The Franchise

When the trailer for The Franchise first popped up in my feed, my mind was immediately drawn back to the 2022 film The Bubble. A failed attempt to capitalise on parodying franchise movies and production during COVID, The Bubble was swiftly turned off after 45 minutes in my household due to simply failing to produce more than a groan. However, in The Franchise, one name gave me hope, and that was Armando Iannucci.

Iannucci is more attached in name only here, as the person leading the charge is creator Jon Brown. Still, the man behind The Thick of It, Veep, and The Death of Stalin has a strong handle on quick, character-based comedy, and has stepped onto a modern movie set for this new series, which depicts the creation of the superhero movie Tecto: Eye of the Storm. It's a not-so-subtle jab at Marvel, one that feels in a way poorly timed. We all know Marvel's recent efforts have largely failed to drum up the universal support and objective success of billions at the box office, so in a way Iannucci could have come across as a bit cruel here, kicking an already wounded dog. However, instead of focusing on the failures of Marvel and other franchises, The Franchise plays more as a character-driven sitcom about the world of film production and the horrors the people working in it have to endure, with a good chunk of the modernisms Hollywood execs and their franchise-focuses have created.

Our leading pair are Dan and Dag. The former is the first assistant director on Tecto, who has been working on the movie since the beginning, and is quite the fan of the character. Dag has joined just as we have as third assistant director, acting as our POV character for most of the series in a way. She really is the tentpole of the show, delivering great comedy effortlessly as she encompasses complete confidence and awkwardness all at once. Words spew from her mouth without her consent and yet there wasn't a single episode where she didn't make me laugh. It's that 30 Rock style of humour, where if you throw enough darts at the board, eventually you'll hit a bullseye. Dan is more of your straight man in The Franchise, not really being very funny himself, but instead having to herd the cats that are the people around him. He's played by Himesh Patel, an actor who had done anything but impress for me in the film Yesterday, but here he's very good. A strong, central figure who doesn't feel bland nor boring, despite him not being very comical.

All the cast do a great job with their characters. Billy Magnussen remains an underrated beacon of himbo performances, and Darren Goldstein is equally ridiculous as he is intimidating as one of the Hollywood executives keeping an eye on Tecto. In the eight episodes The Franchise has, not everyone gets to shine equally. Aya Cash's character feels left by the wayside for the most part, as does Jessica Hynes, but with any luck there's another season on the way to flesh them out a tad more.

The dialogue is fast, quick, and cutting. I wouldn't quite put it up there with the brilliance of something like Succession, but I think the strength of The Franchise is rather similar. What starts as a simple comedy sitcom setup develops over the course of the season to be rather gripping by its conclusion. Nowhere near as dramatic as the story of the Roy family, but still enough to keep you watching for something besides laughs. The Franchise could have very easily been just beating the same dead joke over and over, playing on the stupidity of the Marvel universe and trying to make its viewers feel stupid for enjoying it. While I could have liked to see some more venom from Iannucci, the kind we see in Veep and The Thick of It, The Franchise doesn't seem to be aiming any low blows. It must be difficult to write something taking apart the movie industry when one imagines the people who worked on The Franchise will have very good friends within it. Aya Cash has starred in The Boys, for example, a show that increasingly becomes closer to what it was satirizing with each season.

The Franchise's strength is in its depiction of the overall chaos of production. Any media environment, really. Everything is going wrong. Everyone is underpaid and overworked, and yet at the end of the day you decide to do it all again. Unless you're making the millions of an actor or renowned director, it's a bit of an impossible question as to why you'd keep doing it, but in that way The Franchise is also almost a love letter to show business. It doesn't shy away from depicting the bastardised way in which franchises are sapping creativity from the movie industry, but despite the amount of times characters say Rome is burning, the city never falls. The work continues, and there is space for the more artistic projects out there to flourish, just as there are the films that see themselves more as content than stories.

The Franchise doesn't quite slot into the same excellence as Iannucci's other works, but I can't wait to see more of it. It's hard to think of a recent sitcom that has arrived and felt as refreshing as The Franchise. The jokes could be punchier, the writing could be tighter, but so long as Dag is there, I'm having a good time. As Jon Brown finds his footing in potential future seasons, The Franchise could become a staple sitcom down the line.