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Pam & Tommy is a bloated, haphazard miniseries that stretches material that might be sufficient for a feature film into eight episodes.
Hulu’s Pam & Tommy opening scene encapsulates its overall clumsy and inconsistent approach to its true-story material. The miniseries begins with actress Pamela Anderson (Lily James) sitting on the couch at The Tonight Show opposite Jay Leno, played by a mediocre impressionist under unconvincing makeup. As Leno jokes about her and her husband Tommy Lee’s (Sebastian Stan) illegally distributed sex tape, she forcibly smiles and pretends that this invasion of her privacy is a fun anecdote and a part of her bubbly and sexualized persona.
The theme of cavalier disregard for a famous woman’s privacy just because she’s beautiful and wears a bathing suit on TV is the most powerful and timely idea in Pam & Tommy — but subpar sketch comedy undermines it. Pam & Tommy‘s eight-episode miniseries attempts satire, social commentary, surrealism, and suspense but fails to land any of these. Based on a 2014 Rolling Stone article and real-life events, Pam & Tommy is a haphazard miniseries that stretches material that might be sufficient for a feature film into superfluous episodes.
The focus of that original Rolling Stones article isn’t Pamela or Tommy, but rather Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen), the contractor who stole the sexually explicit home video from the celebrity couple in 1995. Created for TV by Robert Siegel, Pam & Tommy splits its focus between Rand and his associate Milton Ingley (Nick Offerman) and Pamela and Tommy. Rand and Milton’s sleazy escapades don’t gel well with the glamour of celebrity antics.
Although Pam & Tommy‘s sympathies lie mostly with Pamela, nobody comes off well. Rand is a mopey loser who pines for his glory days of starring in adult films with his soon-to-be-ex-wife Erica (Taylor Schilling). He sees the Anderson/Lee sex tape as his ticket to riches and glory. He’s justified in his anger at Tommy, who treats Rand and his fellow contractors like garbage as they work hard to accommodate Tommy’s erratic plans for renovating the couple’s house. Tommy makes inconvenient demands and then refuses payment, eventually firing Rand and leaving him thousands of dollars in debt. When Rand returns to the house to retrieve his tools, Tommy pulls a gun on him.
Rand spends months spying on Tommy and Pamela, planning the perfect heist. While Rand finds jewelry, cash, and firearms in the safe, he also finds is a small videotape that Tommy and Pamela shot on their honeymoon. Rand takes the video to Milton, a director/producer of adult films, and they devise a plan to distribute the tape via the world wide web.
It takes Pam & Tommy three episodes to get through the acquiring and release of the infamous sex tape. Siegel and the rest of the writers load episodes with irrelevant filler, seemingly to get to the requisite length for a prestige true-crime miniseries. Craig Gillespie, who directs the first three episodes, offered a much more clever and entertaining take on similar material in his 2017 film I, Tonya; however, Pam & Tommy lacks that movie’s playful self-awareness or levels of meta-commentary on tabloid mythmaking. Aside from an odd interlude that involves Tommy talking to his penis (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), Pam & Tommy sticks to fairly straightforward storytelling without the stylistic flourishes that could elevate the material.
Both James and Stan effectively embody their well-known counterparts. James finds the right balance between sensitive and vapid for Pamela. Stan’s performance recalls his turn as Jeff Gillooly in I, Tonya. While Tommy clearly loves Pamela, he’s also an unrepentant jerk and narcissist who treats every non-celebrity as worthless and never quite understands how devastating the release of the sex tape is for his wife. Rogen, who also produced the series, tones down his comedic persona as the pathetic Rand, who isn’t sympathetic or weird enough to be fascinating.
As befits a series about a sex tape featuring multiple characters who work in the porn industry, Pam & Tommy is full of graphic nudity and sex. But the creators never make a successful connection between their depiction of sexuality and the commodification of the sex tape. Pam & Tommy could have been an insightful statement on celebrity culture and patriarchy. Instead, it’s a dramatized magazine article full of passable impressions of famous people.
The first three episodes of Pam & Tommy premiere on Feb. 2 on Hulu, with subsequent episodes debuting weekly.
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