Not Safe for Work

Summary

This miniseries is a British office drama that offers a nuanced look at English public employment, the target of adjustment policies, without limiting itself to defending or attacking it, or painting private activity as its opposite and panacea. The same can be said about the immigration policies he outlines. And it offers that ability to go from sharp British verbal humor to drama, discomfort and even misery nonstop, hand in hand with a group of endearing, contradictory or toxic characters led by Zawe Ashton, a kind of brunette Jennifer Aniston.

Review

Katherine (Zawe Ashton) is a burgeoning manager of a newly divorced London public immigration policy office who is transferred to an obscure Northampton borough whose continuity is hanging by a thread.

This miniseries is an office drama that could be seen as the other side of Industry, with well-delineated characters. In this case, the public department (also in charge of immigration policies) is adrift, directed on automatic pilot by a drug-abused subject named Daniel (Sacha Dhawan), who is joined by a gallery of broken or devastated characters, in some toxic or naive cases, including a hiring manager, Jeffries (an excellent Anastasia Hille), Daniel's tremendous assistant and friend, Angela (notably Jo Hartley), two rather silly and endearing employees, and a former love interest of Katherine. Added to her personal dramas is the ghost of the dismissal hovering over her heads.

Not Safe for Work offers a nuanced look at British public employment, not limited to defending or attaking it, but as a target of adjustment policies, with the anguish of losing one's job as a permanent backdrop. Nor does it portray private activity as its opposite and panacea and offers the same broad, non-schematic view of immigration policies that it outlines.

The series works very well with its British verbal humor that quickly turns to depression, discomfort and the sufferings of its characters (or with the combination of all this), transits the romantic comedy, although it may not be as effective on the plane of physical humor (fortunately little). The dialogues, in all cases and climates, look welcome conciseness.

Beyond its choral elements, the axis of the series is Katherine, a quite damaged character, rich in contradictions, lights and shadows who is carried forward with charisma by a Zawe Ashton who is a kind of brunette version of Jennifer Aniston.

Sacha Dhawan and and Zawe Ashton do their best best work to date, It is so so dark,so dry it will leave you sucking cat litter for a bit of moisture and hilarious. But also quite deep and moving. W1A fans will love.

This is definitely a slow-burner but, wow, does it get good! I wasn't sure whether I'd stick with this after episode 1, but I did and I'm really glad. It is not what it initially seems to be. As the series goes on you get to know every character really well and find out why they are as they are. Each person is so realistically developed as it progresses. They actually speak and act like real people. That is so rare, and you start to really care about all of them. There are no villains or heroes, just like in true life, only people struggling to survive and to make sense of what sometimes seems like a pointless and ridiculous world. It is hysterically funny in places and genuinely moving too. The acting, writing and direction are second to none.

While covering much of the same ground as the deservedly celebrated "The Office", this flawless comedy augments the cringe facter with an affecting drama that ups the pathos as the story works its way to its inevitable conclusion. I do not think I have ever seen a better comedy show of any nature and it deserves the types of accolades given to "The Office" and indeed any renowned show of the past. That it was not renewed is bittersweet, as it is it remains perfect in its construction but a chance to see the characters developed further would have been great. All of the cast give their best and the satire is spot on. This is a show that reminds you that all those other semi-successful series with intermittent laughs need not be so bad - so why are they? Here, everything gels. Magnificent.

I opened my IMDB account to review this. Not Safe For Work is, I believe, my most favourite mini-series of all time.

This is not your typical office comedy. This is the story of a group of people failing at life, but in a realistic way. It's both very funny and very dark, and while at first it may seem cringy and over-the-top, you quickly get into these weird people's weird lives and personalities - as Morticia Addams says, 'normal is an illusion'.

At first you start with archetypes, such as the junkie, the awkward chatterbox or the guy with anger issues, but the characters unravel and become absolutely attaching (especially the Danny-Angela duo, as far as I'm concerned).

In the end, these people and their stories are really touching and I simply didn't want to let go of this lot.

My only complaint is that it's way too short!