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Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2024

#15 :  Baby Reindeer

A streaming sensation that dominated the cultural conversation months after its release, Baby Reindeer — adapted from writer-star Richard Gadd’s Edinburgh Fringe one-man show — may not make for easy viewing, but it’s an essential watch nevertheless. Based on Gadd’s own personal experiences being stalked, the series sees aspiring comedian and barman Donny Dunn (Gadd) forced to reckon with traumas past and present when vulnerable pub regular Martha (a magnetic Jessica Gunning) develops an unhealthy obsession with him. Effectively chilling on-screen emails from Martha, throat-clutchingly claustrophobic close-ups, and Donny’s propulsive stream-of-consciousness narration potently evoke the sheer inescapable horror of living with a stalker. But this isn’t only a gripping true-crime thriller. It’s a deeply personal exploration of cycles of abuse, shame, internalised homophobia, and the nature of victimhood that sees Gadd interrogate the morality of mining — even perpetuating — one’s trauma for art whilst simultaneously producing a truly unmissable piece of it.

I've not heard about this - is it about reindeers? No - I'm kidding.  I nearly watched this, but I thought it was going to be too awkward for me. But here we are...

Wow - it's AWKWARD. On so many fronts. I'm guessing most would say in a good way - I'm not a fan of awkwardness but this is very well written and well presented awkwardness (there are some clever ideas involved), so it's certainly good in that way. And quite the story it is too - it's weird because Donny is a comedian and in a lot of ways the drama is presented like a stand-up special with a very curious tale to tell but it's really not in the slightest bit funny. Empire actually hits the nail on the head with its final sentence above - there's a lot of deep stuff going on here.

it was certainly brave/foolish of them to claim it's a true story, but I guess at least some version of events has happened to Richard Gadd and he's certainly portrayed it unflinchingly. It may be written by him but he's most definitely not the hero here - it's very honest in putting his faults out there (and there are certainly enough of them). And the faults are dripped through nicely - it's a well structured tale with new (often surprising) aspects of the story introduced at regular intervals.

Jessica Gunning is also very good - it's the second time we've seen her on the list and she was good in The Outlaws, but this is a massive step up for me. She's on a hair trigger and you never know what she's going to do next, which makes the whole thing very unsettling. And Richard Gadd does a very good job of being unsettled by it - although he has the look of a man who's unsettled by lots of things.

But...

...I just didn't like it. I watched three episodes and was just taking ages getting round to watching the fourth because I just kept finding something else to watch - until I realised the reason for that was that I just didn't want to watch it any more. It was just too tense and too voyeuristic for my liking and sometimes you just have to accept that life is too short to make yourself do something you don't want to, But I do accept it's clever, well-done and has a lot to say about a lot of things, so check it out on Netflix if you are one of the few people left in the country who want to watch it and haven't yet done so.

#16 - Most enjoyable
#13 - It looks good, but makes no sense at all