THE FRANCHISE – Season One

The Franchise wastes little time diving into its action, and for good reason. The HBO series is a frenetic burst of energy, where protagonist Daniel Kumar (Himesh Patel) is so beleaguered with fresh complaints and dilemmas being hurled at him that he;s just about busy enough to continue suppressing his anger and sadness. This show finds its bleak humour in satirising superhero films and the movie industry, where Dan’s role as a first assistant director (1st AD) turns him into the problem solver for the production of Tecto: Eye of the Storm, a minor film in a giant superhero franchise.

There isn’t a single moment in The Franchise that takes place outside of this film shoot, to the point where important details about these principal character’s lives are dispensed casually, yet feel like big revelations. It’s an effective ploy, not just because these reveals widen viewers’ perspectives about these hapless workers, but also in how it captures the appeal of a working environment that seems chaotic and headache-inducing. When they are filming it’s truly as if nothing else matters.

It makes no logical sense for hard-working, talented individuals like Dan to accept being a tireless masseuse of woefully fragile egos. But by having these characters’ entire lives outside of work remain a mystery, it answers every viewer’s obvious question: why would anyone ever choose this line of work? It’s by no means a bad question to ask, with Dan having to placate the wounded ego of Adam (Billy Magnussen), the lead actor in Tecto, deal with veteran actor Peter’s (Richard E. Grant) outbursts, and come up with a million and one ways to satisfy the ludicrous demands of Eric (Daniel Brühl), the film’s highbrow director.

The Franchise is at its best when it marries the ridiculousness of its production’s big personalities with the depressing reality of having to clean up their mess through thankless work that erodes one’s pride and dignity. Where the series suffers is in its inability to define itself as either a satire or a sitcom. Most of these characters are simply crude outlines that, while modestly entertaining, are never truly cringe-inducing. There’s a silliness embedded in their behaviour that counteracts any attempt to craft a bitter satire. The scriptwriting is hectic beyond belief, mirroring its environment—imagine Aaron Sorkin’s walk-and-talk dialogue on steroids—but that momentum isn’t meaningfully capitalised on.

Dan and a few other semi-normal characters are a refreshing tonic for the demanding and deranged big players in this narrative, but it often feels as if both groups belong in entirely different shows. Take someone like Eric, for example. He’s pompous beyond belief and totally unwilling to compromise, providing a worthy opponent for Dan to have to placate at every turn. But he’s also soft around the edges, making him an easy target to laugh at for behaving in such a pathetic way, rather than being truly maddening to watch.

The fast-paced dialogue and uniquely crude comments levied by these characters make it clear that the series was inspired by HBO’s Succession (2018–2023), a fantastic comedy-drama skewering business moguls and their amoral attitudes. The other obvious throughline is that both TV shows excoriate people that put the profit incentive over all else. The Franchise’s vessel for this idea, studio rep Pat Shannon (Darren Goldstein), is an excellent punching bag for viewers to pile their hate on top of. Casually cruel and totally allergic to thinking of moviemaking as an art form, he’s a callous pig that you love to despise. When he makes a joke at the expense of Dan’s mother’s, then displays a total lack of remorse when he’s informed that she’s very ill, the show has unlocked its master villain.

Perhaps the worst part of it all isn’t just that Pat controls the direction these other characters take with Tecto, but that he can actually intimidate them. He’s not like Eric or Adam, who are too self-conscious and lacking in self-awareness to impress themselves upon others. Even when these two characters make use of the film crew workers being at their beck and call, they can still be easily dismissed and laughed at out of earshot. Little satisfaction can be had in this way with Pat, who’s well aware he’s an awful person, wielding that knowledge with a lot of power. But even his malevolent edge becomes dulled over time, as The Franchise once again dials back one of its unlikable character’s awful qualities for safe sitcom fare.

There really is a lot to appreciate about this show, but just as its competent writing desperately needs more of a bite, some of these characters should have been designed to act like scumbags instead of only being pathetic. Tight zoom-ins, a common feature in Succession, might have made that show’s influence on The Franchise a little too on the nose, but it can’t be denied that this visual cue would greatly improve each episode’s developments. In a series about a protagonist who learns of a new on-set disaster every few minutes, a harsh zoom in on Dan’s face in such moments, or fly-on-the-wall shot placements during intimate scenes in tight spaces between two characters at loggerheads, would transform this show’s vague awkwardness into deliciously uncomfortable comedy.

