On Friday, March 3rd, the first three episodes of Daisy Jones and the Six released on Amazon Prime. Still releasing, the show has been met with immense success. Based on author Taylor Jenkins Reid’s bestselling novel, the miniseries follows the same storyline as the book.
For those unfamiliar with the novel, Daisy Jones and the Six tells the story of a fictional band rising to fame. The story is mainly focused on the lead singer of the band, Billy Dunne, and his struggles with the band while battling addiction and raising a family.
As Billy fights his own problems, Daisy Jones, a young, spirited, aspiring singer, joins the band, shaking up Billy’s life even more.
The book is formatted in a way so it is as if the reader is reading an interview transcript. This makes it an easy read, but can also make it difficult to follow sometimes.
The drama miniseries stars Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne and Riley Keough as Daisy Jones. It also includes famous artist Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko, the keyboardist. Episodes release in three episode bursts, about an hour long each, with the final two coming out this Friday, March 24.
The TV show tells the exact same story. However, being a book to TV adaptation, changes need to be made.
In the book, one major plot point is Billy and Daisy sharing a kiss. This happens in the show as well, but with one difference. While the novel has Daisy making the first move onto Billy, the show has Billy kissing Daisy. This one subtlety changes a lot. Because Daisy kisses Billy, the lead singer feels uncomfortable and not to blame since he has a wife and child. That way, readers feel inclined to pity Billy. However, with the opposite occurring in the show, it defeats the feeling of pity and instead angers the viewers. Also, the whole situation in which the kiss happens is different between the two.
Obviously, the writers need to make changes in order for the script to work out, which is understandable. However, I feel like since this is a major turning point, there should have been more of an effort to keep it similar to the original. Other than that, the differences between the show and book were very minor. Events like the meeting between Billy and his wife, Camila (Camila Morrone), are changed and a romantic plot line between Eddie Roundhouse (Josh Whitehouse), a guitarist, and Camila exists in the show.
This being an adaptation, one aspect that is very hard to hit the target is casting. While there are physical descriptions in the book, many times producers don’t follow them. For example, in the show, the drummer, Warren Rhodes, a white man, becomes Warren Rojas, a Latino man. This is a minor change that doesn’t affect the plot. However, one casting I really dislike is the casting for Daisy. Personally, I feel like Riley Keough does not fit the part of Daisy. A brilliant actress, she does a great job of portraying the different emotions Daisy goes through. I just feel like she does not embody Daisy’s young, wild spirit that is characterized in the novel. Riley Keough is also 33 years old, while Daisy is much younger, in her early twenties. Usually, movies and TV shows cast older people to play characters a few years younger than them. In this case, I think age really makes a difference.
On the whole, I enjoy the show very much. It is nice to watch a show while already knowing what has happened in the book, although it can be frustrating when there are changes. I love how the episodes are constructed similar to the book, with interviews between the characters in between the actual story. I also love how the music is actually recorded with the band’s hit album Aurora available on Spotify.
With the show coming to an end soon, I am super excited to watch the final two episodes. Hopefully, it satisfies the viewers with a similar ending to the book.
It is safe to say that Daisy Jones and the Six lives up to expectations so don’t miss out on the finale on Amazon Prime this Friday.
By Aditi Sanghavi
Image provided by Variety
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