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Dash And Lily is a U-certificate drama (possibly) set at Christmas time, where love is an ideal achievement. In fact, it’s December 17th and carollers are singing “Joy to the world“, which just makes me think of Nelson’s certain alternate lyrics from the Simpsons.
For Lily (Midori Francis), it seems in her opening monologue. Dash (Austin Abrams) is less sure about the whole thing, having let his heart go and been hurt in the process.
Dash is also rather OCD about items being placed in the wrong section in his local bookshop, run by a man who has as much disdain for his customers as I did when I worked at a Little Chef, many moons ago. As such, he chances upon the book left by Lily with curious clues and dares, enticing him to play a game, first deciphering a coded message, by picking out seemingly random books from the library. This leads to him leaving messages for Lily to pick up.
The second episode centres mostly on Lily, looking at things from her perspective, including showing how she’s rather full-on. It also features Fairytale of New York from The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, but… misses out the entire verse:
- “You’re a bum
You’re a punk
You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last”
Rather oddly, Dash’s Dad’s apartment has a lift that opens directly into it, rather like Frasier’s. I thought this never happens in real life, but apparently it can in very well-controlled apartment blocks where only residents are allowed into the lift. Oh, and the apartment also has not one but two projector screens set up, depending on which way you’re sat. Weird.
Dash and Lily is harmless and inoffensive, but won’t set the world on fire.
(Oh, and it said U-certificate at the start of this, but there is a ‘sex and sexuality’ section for Dash to look through, which didn’t seem very U-cert-worthy. I’d say it’s more a 12-cert)
Dash and Lily is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix now.
Episodes 1 and 2 Score: 4/10
Series Directors: Fred Savage, Pamela Romanowsky, Brad Silberling
Producers: Nick Jonas, Josh S Barry, Shawn Levy
Writers: Carol Barbee, Rachel Cohn, David Levithan, Lauren Moon, Harry Tarre, Joe Tracz
Music: Dan The Automator
Cast:
Dash: Austin Abrams
Lily: Midori Francis
Boomer: Dante Brown
Sofia: Keana Marie
Jeff the Elf: Michael Cyril Creighton
Mark: Patrick Vaill
Santa Claus: William Hill
Aryn: Leah Kreitz
Roberta: Ianne Fields Stewart
Priya: Agneeta Thacker
Melvin: Rony Clanton
Vendor: Deborah Unger
Langston: Troy Iwata
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.