On balance, the podcast revolution has been a negative for television. Whether it’s Homecoming on Prime Video (starring a confused Julia Roberts) or Dirty John on Netflix, hit podcasts have invariably made for watered-down TV. Something about the format’s chatty, informal style translates uneasily to the screen.
For that reason, true crime fans could be forgiven for having muted expectations for Paramount+’s Happy Face, a serial killer saga adapted from the 2018 podcast of the same name. But it pulls off the shift from non-fiction to drama surprisingly well – helped, perhaps, by the fact that it isn’t trying to do anything especially spectacular. The series tells a sensational story but with a minimum of fuss. Given the challenge posed by bringing podcasts to TV, simply to be stonkingly average (rather than weird and boring) is a victory in itself.
