"Pam & Tommy" review
Pam & Tommy is full on. Not one to watch with the kids or the parents. It's like 'The Dirt' (movie not book) with a little more conviction. The casting is great, Lily James and Sebastian Stan were questionable casting choices when they were announced but they both nail it. Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman are great too, it's a more serious role for Rogen this time and he plays it perfectly (give him his own uncut gems).
The first three episodes of this feel like a two and a half hour movie and that's great, the quality and cast of a big movie with the runtime and flexibility of a Hulu/Disney+ show. The only issue with this is that they're not releasing all at once, there are three episodes out right now with five more to come, at least if it were a movie you could watch it all in one go, that's just me being impatient though.
Wording these next parts is very difficult (my dear parents read these), there is a lot of sex in this show. Like a lot. It's almost as if that's what it's about. There's even a moment in which Tommy Lee has a conversation with his penis (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), you know like all great TV shows have. It all serves the story though, it's a show about Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee what did you expect other than sex, drugs, and rock and roll?
I tried not to compare them too much but the casting for Tommy Lee is much better this time round. Colson Baker (otherwise known as Machine Gun Kelly) was excellent in 'The Dirt' but he didn't really convince me as Tommy Lee a lot of this has to do with his looks so no fault of his own. Sebastian Stan looks the part and nails the part, it's easily the best of any of the recent music biopic casting choices (which says a hell of a lot).
Lily James is great as Pamela Anderson, she has a bit less to do than Sebastian Stan but what she does get she is great at. Sometimes these biopic performances come across as just an actor doin gan impression and of course that's what it is but in this case it feels like it's done very very well.
My only real complaint would be that the story skips about a little bit too much, one minute you're in the present (in this case July 1995) then you're back a year then you're back in 1995 again and so on. I could see it being confusing if you weren't paying full attention or were for example writing a review for a completely different show at the same time.
It's shot very well, we're in the new age of crazy budget made for streaming TV so every episode of every show looks like a high budget blockbuster movie and that's maybe the best thing about the age of streaming.
That's about all I can say for this show, I only had three episodes to review so maybe my rating would change over time but I'm giving this one an 8. It's a great TV show with a great cast, it maybe just lacks a bit of focus on one main plot but that's not neccessarily a flaw I just personally prefer a more focused plot is all.
