit off towards the end and things felt a bit anticlimactic.
What I did like
As mentioned before, the casting for this show is absolutely brilliant. Personally, I think the winner of the casting is Sam Claflin. Riley was an amazing Daisy Jones but the first half of the show covered a lot more of The Six’s rise to fame and in those flashbacks, Sam did an amazing job building the evolution of a heavily conflicted character who is deeply unlikeable as he is likable. I know I’m going to get slack for saying that Billy is likable but by likable, I mean relatable. Maybe relatable is not the right word either, but as a character, readers can see how much Billy struggled with his addiction and his rise to fame. Taylor Jenkins Reid weaves these complexities into his character in such a subtle way in the book and Sam Claflin caught all those subtleties and brought it to screen perfectly. Riley really came off as a strong Daisy in the second half. I liked how the show gave us more insight into her past, something the book touched up on but didn’t languish in as much as the TV series. Also their chemistry was off the chart. They definitely had more chemistry than Sam had with the actress who played Camilla. The actor who played Warren also did an amazing job. I always looked forward to his bits because he always made me laugh out loud without fail. We love a bit of comedic relief when dealing with drugs, sex, and rock and roll.
I genuinely really loved the first half of the series. In fact, if I do rewatch the show, I think I’m only going to watch the first half lol. It felt weirdly cozy because things were just spinning up together and they were just simple people making simple music and doing what they love. It had that essence of “let’s move to LA and make our dreams come true” kind of vibe that infected all the youths in the 70’s. There was just so much hope, glamor, and art happening and the show sucked you right into that atmosphere.
I also appreciated the emphasis the show put on Simone’s story. I don’t know much about 70’s music, disco, or anything about the entertainment business back then. I especially don’t know anything about the LGBTQ and non-white side of the entertainment business during the 70’s. I liked how we got to follow the The Six and Daisy in the west coast entertainment business in California and Simone in the east coast entertainment business in New York. It was beautiful and heart warming to see Simone find her sense of freedom in New York in her queer friendly venues full of people who had the same secret as her but also looked like her. She was a good foil to Daisy in the way that we got to see her escape the toxic, overcrowded setting of LA and find people who truly support her and most importantly, accept herself for who she is.
If one is doing a review on Daisy Jones and the Six, one must talk about the music. I’m a weird person when it comes to music. I’m not someone who loses themselves in the lyrics but the music and the beats. I do have to explore the album a lot more than I initially did because I’m a chronic song repeater and if I find a song I like in an album, I’ll only listen to that one song until I get bored of it and then I move onto the rest of the songs. My current favorite song from the album is “Let Me Down Easy”. I love how much their voices play off each other in the song and also the music is great. I don’t know which song it was but I recently learned that the lead singer of Mumford and Sons was a songwriter on the album. The musical collaboration is so fun to learn about. Also… I’m just going to put it out there that I know this book and show is often compared to Fleetwood Mac but have you heard of the comparisons to The Civil Wars? I think they hold more merit and parallels to Daisy and Billy’s story.
What I wasn’t a fan of
Before I get into details in this section of the review, I’m going to state that this is a review on the show which is an adaptation. I understand why as a reader it’s frustrating to see a major key element of the plot redone in a show but it’s an adaptation. I’ve seen a lot of discussion regarding this in the Shadow and Bone Season 2 discussions so I wanted to state it here that while I do understand the opinions of readers, I’m critiquing this show as an individual show separate from the book. I will though talk about what I wish they did differently in the show and where I wish they didn’t veer off from the original text.
My main dislike with the show was the pacing.
As I said before, I loved the first half of the show more than the second half. The last few episodes had such great build up to this big falling out but at the same time kind of fell a bit flat. The first few episodes had this great upwards momentum as Daisy and The Six found their footing in the music world. The last episode of course was explosive as it centered around the band falling out. But the couple of middle episodes dragged a bit and I think it had an affect in making the last episode not as explosive as it could have been. I personally didn’t like how the last episode was an entire episode where we were continuously flashing back and forth between the past and present. It gave me whiplash. In terms of structure and screen writing, it was a genius move and I see why they did it but it may have just been a mood thing but when I was watching it, I was forwarding the songs to watch the acting scenes I came for. Watching ten seconds of a character falling apart and then suddenly flashing forward to the band singing on stage and then flashing right back to another character falling apart didn’t feel smooth and cohesive.
I also thought the show had one huge flaw and that was the relationship between Camila and Daisy, the flaw being that there was no relationship. Again, I’m not a stickler for accurate book to TV/movie adaptations but the entire last episode discussed and hinted at how there was this relationship between the two when the show did nothing to show this. It was a big tell don’t show kind of thing and it personally cheapened the effect of the ending for me.
What the book did that the show didn’t do
Now that I’ve critiqued the show as a show, I’m ready to put on my reader glasses and get into what I wish they did in the show based off the book and what non-book changes I didn’t really like.
The show definitely decided to make things a lot messier than the book which was interesting to watch unfold because the book is already pretty messy as a whole.
One thing the show really played with is the undeniable connection between the two leads of the band and making Daisy and Billy’s relationship into more of a physical affair. I liked their messy connection in the book because except for one instance, it never became physical. The book put more focus on the emotional connection they had and while there was probably some physical attraction between the two, it was their emotional connection that made their songs as good as they were. It was the subtle and not so subtle aspects of their emotional connection that blew up the band and Billy’s marriage and Camila’s dreams.
Talking about Camila, I feel like show version of Camila was not book Camila and I loved book Camila a lot more. Book Camila wasn’t involved in the band as much as she was in the show and she made it very clear throughout the book that she had her own path, her own life, and her own dreams. I think that the show version of Camila found that way of life a lot farther into the storyline and a lot of her character development happened off screen when it should have happened on screen. I also wish she did have a relationship or more interaction with Daisy and I’m so gutted the show didn’t end the same way it did in the book. One of the best scenes in the entire book was when Camila convinced Daisy to get help and sort her life out. It was Camila who saved Daisy and Camila who brought the band to fame. I think having this reference source of strong book Camila made me extra mad in the last episode when Daisy told Julia that her mother saved her life. In a way she did by introducing her to the band but that was it. I don’t know, I just think they could have done TV show Camila more like book Camila but that’s just a personal preference.
Overall, I think it’s a very good book to show adaptation and a good show on it’s own.