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One Day is a new drama series which first takes us back to one particular day: 15th July 1988 to be precise (and St Swithin’s Day, as we’re soon informed), as Dexter (Leo Woodall – Citadel) and Emma (Ambika Mod – brilliant as Shruti in BBC1’s This Is Going To Hurt) meet at their graduation party in a location – which looks adorned like a level from Hitman – and chat all night, before he walks her home, they spend the night together, and so on.
She’s Northern, so refers to the toilet as the ‘bog’ (as I do, too), while he’s a bit on the posh side, leaving her to believe he’s too good for her.
Meanwhile, the second episode moves on to 15th July 1989 – so, it’s the same date, but a year on – where Emma is an actress in a play… at a primary school, and we also catch up with how life’s treated Dex, whose parents are played by Blackadder‘s Tim McInnerny, and The Babadook‘s Essie Davis, so there’s two reasons to watch.
On the plus side, the music is great. Although it’s 1988, we get 1983’s Rip It Up by Orange Juice, but that’s fine, since it’s one of my all-time favourite songs, and I even had an Orange Juice T-shirt at the time. Plus, there’s S’Express, and The The’s This Is The Day, also recently heard in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3.
There’s also a scene involving the speaking clock on the phone, which is exactly the same guy who did the voice back in the day, namely the late Brian Cobby, who is the only man to be employed by them to date. And as for that service, I remember when that used to be free, and then they jacked up the price!
On the downside, I thought there might be something to this other than a basic romance story, since I haven’t read the novel, nor seen the 2011 movie adaptation with Anne Hathaway, but so far… no. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at that, given that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, so slushy romance stuff is in, right now. And given that some of the comments on the trailer centre around the fact that the story apparently is beter served by a TV series than a movie, I get the impression that they’re right and I’m wrong 😉
As an aside, normally, Netflix one-off series last around 8-10 episodes maximum, which even then is a lot if it turns into something I can’t get a handle on, and so don’t make it all the way through. For One Day, it’s a staggering 14! However, these aren’t long episodes, the first being just over 30 minutes, and then 25 for the next one.
Personally, I would prefer some shorter series, and for example, All The Light We Cannot See was just four episodes, but then I know that once a studio has paid for a set, script and crew etc, if they can make five episodes, they may as well make ten.
One Day is not available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but is on Netflix from Thursday February 8th.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 25-40 minutes per episode (14 episodes)
Release date: February 8th 2024
Studio: Netflix
Format: 2.39:1
Series Directors: Molly Manners, Luke Snellin, John Hardwick, Kate Hewitt
Writers: David Nicholls, Nicole Taylor, Mollie Goodfellow, Bijan Sheibani, Anna Jordan, Vinay Patel
Novel: David Nicholls
Creator: Nicole Taylor
Music: Jessica Jones, Tim Morrish, Anne Nikitin
Cast:
Dexter: Leo Woodall
Emma: Ambika Mod
Tilly: Amber Grappy
Callum: Brendan Quinn
Ian: Jonny Weldon
Stephen: Tim McInnerny
Sylvie: Eleanor Tomlinson
Alison: Essie Davis
Graham: Adam Loxley
Aaron: John Macmillan
Mary: Anne Bird
Mr. Godalming: Mark Rowley
Sonya: Jodie Price
Suki: Rebekah Murrell
Toby Moray: Will Hislop
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.