Physical Review

If you are going to have a series centered around a number of unlikeable people, you have to give your audience a reason to root for them (hell, even just a reason to root for one of them can be enough). In the era of Peak TV, we were shown a host of antiheroes (think Breaking Bad) who did bad things but who had just enough good left in them – or at least had an arc that took them from “good” to “not so good” – to make them watchable. Physical, a new dramedy from AppleTV+, failed to learn that crucial lesson and has just given us a show about pretty awful people with no redeeming qualities that are nearly impossible to root for. And boy, does that make for an unsatisfying watch.

On paper, Physical sounds like a cool cross between the dearly departed GLOW and something like Mad Men: Set in the 80s, the series follows Sheila (the really great Rose Byrne, who does everything she possibly can to reign in her character’s highly objectionable actions), a housewife who gave up a promising academic career so that her jerk of a husband Danny (Rory Scovel, who is basically tasked with being a vapid tool) can have a career, as she discovers a love of aerobics and builds an empire – only she does this while also lying, stealing, and just generally being a jerk to everyone around her. And it’s that last bit that takes this from an empowering story about a woman overcoming a shitty marriage and finding her place in the world to a story of a scummy person who is willing to step on those around her while never accepting the consequences for her actions.

Now, as I said, that might sound like a Breaking Bad arc – after all, Walter White was pretty despicable by the end of the series and was wholly convinced nothing was his fault for quite a time – but the main difference I can see is that a character like Walter White didn’t start out as unlikeable. His arc took him to that dark place over the course of the series. Here, we start out with Sheila being pretty awful (and desperately needing therapy, but it’s the 80s, so the chance of that are slim to none). And Danny is awful. And their college friends that we meet throughout the first season are awful. And a political rival of Danny’s, John Breem (Paul Sparks, not doing much with what could have been an interesting juxtaposition to Danny and Sheila) is utterly boring and pretty awful. And that’s a lot of awful people in key roles within the series. Watching awful people just be awful is not fun at all.

It doesn’t help matters that the people Sheila screws over the most are the show’s most likeable characters. Her only real friend, Greta (Dierdre Friel, who is really great in her role), consistently gets stomped on by Sheila, to the point that any normal person not on a TV show would have completely cut ties with her – yet Greta sticks around. There’s Bunny (Della Saba, who I would gladly watch in her own spin-off), the aerobics instructor who teams up with Sheila (but who we know Sheila is bound to betray somewhere down the line, as she’s not present in the flashforward that starts off the series), and her really lovely boyfriend Tyler (Lou Taylor Pucci, who is utterly charming), a surfer with a heart of gold who wants to become a filmmaker but is stuck working on porn in the interim. Now, if the show were more about these characters, I would be all in. They are engaging, fun, and a joy to watch. But the Sheila/Danny toxic relationship saga is not worth the buy-in. And that’s the main focus of the series.

I found myself spending most episodes begging Sheila to leave Danny, to break out on her own, and go for the aerobics career we know she’s going to attain (one of the biggest issues with opening a series in a flashforward is tipping your hand this much to the audience – you are promising that this is where the story will go, but also signaling that they must sit through all the time building to this moment; when you have a compelling set of characters to watch, it’s not a hard ask, but with characters like this . . . yesh). But Sheila doesn’t, and we get pulled into the cycle of their abusive relationship. And we don’t see much growth at all from Sheila throughout the ten episode first season – and what little we do get appears to come out of nowhere with little to ground it to actual character development.

Now, this isn’t an issue of having a female antihero at the center of the story. If Don Draper or Walter White were this unlikeable from the word go, I doubt people would have wanted to see their stories either. It’s a matter of balance and character development. We aren’t provided with a clear reason as to why Sheila and Danny are this toxic to each other and to those around them (late in the season, there’s some background regarding Sheila that seeks to explain some of her issues away, but it’s too little too late at that point). If we had an understanding as to how they reached this place of entitlement and self-absorption, it might be possible to go along for the ride. But that’s not something we are privy to. And that’s a fault of the writing.

There was an interesting series in the pitch, but the tone of the story – and the tone deaf characters – sink the series pretty quickly. Is it possible that the series can reboot in a second season and right the ship? Maybe. Byrne is a great actress, and the trio of Friel, Saba, and Pucci are strong supporting characters around which to build a story. And yes, the series is clearly meant to evoke Jane Fonda’s rise to pop culture greatness with her own 80s aerobics empire. But, there’s a lot of work to be done if Physical wants to become a good show. As for now, I’d recommend sitting this class out.

Physical premieres on Friday, June 18 on AppleTV+. All ten episodes were provided for review.