A new Netflix TV show has managed a rare feat, a perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score.
One Day had its work cut out to get there too, because this is basically a rom-com series, not the sort of worthy show that’s a magnet for positive write-ups.
The show may have dropped off this lofty perch by the time you read this, but even from where we’re sitting it has already been assessed by some of the top TV critics.
“Don’t miss is,” is the main message of the BBC’s 5-star review. “It will make you laugh, a lot. It will definitely make you cry, a lot. Watch it.”
It also suggests One Day proves the “rumours” about the death of true prestige TV are overdone.
That’s a pretty big claim for show with a premise like One Day. It follows the lives of Emma and Dexter, a pair of students who spend their graduation night together — yes, like that. The following episodes then look at how their lives intersect a year after the last.
There are 14 episodes, so we get to see way beyond their early days. It sounds like quite a challenge for the leads Ambika Mod (This Is Going To Hurt) and Leo Woodall (last seen as Essex geezer Jack in White Lotus) one they absolutely step up to.
One Day is based on a novel by David Nicholls, first published in 2009. It also became a so-so movie starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway in 2011. But this TV show seems to be a lot better, as the trailer showcases.
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“It presents the experience of being alive for precisely what it is, with all the magic and anxiety that come with it,” says the Variety review. And before you get put off by any sense this show is a bit too “arthouse,” the review also calls it “beautifully bingeable.” This is still a Netflix show, after all.
You can tell One Day has touched plenty of reviewers, with many of them ending with an unusually sentimental line. “Life shapes our relationships with people but, more than anything, these relationships shape our lives,” the Total Film 4/5 review clocks out with, for example. You can almost picture them getting a bit weepy as the final credits roll (something highly likely to happen.)
If you’re looking for one line to seal the deal, The Evening Standard review might clinch it, calling One Day “a perfect, sunny watch for gloomy February.”
All 14 episodes of One Day are available to stream 8 February, and most are around the 30-minute mark.