"Staged," Part Two

I struggled a little with the title to this post, because it hasn't been a year since the first six episodes of "Staged," and it still doesn't feel right calling it a series or a season, or anything else related to a standard television show.  So, "Part Two."  Six months into the pandemic, David Tennant and Michael Sheen are still stuck in quarantine, still looking scruffy and anxious, and eager to get on with their work, travel, and the rest of their lives.  Alas, their plans keep being delayed or blocked.

The format of the show remains mostly the same, largely carried out over Zoom calls, with a lot of celebrity guests dropping in.  Many scenes were filmed by the actors themselves with smart phones and home electronics.  The second series is more focused than the first, built around preparations for an American adaptation of "Staged" that rile up the tensions between Tennant and Sheen, and sets them both against writer Simon Evans.  Joining the cast are Whoopi Goldberg and Ben Schwartz, playing a high-powered Hollywood agent and her assistant.  The interactions aren't as organic or as funny, having less room for improvisation, and spending less time with the leads simply living out their lives and trying to assuage their boredom.  Their partners, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg, are still very present but we see less of them, and even less of their relationships.

The series is still an easy watch and very funny at times.  The two standout episodes both feature pairs of big guests - Edgar Wright and Nick Frost in one episode, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Cate Blanchett in another.  The show does a good job of making their appearances count, giving Wright and Frost a chance to demonstrate what "Staged" might have looked like if it starred the two of them, and creating a wonderfully uncomfortable conference call with Waller-Bridge and Blanchett where it comes out that Tennant and Waller-Bridge are mortal enemies.  The rest of the guests are very hit-or-miss, and their scenes often feel a little like crossovers with other pandemic era media.  The first episode has Tennant and Sheen appear on a talk programme with Romesh Ranganathan.  I recognized Josh Gad and Ken Jeong's houses from their Youtube shows.  There's nothing here as memorable as the appearance of Judi Denchi, but I still really enjoy watching Tennant and Sheen getting dressed down by the likes of Whoopi Goldberg and Michael Palin.

The second series of "Staged" feels overall less engaging than the first, maybe because the novelty has worn off, or because the uneasiness of life during the pandemic is fading quickly.  The atmosphere is less oppressive, and the source of everyone's worries is largely internal this time, and less due to external circumstances.  What was so absorbing about the early episodes, and really about all of the earlier pandemic media, was that it felt so personal, and so haphazardly put together by people who were still struggling to make it all work.  Now, everything feels more polished and practiced, more calculated and less off the cuff.  It doesn't feel like we're seeing slices of life in the Tennant and Sheen households so much as scenes that are, well, staged.  And while I like that the creators pull back from the more obviously contrived events like the unseen neighbor's health scare, at the same time the pandemic gets backgrounded a little too much.  It's only in the last episode that we see anybody wearing a face mask.

What does continue to feel genuine is the friendship between Tennant and Sheen.  "Staged" is still at its best when it's the two of them bickering, bouncing off of each other, and commiserating.  And when they finally get to really share a scene together in the end, it's a heartwarming sight to see.   

---