Riding at Half Mast

In this era of “Peak Television” (or, hell, we may even be post-peak at this point), there’s a certain kind of prestige genre that seems to be visited once every few seasons or so. Something set in a bygone era, one that comments on the time it’s set as a way to comment on our current, modern age. Sometimes it’s a little risque, even a little kinky, showing the taboos that are normally swept under the carpet. And always the expectation is that, somehow, it’ll be the next Mad Men.

This is nothing against any of these shows, or even the series we are going to start reviewing right now, but not many shows can actually be the next Mad Men. That series hit at just the right moment, when AMC was on the upswing with original content, and it had the perfect blend of creators, characters, and actors all working together to make something truly special. Other shows can try to tap into that same vibe, hit the various beats, the time period, the kink, but very rarely are they able to find that same mix and become the next winning prestige period drama. Many have tried, like Pan-Am, Halt and Catch Fire, and Boardwalk Empire, but very few are still discussed in the same breath as Mad Men.

You can tell that HBO was really hoping Minx would become the next Mad Men. It has the formula down: a show set in the 1970s, about the creation of a new magazine that, as it so happens, also has a bit of pornography in it. Period, drama, kink, it’s all right there. Minx, though, gave it a bit of a twist by setting the show around a lead female character, and also by having the magazine be one meant for ladies. That’s a different perspective than Mad Men, and with the right mix of creatives, characters, and actors it could have been perfect. Unfortunately something was off about Minx, even though so much worked in the show’s favor, and after one season it was canceled on HBO (although we’ll come back to that in a second).

Minx is about Joyce Prigger (Ophelia Lovibond), a young up-and-comer in the magazine world who has her heart set on putting out a women-first magazine specifically tailored to the issues that matter most to its female readership. We first see her at a publishing conference where she’s pitching her magazine, The Matriarchy Awakens, but all the publishers she talks to (all of whom are men) don’t get it. They don’t think women would be interested in it, and they certainly aren’t interested in it either. No one seems willing to take a chance on her… no one except Doug Renetti (Jake Johnson), the pornography king of the Valley (California), who just so happens to see something special in what Joyce is pitching.

Over a meeting at a diner Doug pitched Joyce on bringing her magazine to his publishing company, Bottom Dollar. The only thing is they’d need to put a little porn in it since he’s in the porn game and that’s what his readers are looking for. Joyce, understandably, feels like this would sell out her vision. But the nude photoshoot of Burt Reynolds in Cosmopolitan changes her mind, and it lets her realize that women are interested in more than just her own thoughts, and maybe there’s a way to bring her ideas together with Doug’s concept of commercialization. It could potentially make for a very successful magazine…

Before we get into what doesn’t work (and it’s something very specific), I feel like I do need to compliment what works so well about the show. With few exceptions, this show really feels solidly built. It has great production design, solid writing, a lot of humor, all elements that tie together so well. The cast is fantastic, and they really bring their characters to life. The first few episodes suck you in and make you care not just about the success of the magazine, which eventually takes on the name of Minx, but the characters that are trying to bring it all together. The show sets up a good concept and gets a lot of momentum off of it. Watching the first few episodes I honestly wondered why the show was canceled.

I mean, yes, there’s a lot of nudity in it, and it’s mostly male nudity. I’m sure a good portion of the people tuning into HBO are used to nudity but tend to expect it to be of the female persuasion. You don’t normally expect to see this many dicks in a show, and there are so many on display here. Dudes that aren’t comfortable with that might have tuned out, and I’m not sure what the demographics are for HBO’s female viewership, but it’s possible the ladies didn’t tune in because they just weren’t targeted properly by the streamer.

With that said, there is a very serious flaw at the center of the show that Minx is never really able to correct: Joyce. To put it bluntly, Joyce is unlikable. Most of the plots of the show revolve around Joyve having a very specific vision for some aspect of Minx and fighting tooth-and-nail against everyone else around her. First it’s whether she can work with a pornographer, then it’s whether she can compromise her vision on her articles to make them “read better”. This is followed by her having cold feet about nudity in her magazine, even though that’s what she agreed to before. At every step Joyce fights, and it does get tiresome after a while.

I think I understand why Joybe is written this way: she’s supposed to be the pure voice of the female perspective. Except there are plenty of other female characters on the show and they regularly disagree with Joyce about things. She dismisses them, though, because they’re in porn, or they’re her sister, or somehow or another they don’t speak for the core demographic Joyce wants to target (which I’m guessing is women who need to be awoken but aren’t women that seems somehow beneath her). She’s not an easy character to agree with even in the best of circumstances.

It doesn’t help that she comes off as pretty high-minded and rude. As my wife put it while we watched the season, Joyce “womansplains” things at everyone. When people disagree with her she acts like they’re too stupid to understand what she’s trying to say, and so she explains it even harder. No perspective but her own is right, even when she’s proven wrong because, somehow, she still ends up being right in the end. This is a character with a major flaw who then proceeds to never learn anything or better herself in any way. She’s not challenged in a way that actually makes her grow. She simply succeeds by happenstance which only proves her perspective right all along.

I think this is a flaw not only with how she’s written but also how she’s acted. Bad writing can be redeemed by a good performance, and while I wouldn’t call Joyce’s character entirely bad, I don’t think actress Ophelia Lovibond does Joyce any favors. She plays the character a little too highstrung, too prickly. The charisma needed to show that she can be right even when she’s disagreeing with everyone around her is missing. She just doesn’t click into shape like she needs to, and it sinks the character even more.

It’s a pity too because I really love the characters around her. Hell, I love the show built around Joyce. But as the season wore on I found that I liked Joyce less and less. And when the series comes to a cliffhanger that leaves Joyce in the high-minded right despite all her choices, it makes me wonder just what the show was even thinking at all. She’s not entirely wrong, she’s not entirely right, and the same can be said for the characters around, but you really wish the show could have found a way to get Joyce into a space where she could admit flaws a little more while still showing her perspective had merit.

I think these flaws to the foundation are what sank Minx on HBO. The show had been picked up for a second season, and it was produced, but then HBO canceled it before it could go to air. However, Starz then picked it up and aired the second season so we could see the further adventures of Joyce, Doug, and Minx, which we’ll cover very soon… leading right up to the point where the show was canceled again.