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Little Disasters, while certainly coherent and not a disaster itself, also isn\u2019t the kind of show that demands anyone\u2019s fixed attention and feels deliberately overstuffed with exposition to ensure that scroll-watchers can keep up with the action onscreen. And although Paramount+\u2019s new British series bears some resemblance to Big Little Lies, it\u2019s really a laundry-folding show at heart. You might even be able to get in a little vacuuming and still not miss a beat.<\/p>\n
With the miniseries, Roughcut Television, the production company behind comedies like Stath Lets Flats<\/a> and People Just Do Nothing<\/a>, further expands its roster of dramas. An adaptation of Sarah Vaughan\u2019s novel of the same name, the show is the most palatable of binges, the kind where the stakes are high-ish but not completely devastating. And the series treads that line of not upsetting anyone too much. It fosters concern, sure, but does not create attachment to its characters or story.\u00a0<\/p>\n Little Disasters\u2018 approach to characterization is by type. There\u2019s Liz (Jo Joyner), the kindly doctor with a drinking problem; Charlotte (Shelley Conn), the rich one with some home-wrecking tendencies; Mel (Emily Taaffe), the vaguely artsy, Irish one whose dickhead partner is broke and starting a record label; and Jess (Diane Kruger), the ideal mom gone bad who may or may not have seriously injured her 10-month-old baby. Jess is the lone American in this group, the blonde, blue-eyed, \u201cperfect\u201d mother who\u2019s steeped in all of this controversy and MAHA-coded. She even gets kind of roasted by detectives for being anti-NHS and coming from a country with \u201cno public health system.\u201d Though the other three moms, in one flashback scene, appear to agree that they \u201cwould hate [Jess] if she weren\u2019t [their] friend\u201d\u2014while she\u2019s within earshot, no less\u2014and the four women have little in common in general, a birthing class that they all attended has served as a strong enough connecting thread between them to have kept them palling around for the past ten years.<\/p>\n So what did Jess do anyway? Well, it certainly looks like she fractured her little girl\u2019s skull or was at least negligent enough to have missed the signs of distress, needing to be roused by her husband (just home from carousing) to take their baby to the hospital. The attending pediatrician turns out to be her old birth-class buddy Liz; and due to the nature of the infant\u2019s injury and the weird, cagey answers Jess mutters when asked about it, she is left with no choice but to report the situation to social services. And so begins the friends\u2019 nightmare, with Liz racked with guilt for ratting on her former bestie and Jess under investigation by child protective services and the police.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n It\u2019s a shame that, in order to maintain the air of mystery, Kruger is left to play Jess so vacantly. Fine, she explodes from time to time when she\u2019s accused of things, forbidden from seeing her children, or overwhelmed by parenting tasks. But she is an otherwise blank slate, leaving abundant room for the audience\u2019s judgments to stick to her. She remains inscrutable for most of the show, and it makes for a bit of a boring performance to behold, one that\u2019s as beige as her baby\u2019s nursery. Joyner, as Liz, has more to do as the the everywoman trying to be a good friend and doctor, to the point where she is driven to drink. Taafe\u2019s Mel, meanwhile, has the most going on as the pal trapped in a bad marriage and Jess\u2019 court-ordered supervisor for visits with her children.\u00a0<\/p>\n But implausibility unfortunately hovers over this show. For one thing, a birthing class becoming the entire social world of a group of women\u2014and one made up of people as different as these four\u2014for more than a decade stretches the limits of the imagination. It\u2019s also unlikely that, in all of her years of practicing medicine, Liz is only just now learning about post-partum anxiety, especially considering that these friends\u2019 social identities revolve around their shared role as mothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n It is admirable that Disasters offers some validating platitudes as the friends, in their respective talking heads, confirm how difficult motherhood can be. A line like \u201cNo one judges you more than you judge yourself\u201d succeeds in making a parent watching at home feel really seen. Throw in some light intrigue and a potential love triangle, and the show becomes just thrilling enough to serve as a companionate distraction while cranking out tasks that can be done with your brain half on. Which is all to say that it\u2019s great for second-screening but far from great TV.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n Meredith Hobbs Coons is a contributor to The A.V. Club. Little Disasters premieres December 11 on Paramount+.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article
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