Big Little Lies
/The world of the box set, it’s no secret, is like the rest of the world - dominated by blokes. The Wire, Breaking Bad, Succession…So it’s great that Big Little Lies comes out, and is a smash hit, and it’s all about a group of five women who are drawn increasingly close together. Sure, they’re in a posh, white suburb, full of ludicrously expensive houses and competitive parents, but it’s smartly done and there’s some terrific performers - Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern.
The first series is a great success, so they get in a top director for the second series - Andrea Arnold, interesting, very different, very much not a hack producing routine stuff. The shoot goes well, there’s a great atmosphere, on of the stars is wearing an Andrea Arnold t-shirt - but then it all seems to go a bit sour. Arnold finished filming, and edited what she’d done. that then went back to the director of the first series, who got together with a number of editors to change what had been shot, so it fitted better with Series 1. And this is the weird bit. (1) They claimed that this was always the plan. (2) Andrea Arnold wasn’t told that this was always the plan.
The show runner, who’s in overall charge, and the director of the first series, are both blokes. Though that may, of course, be entirely incidental. But still - I’ve watched both series, and enjoyed them, though I look forward to getting the full story about what happened - and the chance to watch the footage that got cut.