This is the type of series that you can't fully appreciate unless you have seen it all. Keep that in mind when reading the negative comments. My wife and I watched all 10 episodes and we both enjoyed it as interesting fiction. We both were teenagers during the 1960s and we understand how rocky the road was for many groups getting together then staying together. Few of them, if any, had a smooth existence without difficult internal drama among band members. This roughly 8-hours of programming does a good job of portraying the highs and lows of a typical band. This is fiction but from what I have learned over the years, about how now-famous bands got together back in the 1960s and early 1970s, it seems very authentic.
In the very first episode we are told that the band, 'Daisy Jones and the Six', performed their last concert in Chicago in 1977. And that no one could have foreseen that. The middle episodes, two through nine, develop the characters and the progression of the band, through studio recording and road concerts. It is done in a style where each (now former) band member is interviewed on video some years after 1977. I'd estimate the mid 1990s. So most of the story is told in a type of flashback to earlier times.
First there are two brothers and a few friends from Pittsburgh who decide to form a band. They play a number of local gigs but are going nowhere, until someone suggests that they go west, to the Los Angeles area, the melting pot and hot spot for the formation of music groups. So they did, naively thinking that it would be straightforward. They quickly found out it wasn't.
A parallel story is that of Daisy, growing up in the Los Angeles area. She has always enjoyed music from a very young age, would sing along with recordings, but was never encouraged. So she struck it out alone when she turned 18. Episode three is devoted to how Daisy and the band "The Six" were able to meet for the first time, through a music producer, and make their first recording together.
The last episode, number ten, brings everything full circle and has a series of stories about each surviving member, mostly positive stories about how they were able to sort out their lives and achieve happiness. Riley Keough (about 33) and Sam Claflin (about 36) are each really good and authentic in their roles as Daisy and Billy. Although neither had been a "singer" before this production, each did their own singing and are as good as they needed to be for the era portrayed.
All in all a very successful Amazon Prime drama series. Elvis would be proud.
