One marriage, two reviews: The Duchess

The Duchess. Photo / Supplied

SCORES:
Value: 5
Entertainment value: 1

HE SAW

There are a lot of things I dislike about this show. The story is weak, the jokes are bad and it contains more total minutes of bad acting than any show I can remember. After episode one - and again after episodes two through four - I wanted to turn it off and never turn it back on again. I convinced Zanna we should skip episode five and only watch the last few minutes of episode six to find out what happened but that was out of professional obligation, not because I cared.

Zanna had a lot to say after it finished and I kept waiting for a break in her monologue because I needed to go to the toilet. I had got up off the couch and was standing in the middle of the lounge. I was jiggling up and down and had both my hands on my butt. Did she not notice or was she being deliberately obtuse? I don't believe I could have made my needs more obvious but she wouldn't stop speaking. Eventually, I had to interrupt her. I stayed in the toilet so long that when I came out she had already gone to bed. That wasn't necessarily my aim but I wouldn't say I was unhappy about it. The next morning, almost as if we had never slept, she started talking about the show again. I can't for the life of me recall what she said but I would never argue with her right to say it.

Much of the press attention on The Duchess has focused on the fashion choices of its main character, which are opulent and extravagant and typically very expensive-looking. I get now, because I've now read many of these articles, that the style is a political statement. It's a rebuke to the televisual stereotyping of single mothers, who are typically depicted as sloppy and messy and unable to get properly dressed. I love a good political statement and when I discovered this one, it made me feel bad about all the terrible things I said earlier about the show, despite the fact they're true.

Television shows perform many roles in society and entertainment is one but encouraging us to think differently about the world in which we live is another and that one's far more valuable. I wouldn't necessarily advocate for watching this show but I would strongly advocate for its right to exist.

SHE SAW

Right away, I found the protagonist of The Duchess annoying - a narcissistic single mother with an unhealthy co-dependent relationship with her 9-year-old daughter. She's abrasive and crass, someone who, in the presence of strangers, casually drops questions like: "Okay, so how about this weekend we do anal?"

Her outrageous wardrobe sits somewhere between Carrie Bradshaw, Absolutely Fabulous, and RuPaul's Drag Race - this woman delivers her child to school dressed as if she's attending the MTV Video Music Awards. As someone whose makeup bag contains a tube of dried out 2-year-old mascara, a broken lipstick, crumbling eye-shadow that has been pulverised by a 3-year-old, pencil shavings and something gooey in the bottom, I found her meticulously curated presentation both unrealistic and a personal attack against my face and wardrobe.

The Duchess is Canadian-born, UK-dwelling stand-up comedian Katherine Ryan's first foray into acting and you can tell. While she gets better as the series progresses, I just couldn't get behind this woman who claimed to be in love with her cartoonishly dreamy boyfriend but wouldn't commit to him; a woman who would have sex with her ex at his request despite the very thought of it making her physically sick; a woman who took her 9-year-old to a fertility clinic so they could make "our baby" together.

Then, in the second to last episode, something unexpected happened - I cried. Katherine took her daughter for a haircut and, as her daughter squeezed into the toy car she'd clearly grown out of, Katherine watched with tears cascading down her botoxed face. Her baby was growing up and away from her. Finally a moment of truth and one I could relate to. I later discovered this was taken from Ryan's real life, which is probably why it's one of the few moments that hit the mark.

Television has been riddled with anti-heroes in recent years - serial killers, philanderers, mobsters. We accept and even love them despite the fact they're literal murderers. Why? Because men are allowed to be flawed. Men can be complex. Men are accepted for their imperfections. It's the reason a man accused of raping a minor is able to hold the highest position in the White House. Women? Not so much. Women must be likeable, relatable and nurturing. Katherine isn't any of those things and she'll be judged harshly for it. She'll probably be called annoying.

The Duchess is far from a perfect series but I'm glad female comedians are finally getting the opportunity to share the multifarious experiences of women. Jerry Seinfeld couldn't act either and he got nine years on prime time. I'd be interested to see what Ryan can do with two.

The Duchess is streaming now on Netflix.