Daisy Jones & the Six

Daisy Jones & the Six is an American musical drama television miniseries developed by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Set in the Los Angeles music scene of the 1970s, the series charts the rise and fall of the fictional titular rock band through a documentary style series of interviews with the members and footage of concerts and recording sessions, complete with vocals by series leads Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. Taylor Jenkins Reid was partly inspired by her experiences growing up and watching Fleetwood Mac performances on television. It also stars Camila Morrone, Suki Waterhouse, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse, and Sebastian Chacon as the band members.

Daisy Jones & the Six premiered on Amazon Prime Video on March 3, 2023, and received generally positive reviews from critics. It earned multiple nominations at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actress for Keough, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Morrone.

Premise

Daisy Jones & the Six follows a rock band in the 1970s from their rise in the LA music scene to becoming one of the most famous bands in the world; the series also explores the reason behind the band's split at the height of their success.

Cast and characters

Main

• Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, the lead singer and songwriter
• Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne, the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter
• Camila Morrone as Camila Alvarez, Billy's wife and the band's photographer
• Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko, the keyboardist
• Will Harrison as Graham Dunne, the lead guitarist and Billy's brother
• Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree, the bassist
• Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas, the drummer
• Nabiyah Be as Simone Jackson, Daisy's old roommate and future disco singer
• Tom Wright as Teddy Price, the producer
• Timothy Olyphant as Rod Reyes, tour manager

Recurring

• Seychelle Gabriel as Julia Dunne, the interviewer and Billy and Camila's daughter Naya Kodeh portrays Julia as a child.
• Jacqueline Obradors as Lucia, Camila's mother
• Ross Partridge as Don Midleton, a record producer
• Ayesha Harris as Bernie, a disc jockey and Simone's lover

Guest

• Jack Romano as Chuck Loving, the original bassist for the Dunne Brothers
• Nick Pupo as Jonah Berg, a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine
• Nicole LaLiberte as Jean, Daisy's mother
• Chris Diamantopoulos as Lee Parlin
• Olivia Rose Keegan as Caroline
• Gavin Drea as Nicky Fitzpatrick, Daisy's husband
• Lily Donoghue as Lisa Crowne, an actress who later becomes Warren's wife
• Amanda Fix as Margaret at age 14 (in episode one)

Episodes

Production

Development

The series was announced on July 25, 2019. The series was adapted for television by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who serve as executive producers alongside Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter. Taylor Jenkins Reid, the author of the novel, also produces the series. Production companies involved in the series are Hello Sunshine, Circle of Confusion and Amazon Studios.

Casting

In mid November 2019, it was announced that Riley Keough and Camila Morrone had joined the cast of the series. In February 2020, Sam Claflin, Suki Waterhouse, Nabiyah Be, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse, and Sebastian Chacon joined the cast of the series. In October 2021, Tom Wright and Jacqueline Obradors were cast in starring and recurring capacity, respectively. The following November, Timothy Olyphant joined the series in a recurring role.

Filming

The series was originally start to production in April 2020, but postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It began filming in late September 2021 and wrapped in early May 2022 in New Orleans.

Music

The single "Regret Me" from the fictional band in the series, Daisy Jones & the Six, was released on January 25, 2023. The second single "Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)" was released on February 15, 2023. A full-length album, Aurora, was released by Atlantic Records on March 3, 2023. The album's lead vocals were performed by Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. It was composed, performed, and produced by Blake Mills, with additional production by Tony Berg and in collaboration with musicians such as Chris Weisman, Jackson Browne, Marcus Mumford, and Phoebe Bridgers.

Release

The limited series was released on Amazon Prime Video on March 3, 2023, with the first three episodes available immediately. The first episode was shown in US theaters for one night only to Amazon Prime members on March 1, 2023.

Reception

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 69% approval rating with an average rating of 6.7/10, based on 107 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Daisy Jones & the Six comes up short at evoking the rockstar credentials that were implied on the page, but the lively duet of Riley Keough and Sam Claflin give this adaptation enough verve to occasionally bring the house down." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 62 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Critics praised the performances of the ensemble cast and music. Nina Metz of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "Musically, Keough and Claflin are a good match. She has a strong, clear voice that bolsters their harmonies, but he can hold his own too, and they're credible as performers. [Keough] looks at home on stage and finds a way to channel some of [Stevie] Nicks' physicality and flowy-wispy stagewear without mimicking her outright," while Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly commented Keough "excels at self-destructive self-confidence".

Reviews were critical of the show's pacing, writing, and documentary framing device. Writing for Vulture, Roxana Hadadi said, "For all the series' delights—the chemistry between Sam Claflin and Riley Keough, the constant scene-stealing by Camila Morrone, the fizziness of the original songs—there's an unignorable smallness throughout ... The series shrinks Reid's novel (partially inspired by the infamously stormy relationship between Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham) into a claustrophobic love triangle mostly uninterested in looking beyond its three points, and indifferent to the paranoia and exhilaration of the 1970s. Creative process is recurrently pushed aside for romantic pining, and there's no imagination for artistic motivation past jealousy and lust." Hadadi opined "the series' best scenes are the ones that plunge into how they developed their sound, wrote their songs, and complemented or challenged each other."

Others lamented the underdevelopment of the other band members as characters. Metz wrote, "The series is primarily the Billy and Daisy show, with the other members of the band relegated to supporting status, including Suki Waterhouse as a character based on Christine McVie. While the keyboard can clearly be heard on the tracks, the character's actual musical contributions are rendered invisible." Metz added, "That's part of the fun of going behind the scenes. What does creative collaboration look like? Is it too boring to film? Maybe. But I would argue Peter Jackson's 2021 Get Back, the documentary made from old footage of The Beatles working on their final album, suggests the opposite." She conceded "the episodes have a cumulative power, even if the storytelling often feels like it's cutting corners rather than digging in".

Coralie Kraft of The New Yorker admired Keough's performance, but disparaged the titular character of Daisy Jones and her relationship with Billy Dunne. Kraft describes Daisy as a "depressingly one-dimensional" character akin to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype: "A sexually liberated woman, she exists as a foil to male responsibility: she'll teach Billy the value of an unfettered approach while also instructing him in the risks of his own desires. He is drawn to her because she helps him understand himself. She is the caretaker of his catharsis and little else". Kraft ultimately concludes, saying: "For all its posturing about Daisy's independence and creative drive, Daisy Jones is myopically obsessed with the will-they-won't-they dynamic between Daisy and her tortured paramour, and within that dynamic, Billy retains all the power; the show's dramatic fulcrum rests on his decisions".

TVLine gave Keough an honorable mention as the "Performer of the Week" for the eighth episode "Track 8: Looks Like We Made It", writing "Keough's Daisy was a captivating mix of blazing passion and tragic insecurities. What made the actress' portrayal even more impressive was that she packed those complicated emotions into multiple song numbers in which Daisy's state of mind broke down a bit more with each stop in the band's tour".

For the final episode "Track 10: Rock 'n' Roll Suicide", Claflin also received an honorable mention. TVLine praised Claflin's "heartachingly vulnerable" performance and his ability to "switch to wild abandon as Billy [embraces] his worst qualities, falling into booze and oozing recklessness on stage with Daisy".

Accolades

Audience viewership

Within hours of release, Daisy Jones & the Six hit No. 1 on Amazon Prime Video's Top 10 list in the U.S. According to Parrot Analytics' data, the series had an "impressive" 49% increase in demand and became the fourth-most streamed TV series across all U.S. platforms.

See also

• 1970s nostalgia

Notes

External links

• at IMDb