Thankfully, The Franchise’s humour is still strong enough for this fantastic cast to bring life to its absurdity. Patel portrays Dan as a self-consciously unassuming grunt worker, where the character’s role on-set is a supportive one, yet Dan’s inner turmoil and deep frustrations are always within reach. It’s a masterful leading performance, as very few actors could have successfully endeared us to a man who seems unremarkable on the surface, but who carries out this thankless drudgery with a level of gumption that’s inspiring. In the same way that this metafictional film rests on Dan’s shoulders, The Franchise is just as reliant on Patel’s grounded portrayal of someone being pushed to their wit’s end, and then pushed some more. And then hurled off a cliff. And stomped on.

Magnussen is instantly believable as a leading man plagued by self-doubt (with occasional dollops of delusions of grandeur for good measure). Script supervisor Steph (Jessica Hynes), producer Anita (Aya Cash), and third assistant director Dag (Lolly Adefope) round out the rest of the main crew. All three actresses showcase their talents well, even if Hynes seems to be portraying the only character in this show that leans into its cringe-worthy scenes. While she does an excellent job in this regard, shades of Steph’s awkward moments should have been dispersed more evenly across this ensemble.

While constantly introducing fresh conflicts makes this series feel vibrant, The Franchise takes some getting used to, even coming across as downright unapproachable at times. Throwing viewers into the mix from the get-go is a great way of letting them acclimatise to the chaos—just as these seasoned pros struggle to do the very same thing—but the series should have provided moments of calm if it wants to rise above being a standard sitcom. That said, even sitcoms spend the entirety of their pilot episodes setting up characters and their dynamics, which are largely absent in The Franchise’s first episode.

The Franchise’s absence of effort in drawing out more of these characters’ personality traits will put off many viewers. This is a shame, as while it has its faults, the series does provide plenty of entertainment across its eight-episode first season. The only aspect of the narrative that truly suffers is with Dag, a stand-in for the audience and an infinite dispenser of sarcasm. While she displays pretty sound assessments of what’s happening around her, it isn’t all that fun to watch a know-it-all constantly offering withering remarks from the sidelines. Dag is a meme about never feeling up to facing life’s responsibilities in human form. She often looks for ways to be relieved of her duties, or frets over issues in such a transparently false way that she becomes as one-note as the series’ intentionally unsympathetic characters.

Eric’s characterisation is especially plagued by this falseness, severely hampering the show’s satirical edge. In one egregious case of this, the team are tasked with integrating a shameless plug for a brand of Chinese tractors in a hospital death scene. A character in Tecto grieving over the very recent loss of someone they love suddenly starts talking about the benefits of this particular brand, all while one of the machines lingers just outside the hospital room’s window. It’s a scene that’s far too stupid to work as parody, wrapping itself up in ridiculousness to the point where there’s nothing prickly or uncomfortable about it.

Prime Video’s The Boys, a smash hit series about superheroes, only focuses on its metafictional cinematic universe in short bursts across its storylines, and yet it winds up being far more insightful in this regard than The Franchise, which has very little else to cover. Even more damning is that this episode centred on product placement in art ends on a rather sombre note, as if we should feel compelled to feel even a slight hint of emotion at an artist’s vision being compromised by studio interference and corporate greed, when the storyline underpinning it is already too frivolous to work in a comedic light.

By resting on the false premise that a satirical comedy and a comedic sitcom are interchangeable, The Franchise never quite grows out of its awkward teething stage, even when it showcases compelling character decisions in its final few episodes. When its first season reaches its conclusion, it finally becomes clear: this was a sitcom after all. Its eight-episode season could have easily been twice as long, with new misadventures on-set that wouldn’t have been much more unconvincing and zany than its current plotlines.

These silly, frivolous characters do silly, frivolous things each episode, whose storylines are accompanied by competent but unabsorbing filmmaking and dialogue that’s decently funny, but not as sharp as it’s aiming for. It was a mistake to toe the line between what this series turned out to be and the blistering, cringe-comedy satire it can’t bring itself to commit to. And while its season finale features a surprising degree of emotional resonance, it lingers on a cliffhanger whose implied stakes are nowhere near important enough for it to work as a selling point for a second season. The Franchise might be exasperating, but that’s only because its moments of greatness hint at a vast reserve of potential lurking in the background of this half-hearted but entertaining approach to its subject matter.

UK • USA | 2024 | 8 EPISODES | 16:9 HD | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writers: Jon Brown, Tony Roche, Rachel Axler, Dillon Mapletoft, Keith Akushie, Marina Hyde & Juli Weiner.
directors: Sam Mendes, Liza Johnson, Tom George & Kevin Bray.
starring: Himesh Patel, Lolly Adefope, Aya Cash, Daniel Brühl, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Hynes, Richard E. Grant, Darren Goldstein & Isaac Powell.