Daisy Jones & the Six is an American musical drama television miniseries developed by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Set in the Los Angeles music scene of the 1970s, the series charts the rise and fall of the fictional titular rock band through a documentary style series of interviews with the members and footage of concerts and recording sessions, complete with vocals by series leads Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. Reid was partly inspired by her experiences growing up and watching Fleetwood Mac performances on television. It also stars Camila Morrone, Suki Waterhouse, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse, and Sebastian Chacon as the band members.
Daisy Jones & the Six premiered on Amazon Prime Video on March 3, 2023, and received generally positive reviews from critics. It earned multiple nominations at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited Series, Outstanding Lead Actress for Keough, and Outstanding Supporting Actress for Morrone.
Contents
Premise
Daisy Jones & the Six follows a rock band in the 1970s from their rise in the LA music scene to becoming one of the most famous bands in the world; the series also explores the reason behind the band's split at the height of their success.
Cast and characters
Main
Riley Keough as Daisy Jones, the lead singer and songwriter
Sam Claflin as Billy Dunne, the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter
Camila Morrone as Camila Alvarez, Billy's wife and the band's photographer
Suki Waterhouse as Karen Sirko, the keyboardist
Will Harrison as Graham Dunne, the lead guitarist and Billy's brother
Josh Whitehouse as Eddie Roundtree, the bassist
Sebastian Chacon as Warren Rojas, the drummer
Nabiyah Be as Simone Jackson, Daisy's old roommate and future disco singer
Tom Wright as Teddy Price, the producer
Timothy Olyphant as Rod Reyes, tour manager
Recurring
Seychelle Gabriel as Julia Dunne, the interviewer and Billy and Camila's daughter
Naya Kodeh portrays Julia as a child.
Jacqueline Obradors as Lucia, Camila's mother
Ross Partridge as Don Midleton, a record producer
Ayesha Harris as Bernie, a disc jockey and Simone's lover
Guest
Jack Romano as Chuck Loving, the original bassist for the Dunne Brothers
Nick Pupo as Jonah Berg, a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine
Nicole LaLiberte as Jean, Daisy's mother
Chris Diamantopoulos as Lee Parlin
Olivia Rose Keegan as Caroline
Gavin Drea as Nicky Fitzpatrick, Daisy's husband
Lily Donoghue as Lisa Crowne, an actress who later becomes Warren's wife
Amanda Fix as Daisy (then known as Margaret) at age 14 (in episode one)
Production
Development
The series was announced on July 25, 2019. The series was adapted for television by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who serve as executive producers alongside Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter. Taylor Jenkins Reid, the author of the novel, also produces the series. Production companies involved in the series are Hello Sunshine, Circle of Confusion and Amazon Studios.
Casting
In mid November 2019, it was announced that Riley Keough and Camila Morrone had joined the cast of the series. In February 2020, Sam Claflin, Suki Waterhouse, Nabiyah Be, Will Harrison, Josh Whitehouse, and Sebastian Chacon joined the cast of the series. In October 2021, Tom Wright and Jacqueline Obradors were cast in starring and recurring capacity, respectively. The following November, Timothy Olyphant joined the series in a recurring role.
Filming
The series was originally supposed to start production in April 2020, but was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It began filming in late September 2021 and wrapped in early May 2022 in New Orleans.
Music
The single "Regret Me" from the fictional band in the series, Daisy Jones & the Six, was released on January 25, 2023. The second single "Look at Us Now (Honeycomb)" was released on February 15, 2023. A full-length album, Aurora, was released by Atlantic Records on March 3, 2023. The album's lead vocals were performed by Riley Keough and Sam Claflin. It was composed, performed, and produced by Blake Mills, with additional production by Tony Berg and in collaboration with musicians such as Chris Weisman, Jackson Browne, Marcus Mumford, and Phoebe Bridgers.
Release
The limited series was released on Amazon Prime Video on March 3, 2023, with the first three episodes available immediately. The first episode was shown in US theaters for one night only to Amazon Prime members on March 1, 2023.
Reception
Critical response
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 69% approval rating with an average rating of 6.7/10, based on 107 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "Daisy Jones & the Six comes up short at evoking the rockstar credentials that were implied on the page, but the lively duet of Riley Keough and Sam Claflin give this adaptation enough verve to occasionally bring the house down." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 62 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Critics praised the performances of the ensemble cast and music. Nina Metz of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "Musically, Keough and Claflin are a good match. She has a strong, clear voice that bolsters their harmonies, but he can hold his own too, and they're credible as performers. [Keough] looks at home on stage and finds a way to channel some of [Stevie] Nicks' physicality and flowy-wispy stagewear without mimicking her outright," while Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly commented Keough "excels at self-destructive self-confidence".
Reviews were critical of the show's pacing, writing, and documentary framing device. Writing for Vulture, Roxana Hadadi said, "For all the series' delights—the chemistry between Sam Claflin and Riley Keough, the constant scene-stealing by Camila Morrone, the fizziness of the original songs—there's an unignorable smallness throughout ... The series shrinks Reid's novel (partially inspired by the infamously stormy relationship between Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham) into a claustrophobic love triangle mostly uninterested in looking beyond its three points, and indifferent to the paranoia and exhilaration of the 1970s. Creative process is recurrently pushed aside for romantic pining, and there's no imagination for artistic motivation past jealousy and lust." Hadadi opined "the series' best scenes are the ones that plunge into how they developed their sound, wrote their songs, and complemented or challenged each other."
Others lamented the underdevelopment of the other band members as characters. Metz wrote, "The series is primarily the Billy and Daisy show, with the other members of the band relegated to supporting status, including Suki Waterhouse as a character based on Christine McVie. While the keyboard can clearly be heard on the tracks, the character's actual musical contributions are rendered invisible." Metz added, "That's part of the fun of going behind the scenes. What does creative collaboration look like? Is it too boring to film? Maybe. But I would argue Peter Jackson's 2021 Get Back, the documentary made from old footage of The Beatles working on their final album, suggests the opposite." She conceded "the episodes have a cumulative power, even if the storytelling often feels like it's cutting corners rather than digging in".
Accolades
Audience viewership
Within hours of release, Daisy Jones & the Six hit No. 1 on Amazon Prime Video's Top 10 list in the U.S. According to Parrot Analytics' data, the series had an "impressive" 49% increase in demand and became the fourth-most streamed TV series across all U.S. platforms.