Don't underestimate flight attendants - we do more than serve drinks.
Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2021.
#43 : The Flight Attendant
Not only did The Flight Attendant start with one of the best premises of the year – an alcoholic comes to with a murdered man in her bed – but it was inventively, breathlessly told, and held together by an all-time great performance from Kaley Cuoco.
For some totally unclear reason, I watched the first half of the first episode, quite enjoyed it and never got any further. My lovely wife then watched it and told me I'd like it - but I knew it was coming in the list, so I avoided it. Until now!
And yeah, it does indeed start with a great premise - but to my surprise it manages to run with it pretty well. And in both directions in time as well, with some great cliff hangers and blind alleys involved. And rabbits - one of which is the size of a room. Obviously. I'm not really going to give you any details because you're best off without them but I will tell you that it reminded me of 24 - but instead of the central character being a secret agent, she's an alcoholic flight attendant. Which does play things out somewhat differently.
I will say this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that you would expect The Guardian to be very sniffy about but the description above is pretty accurate - it is a great premise, it is inventively, breathlessly told and it is a fine performance from Kaley Cuoco as Cassie. "All-time great performance" may be slightly overdoing things, but it's waaaaay better than you'd expect from the neighbour on The Big Bang Theory. And no, I'm not being sniffy about Kaley in particular - none of the actors on TBBT are exactly Oscar contenders. Well, except for Kumail Nanjiani, I guess - on account of him, errr, having been nominated for an Oscar.
So who else deserves a mention? Michiel Huisman as Alex is surprisingly animated and present (often multiple times in the same shot) for someone who dies in the first 10 minutes of the first episode and he plays the role well. Zosia Mamet is also good as Annie, Cassie's best friend, trying to keep up with the madness all around (but it obviously helps that's she a lawyer at a shady firm with a boyfriend who happens to be a top notch hacker). I'd also call out Michelle Gomez (if you've never seen Green Wing, then it's well worth checking out, if only for the cast they managed to assemble) who is excellent as Miranda. Who is an extremely mysterious character until episode 7 and she plays out her first scene with Cassie in an amusingly Scottish fashion - "ohhh, we are soooo fucked". Rosie Perez is good value as well (as always) but somewhat under-utilised with a particularly odd sub-plot. I'm also going to call out T. R. Knight as Cassie's brother Davey who has a very square role but he gets a mention for the excellent casting of the kids playing young Davey and Cassie - they're very well done indeed.
OK, so having covered the cast, I'm going to re-stress a point here that you probably wouldn't expect - this really is very inventively told. Obviously starting with a dead guy, you know (these days) he's going to be involved throughout but it's done very well. Really very well indeed. It does struggle to maintain the high levels of inventiveness throughout the entire season, but it does at least keep the story unfolding nicely throughout the episode whilst maintaining the tension. Whilst also managing to be quite funny and quite intriguing - even the flashbacks have flashbacks. And also quite touching at times as well, with some interesting (and surprisingly deep) things to say about responsibility.
All in all, this is considerably better than you'd expect it to be - so much so that even The Guardian felt the need to recognise it! Yes, I'm sure plenty of people are sniffy about it but they won't have seen it - because if they had, then they'd have to admit that it's very well done fun, with a surprising amount of depth.
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