Alice and Steve Draws Fire Over 26-Year-Old Daughter Plot, Squandering 6-Episode Premise
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jun 8
Alice and Steve Draws Fire Over 26-Year-Old Daughter Plot, Squandering 6-Episode Premise
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jun 8
Summary
A new review calls “Alice and Steve” “dated and wrong,” arguing the comedy mishandles its central relationship between Steve and 26-year-old Izzy, the daughter of his best friend Alice, whom he has known since birth.
Six half-hour episodes are faulted for dodging the premise’s hardest questions—power imbalance, experience and consent—and instead framing Steve as merely lonely and weak rather than seriously interrogating the “ick.”
Jemaine Clement and Yali Topol Margalith are said to show little chemistry, while Nicola Walker is left playing Alice as a one-note, self-destructive shrew through a string of implausible attempts to break up the couple.
The review says the series’ more believable emotional beats lie elsewhere—in Daniel’s quiet suffering and a subplot involving Dom and Rome—leaving the main story unconvincing, unresolved and capped by a “ridiculous” ending.