Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+) is not too concerned with arcane theories involving enzymes, proteins and molecules.
The most notable, if unlikely, chemical reactions take place between stern, uncompromising, socially awkward Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson) and driven-but-dreamy, socially awkward Dr Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman).
Zott is an unappreciated technician and spare-time chemist at a Los Angeles research lab out to make a name for itself. The intense Evans is a chemistry god and a trade magazine cover star.
When they join forces and make some startling discoveries, she turns out to be the brains of the outfit – but because she is a woman her work is dismissed, even ridiculed (it is the United States of the 1950s, after all).
However, the institution’s all-male governors have reckoned without Zott the proto-feminist, who, among other acts of defiance, rubbishes the company’s demeaning talent-show beauty contest in which she is forced to participate.
Never again will she be pushed, prodded or blackmailed into accepting second billing, even in a misogynistic organisation that mocks “the specious theories of a pretty lab tech”.
Rose Byrne struggles with success and self-worth in Apple TV+’s Physical
Rose Byrne struggles with success and self-worth in Apple TV+’s Physical
As Zott, Larson (Captain Marvel in another universe) is adept at swatting aside the everyday sexism, bashing through it with all the self-possession of the naturally talented.
Pullman’s Evans is a fine foil, gallantly ceding top intellectual billing in their team to the better scientist – and disregarding the disgust of his academic colleagues.
Lessons in Chemistry is a feel-good sort of series that has no qualms about making the viewer feel particularly bad, on occasion, for a tale of two misfits drawn together by the mysterious chemical reaction called love.
Inevitably, matters fail to run according to plan; but when, inventively, Zott becomes the face of a popular TV food show in the post-war land of plenty, then she’s really cooking.
Squib Game
Perhaps the makers of The Devil’s Plan (Netflix) thought a sprinkling of Squid Game (an anonymous host in a Halloween-inspired mask, talking in a robotic voice) and a dash of Big Brother (in-residence contestants filmed and recorded throughout) would help produce a riveting television programme.
Maybe they thought that replacing the random violence, jealous spats and verbal showdowns with supposedly challenging games of brain power, betrayal and flimsy alliances would mean a thinking person’s survival-reality show.
The reality is hopelessly wide of both marks. Seven days, six nights and 12 contestants – six men, six women, some well-known in Korea, such as television personality Park Kyung-rim, actress Lee Si-won and Boo Seung-kwan of boy band Seventeen – compete for 500 million won (US$370,000) in what are billed as mind games.
Designed to test the contestants’ strategic skills, more than anything they test the viewer’s patience. The 12-episode show, which takes place in a large circular hall with side rooms, starts with a mystery role-playing exercise in which the contestants become citizens, terrorists, researchers or a journalist and either kill (with virus or bullet) or cure the others. Or something.
The tests’ befuddling rules are reflected in a later contest: a board game, in which players form more vague teams, whisper in corners and formulate tactics – while hoping for lucky dice rolls and risking imprisonment in a Monopoly-style jail. Or something.
Episode four brings the first, belated elimination. Until then, the desultory dozen, personalities hardly teased out, plod through this unscripted mishmash concerning themselves with how formally they should address each other and who was born in what year.
Overlong and under-engaging, The Devil’s Plan achieves the rare feat of making the usual celebrity-meathead-desert-island reality show look stimulating.