Stream It Or Skip It?

It seems that the fine art of “show, not tell” has become rarer in this day and age of “Prestige TV.” Despite shows being well-written, the stories get so complex that showrunners and writers feel compelled to lard down their shows’ first couple of episodes with lots of dialogue that tells the audience about what the characters are all about. A new British series that fictionalizes the rise of women in London’s post-World War I nightclub scene refreshingly shows instead of tells.

DOPE GIRLS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As we see people raise tiny British flags, we get the explanation that, in 1914, as British men went to war, women took their place and thrived. Now, four years later, the war is coming to an end, and the men are coming back to a changed England. A woman in a white slip and angel wings bathes in a pool of red dye as a bonfire rages.

The Gist: “Some time earlier…”, the same woman, Kate Galloway (Julianne Nicholson), is going to her job at a butcher shop. That’s when the woman who owns it tells her that her husband is returning from the war and that Kate no longer has a job.

But with bad news comes some good news: Her husband has made a business deal that will keep their daughter Evie (Eilidh Fisher) at the expensive boarding school she attends, and on a track to university. That all ends, though, when Kate discovers the next morning that her husband hung himself.

He owed a lot of money, and put his house up for collateral, which means that Kate and Evie have nowhere to live. Desperate, Kate goes to the flat of Billie Cassidy (Umi Myers), a Soho showgirl whom Kate seemed to know long ago but became estranged from. She begs Violet to let them stay the night.

In the meantime, Violet Davies (Eliza Scanlen) has been in London for two days and is already broke. She’s studying to become one of the city’s first female police officers. She doesn’t seem to impress the training officer, Sgt. Frank Turner (Ian Bonar), despite her toughness. But she ends up ratting out a fellow recruit who showed her some kindness in order to stay in the academy.

Desperate for a job, Kate begs Billie to take her to the after hours club where she works. It’s run by the Salucci family, with Isabella Salucci (Geraldine James) being the family’s matriarch. There, the girls dance and sell dope to the customers. But when Kate dons the winged costume the girls wear, she’s called a “granny” by Silvio Salucci (Sebastian Croft), who manages the dancers, and is booted out. Kate retaliates by calling an anonymous tip into the police and initiating a raid. In the meantime, Evie goes to a costume party that offers more than just dancing.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dope Girls, created by Polly Stenham and Alex Warren and based on the book Dope Girls: The Birth of the British Drug Underground by Marek Kohn, has a bit of a Peaky Blinders feel to it, though with more dancing and drug use.

Our Take: Dope Girls is a good example of a show that does more than enough in its first episode to show where its main characters are coming from and where they are going, mostly through actions. In one important case, though, there is some talky exposition, but it helps clear up so much that we were OK with it.

Most of the show’s energy comes from Nicholson, whose character Kate is a fairly normal 1910s wife and mother at the beginning of the story, as evidenced by the caption that puts robberies, murders, and dope deals at zero. But her husband’s death sends her reeling, because he hid his financial troubles from her, leaving her scrambling. That can be seen in how Nicholson goes from restrained to desperate in the blink of an eye, but in a very believable way. By the end of the first episode, those tallies are no longer at zero, and Kate doesn’t even blink at that fact.

Evie, on the other hand, might actually feel a sense of liberation from this tragic event, as it seemed like she hated the upper crust dog-eat-dog atmosphere. She’s certainly being influenced by Billie, even though she has no idea how Billie and Kate are connected. Kate likes to hide things from Evie — like the nature of her father’s death, for instance — so it stands to reason that she’ll find out who Billie really is by accident, straining her close relationship with Kate.

Myers is compelling as Billie, who was sent down a different path than Evie simply by a decision Kate made years prior. We’re still trying to figure out where Scanlen’s Violet fits into this story, given that she’ll be on the other side of the law than Kate, Evie and Billie, but we do appreciate how ruthless she can be.

Sex and Skin: There’s a little but of nudity — Billie’s bare butt as she jumps out of a bathtub to answer the door — and some sex. There will probably be more as the series goes on.

Parting Shot: After a harrowing incident at the club, Kate and Billie find Evie partying during the bonfire. They all walk home together, after Kate picks up a flyer from a building with a “for let” sign on it (that will be important later, as Kate proposes they open their own nightclub).

Sleeper Star: We’ll see more of Geraldine James as Isabella Salucci, especially as her family tries to figure out what happened to one of her sons.

Most Pilot-y Line: Some of the captions are a bit on the nose, like when we first see Isabella, the caption says “Signora Salucci… One to watch.” Well, duh.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Strong performances and an interesting story drive Dope Girls. The first episode was well-paced and explained the main characters’ situations well enough to make us want to watch the rest of the story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.