A theory of mine is that, once every generation, the US is forced to produce a blockbuster sitcom that 50% of people find extremely annoying. I do not know if this is a constitutional law or an ancient curse. Anyway, watch the progression: first Friends, then How I Met Your Mother, then The Big Bang Theory. Usually, there is nothing inherently wrong with these sitcoms: they just occupy a strange space where everything is tinged with a saccharine, family-friendly wholesomeness that serves to delight exactly one half of the viewing public (you) and repulse and annoy the grumpier, more joyless side (me).
What I find more interesting than the shows themselves is the unlikely directions their actors take afterwards: where is the next “Jennifer Aniston’s film career” or “Neil Patrick Harris singing at the Oscars”? And so to Kaley Cuoco, The Big Bang Theory’s Penny for 12 years, 12 seasons, 278 episodes and one million deviations of the line “Say it in English, nerd!”, who is now Cassie Bowden, the titular flight attendant in The Flight Attendant (Friday, 9pm, Sky One). Is it unfair of me to reduce the lead actor (and executive producer) of a startlingly stylish and grippingly twisty HBO show down to “that one who was in the nerd sitcom once”? Yes it is. But as the viewer, the moment you see Cuoco – so rigidly set in our minds as Penny – you are expecting her to deliver a joke about not knowing who Aquaman is after leaving a suitable pause-for-applause gap to let the squealing studio audience gasp into hysterics.
Instead she is actually very, very good: a janglingly, messy party-girl type, constantly waking up with mascara on her arm while struggling to remember what bed she’s in and where. After one such rager, she comes to in the middle of a ghoulish crime scene and, in a blind-but-understandable panic, flees the country. What unfolds is a satisfyingly twisty cat-and-mouse affair with the FBI, a clear-eyed confrontation with her own past and her relationship with alcohol, and a pleasingly silly mind-palace trick where she zips into her own head and has confused conversations with the dead guy she woke up next to. There’s a tinkling, runaround soundtrack like a 1950s caper. There are some neat split-screen conversation scenes that evoke a dark graphic novel. The whole thing has a slight pulpy air about it – a comedy mystery that actually focuses on being funny, instead of just twisty – which helps back up some of the more ludicrous plot points that unfold.
It’s silly, then, in all the right ways, which will either enchant or annoy you. Weirdly, that’s what feels well-timed about it: what I enjoyed most about The Flight Attendant was how – in this ultra-serious, darkly gory world where death is a constant reality (and I am talking about the show here) – it was able to be divertingly fun in the same few moments that someone gets their throat sliced open with a wine bottle. Listen: there’s a lot going on outside and a lot for you to worry about. The tonic could well be 60 minutes of escapist TV, where Kaley Cuoco calamitously tries to solve an international murder without even saying “bazinga” once.
