Once again, Tiktok has introduced me to yet another one of my favorite shows from just a five-second sound that goes “Down there is where I met Emma.”
A recent addition to the collection of television show clips that TikTok is currently gushing over, Netflix’s newest miniseries, One Day, quickly made its way onto my “to-watch” list when seeing what positive responses it received online.
What I was not prepared for, however, was just how heartwrenching it would be.
A retelling of both the 2009 novel One Day by David Nicholls and its successor—the 2011 film by the same name starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess—the one-season series pulls from both the timeless wistfulness of the original installments while modernizing it to bring a vibrance and contemporary agenda that fit impeccably together.
The series begins amid a post-graduation party at the University of Edinburgh, in which both leading characters—Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew—had spent the last four years of their lives. Dexter, who comes from a financially privileged background and has spent most of his life around people with similar opportunities, is immediately charmed by his fellow alumna, Emma Morley, whose witty, self-set, and intelligent persona differs much from those he usually surrounds himself with.
When the two run into each other—literally—that eventful night, their chemistry is almost instant. While their varying life plans manage to keep them apart, they stay in touch throughout the years and patiently await the one day a year when they can finally see each other. 14 episodes long, every episode of the series takes place on July 15th of the years from 1988 to 2008, beginning on the night the two met.
One of my favorite casting choices was picking British actress, writer, and comedian Ambika Mod to star in this series. While it is not common for the media to portray an actress of South Asian heritage as the leading lady of a romance, the choice of doing so for this series was the perfect fit. Mod—who portrayed the main female protagonist, Emma—shined in both her ability to bring a subtle but sentimental nuance to even the most enraging scenes, and in her capability to simultaneously show the emotional growth of the character throughout the chronology that the show spans upon. As it is very easy to play a character that exhibits no character development, Mod does the perfect job of making the audience see the growth of Emma as the series progresses.
Leo Woodall—who plays her male counterpart, Dexter Mayhew—also delivers a heart-wrenching performance. From flawlessly displaying the aimless, purposeless ideal that Dexter finds himself falling into after university to perfectly showing the character’s long-fought mental breakdown after a compilation of cataclysmic turns of events in his life, Woodall’s incredible acting is able to give a voice to those in similar situations who can sympathize with the experiences Dexter goes through throughout the season. The execution of his character, in particular, does an excellent job of furthering the “right person, wrong time” motif that is commonly seen throughout a large portion of the series.
When the two actors are on the screen together, their performances are nothing short of fantastic. Exploring the very real journey of loss, addiction, heartbreak, love, and hope, Emma and Dexter’s persisting relationship—both as strangers, friends, and lovers—is one that not only intertwines itself throughout the course of the characters’ 20-year journey but makes its way into the heartstrings of viewers by providing a raw, authentic story that is easy to empathize with. The two are able to take the cheery nostalgia of a 2000s romcom and mix it with the complexities and depth of a drama to create a series of both emotional richness and lighthearted sentiment.
The two are able to take the cheery nostalgia of a 2000s romcom and mix it with the complexities and depth of a drama to create a series of both emotional richness and lighthearted sentiment.
The final episode, which revisits a culmination of the past twenty years of the couples’ lives, ties the series together in a perfect bow. While some series leave audiences feeling as though the character’s stories are left unfinished, the denouement of One Day does not feel out of place or unnecessary.
While the ending of the series is a staggering turn of events that is bound to leave viewers teary-eyed, it felt fitting and, if anything, only added to the coming-of-age that the two characters had been leading up to for the entirety of the series. And, like many films and series before it, what is a great romance without a great tear-jerking element?
Giving an insightful, thought-provoking perception of the continuous convergence of two forever-intertwined people, One Day has certainly earned its place as one of my favorite shows. And while TikTok has a tendency to over-hype a large number of merely average shows, I am happy to say that this was not the case for this show.
Without a doubt, watching Emma and Dexter find both themselves and one another amidst both desolating trials and soaring highs proves to be an experience that is definitely worth the watch.
