Douglas Is Cancelled is a 2024 TV series starring Hugh Bonneville (Downton Abbey, Paddington) as the titular Douglas Bellowes, an avuncular early-evening TV show presenter on “Live At 6”, a sort of hybrid news/chat show (Think: The One Show on BBC1).
After getting drunk at a wedding, he wakes up to find that he’s trending on Twitter for telling a misogynistic joke. At this point we don’t know what the joke is and Douglas claims he was so out of it he can’t remember what he said or who he might have said it to.
During the fallout from his bout of off-colour drunken humour we meet his co-host Madeline Crow (Karen Gillan – Dr Who, Guardians of the Galaxy), an up-and-coming and extremely driven woman struggling to make it in the male-dominated world of TV. Things take a turn when Madeleine quote tweets the original accusatory tweet with a cryptic message that reads “Don’t believe this. Not my co-presenter.”
The question becomes: Does Madeline not believe the allegations and she can’t fathom Douglas ever doing something so awful or is she saying she can’t believe the situation and Douglas is no longer her co-presenter.
Madeline is so guarded it’s difficult to know what the correct meaning is as we move through the first 3 parts of the 4 episode run.
As the limited-series progresses we come to see why Madeline is so reserved having seemingly suffered a Harvey Weinstein-esq moment at the hands of slimy producer Toby (Ben Miles – Coupling, Lark Rise to Candleford) and worse still, Douglas knew about it and did nothing to stop it.
We also meet Douglas’s wife, Sheila (Alex Kingston – ER, Dr Who) who is the editor of a newspaper that isn’t above outing celebrities or phone hacking so this makes the impeding cancellation of her husband even more troublesome.
So, will Douglas be able to come back from his cancellation? Is Madeline out for revenge or is she truly trying to help Douglas? And more importantly, will Toby get his much needed comeuppance?
I’m not going to spoil that for you – you’ll need to watch the 4 part series to find out!
The show is available to stream on ITVX (or whatever they’re calling it this week) in the UK.
So with the plot out of the way let’s take a look at some of my thoughts.
The Good
Hugh Bonneville is excellent as Douglas and he comes across as someone you’d happily welcome into your living room every night as you watch him on the telly. And the way Douglas interacts with Sheila is wonderfully portrayed as Sheila’s world-weary view contradicts with Douglas’s one of seeing the best in people.
With Karen Gillan, I wasn’t sure about her at first if I am honest. I thought she was being extremely wooden and generally not acting particularly well, until I realised what the character had been through and then the standoffish, unfeeling nature of the character made complete sense and she was actually knocking it out of the park.
The supporting cast is also excellent with joke writer Morgan (Nick Mohammed – Ted Lasso, Intelligence) and Toby’s driver Tom (Joe Wilkinson – Sex Education, After Life) stealing every scene they’re in.
The episodes move along at a brisk pace and while the writer, Steven Moffat (Sherlock, Dr Who), crams a lot into each episode they don’t feel bloated or like you’re being bombarded with too many characters or information being introduced at once.
The Bad
There’s not a lot wrong with the series if I am honest.
I think perhaps we should have been given some hints as to why Madeline acted the way she did earlier on so that you didn’t think Karen Gillan was just phoning it in. I am sure this could have been done in a subtle enough way as to not ruin the reveal of how Toby behaved towards her when Madeline was just starting out in her career.
The Ugly
Now, I did say there wasn’t a lot wrong with the series but when it does get something wrong it really gets it wrong.
Moffat’s writing of anyone under the age of 25 is abysmal.
I am not sure if he’s unaware of how Gen Z acts but he writes the two main young characters as a parody.
Douglas and Sheila’s daughter, Claudia (Madeleine Power – The Last Kingdom, Six Wives with Lucy Worsely), is a modern version of “Kevin the Teenager” who refuses to shut a front door (who would do that in London, a young woman certainly wouldn’t), talks back to her parents and hates her mother. You can practically see where Moffat has put “insert eye-roll here” in the script.
Yes, I know teenagers and people in their early twenties are tetchy and think they know everything better than anyone else but this is beyond commenting on society, it’s lazy writing.
Then we have Sheila’s assistant Helen (Stephanie Hyam – Jekyll and Hyde, Peaky Blinders) who is meant to be a comedy turn and while she does generate some laughs, it’s again Moffat’s painting of young people as being socially awkward and stuck in their feelings as a terrible character trait.
In one instance we have Helen wearing earbuds because people were shouting at her, which causes Sheila to have to shout at her to be heard – Oh! The Irony!
It would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that Sheila then precedes to scream the F-word multiple times in front of the poor girl therefore justifying the need for the headphones in the first place – hardly the gotcha moment Moffat seems to think it is.
Again it’s just lazy on the writer’s part, painting youngsters as “woke social justice warrior snowflakes”. HILARIOUS*!
* This is sarcasm just in case it’s not coming across
Final Thoughts
Douglas Is Cancelled is an interesting take on the concept of cancel culture, although I think Moffat leans too heavily into the “Stop cancelling guys over 50, they don’t understand modern society” trope.
There’s a bit of shock/twist ending which I won’t go in to so as not to spoil the reveal but I felt instead of this being ground breaking or empowering it was more contrived than anything else and actually was a major injustice to all the characters involved.
Overall though Douglas Is Cancelled is quite a compelling watch. Even though some of the younger characters are poorly conceived and the ending seems somewhat forced the performances and interactions between Bonneville and Gillan are well worth watching.
Watch this if you’re into odd couple news pairings, taking a look at how easy it is to cancel people for seemingly minor infractions and the mess of social media as a whole.
Don’t watch this if you want a realistic or decent representation of anyone under the age of 25.
Douglas Is Cancelled is available to watch now on ITVX whatever it’s name is at the time of writing.
