Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Commons’ On Sundance Now, About A Woman Trying To Have A Baby In A Chaotic Near-Future World

When you’ve heard that someone you know has had a baby in recent months, you might think two things: “Awwww!” and “What kind of world is this baby being born into?” Let’s just say that there’s a lot going on in 2020, and the coming years are looking like they could get even more extreme. That’s the idea behind The Commons, where a woman tries to have a baby in a world that is increasingly coming apart at the seams, especially for the 99%.

THE COMMONS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A CGI shot of a baby in a womb, that starts to kick and make its way out of its mother’s body, followed by a very pregnant woman running around an empty building in pain.

The Gist: Despite the fact that Eadie Boulay (Joanne Froggatt) lives in a near-future world with rain that’s acidic enough to burn people’s eyes, a water shortage, global warming that has brought pandemic-causing insects into the cities, drone-enforced curfews, and other issues, she still wants to have a baby with her husband, Lloyd Green (David Lyons). They’re hopeful that this round of IVF works, because she only has one embryo left, and she might not be able to use it; she’s coming up on her 38th birthday, when a high tariff is placed on women who want treatment past that age.

Life is also pretty hectic, and her career as a neuropsychologist keeps her busy; she tries to help a PTSD patient named Ben Childers (Damon Herriman) recall an incident with someone wanting to come into the city to escape drought conditions. She does this by hooking Ben up to a machine that lets him visualize what’s blocking him — in this case, an incident when he was in the military — and face it head-on.

Eadie, though, has her mind elsewhere; she’s jealous of her brother Dom (Rupert Penry-Jones), who lives in a virtually walled-off part of the city and has a huge family. When her stepdaughter Ivy (Inez Currõ) asks why they can’t move there, where there’s a shelter they can be in during the voltage reduction curfews, Eadie explains that she’d rather rely on neighbors than a paid concierge, like her brother does.

While Lloyd and his less-than-mature buddy Shay Levine (Ryan Corr) go to the outskirts of town on a project, and Lloyd follows a kid with the disease they’re studying to his apartment, Eadie finds out that her embryo didn’t take. She finds out in a chat with other IVF moms that she can use her last embryo and get inseminated “off book,” but it looks like Lloyd has resigned himself that they are done with the ups and downs of IVF, not the least of which is how her immune system has to be suppressed in order for the embryo to have any chance. So she asks Shay to help her.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The near-future dystopian narrative reminds us of shows like Brave New World, albeit with more real-life stakes being examined.

Our Take: Despite the fact that The Commons, created by Shelley Birse, takes places in a frighteningly familiar near-future time period, one that is essentially where we’re headed if we don’t shape up, it’s strangely low-key. The stakes are really personal and small in this series; it examines how a woman will go to great lengths and risk to have a child, despite the fact that the world she’s bringing a child into isn’t all that great.

So we just have to wonder where the remaining seven episodes are going to go. Sure, Froggatt gives a fine lead performance as the desperate-bordering-on-obsessive Eadie, who has to negotiate the loss she feels with each failed insemination. Her feeling is that donating or destroying her remaining embryo because she’s 38 and IVF would be prohibitively expensive is inherently wrong, because it would always leave her with the feeling of “what if”.

But what we’re not sure about is what happens if, like Shay says, “Then what? ‘Hey, presto, look, I have a bun in the oven?’ Is that your strategy?” Is the season going to be about how she hides her pregnancy from Lloyd? Or is it just her attempts to stay healthy during the 12 weeks she’s on the immunosuppressive medication? Will it be about the scary, dystopian world that’s falling apart around her?]

It’s not often that we can’t figure out the narrative drive of a series after the first episode, but this one has us scratching our heads, despite the good performances.

Sex and Skin: Not really; Eadie and Lloyd embrace in the fake outdoor atrium at her hospital, and they shower together after she finds out that the pregnancy didn’t take, but there isn’t a lot in the way of sex going on in the first episode.

Parting Shot: As Shay walks away from Eadie, who just asked him to keep the biggest secret of his life, storm clouds start to gather over the city.

Sleeper Star: Inez Currõ is interesting as Ivy, who seems to have a decent relationship with Eadie, and is maybe even slightly more mature than her stepmom is. What role will she play in Eadie’s rogue pregnancy?

Most Pilot-y Line: For some reason, Shay has a key to Eadie and Lloyd’s flat. He swallows the key when she asks for it back. He then presents the key in a ring box like he’s proposing, insensitively not realizing that she just got bad news. So he’s not only a jerk, but a jerk who thinks he’s funny.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While The Commons is off to a disjointed, low-stakes start, it does boast fine performances from Froggatt and Lyons and a scarily prescient view of our near future that will make you feel a bit squirrely while watching it. That’s enough to give it a recommendation.

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Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Commons On Sundance Now