This series is right on target portraying Julia Child. Sarah Lancashire does a wonderful job. In the very first episode, she has to deal with the onset of menopause. Sarah showed in a very subtle way Julia's regret for never having had, and now becoming unable to have, a baby. Her regret hits home when she later runs into a friend who has had a baby.
The Alice Naman character stands in for an actual assistant producer at WGBH. She represents how women in the early 60s, regardless of race or ethnicity or education, were dismissed by the men they worked with, if they could get a job at all outside traditionally, and subservient, female occupations. Even by the end of the decade, job listings were separated by gender and women were not allowed to apply for jobs whose qualifications they met.
We learn how Russell Morash initially did not think something like a cooking show met the purpose of educational TV. He later went on to produce not only many years of The French Chef but also This Old House and Victory Garden, equally non-academic. His wife, Marian Morash, begins as a typical American housewife of her time, thinking tuna casserole was great food. She went on to give her own cooking lessons featuring home-grown produce on Victory Garden. We can only imagine how much Julia inspired her.
