When Minx was shooting the finale of this second season, it received the news that its then home in the US, HBO Max, was going back on its renewal and was dropping the show. It looked as if this vibrant and lively 70s-set sex-mag comedy, which never quite seems to have found the audience that it deserves, was dead in the water. But another US network, Starz, threw it a lifeline, and here it is, thrusting its “queen of dicks” Joyce Prigger back into the spotlight.
By 1973, Joyce (Ophelia Lovibond) has turned a pornographic publisher’s pet project into the bestselling new women’s magazine in the US, with a two-year waiting list for advertisers to tout their wares in its pages. As season one ended with publisher Doug (Jake Johnson) handing ownership of the magazine to Joyce, the first job at hand is to get the old band back together. Though they can barely make it through a minute without bickering, Doug and Joyce work best when they’re a duo, provoking each other and being annoyed at each other’s shortcomings. One of the show’s many clever decisions is to make Joyce a bit of a prude, still tied up in the academia of her feminist studies at university, even if she’s having to highlight the witticisms of famous women by slotting them into a calendar full of nude men. (“It pulls focus from the schlongs!” argues Doug.)
It is only a mild spoiler to say that of course Minx isn’t about to let Johnson go to waste, given that Doug is his best role since New Girl. Another smart move is to bring Elizabeth Perkins into the cast as shipping magnate and “unsung heroine of capitalism”, Constance Papadopolous, who likes what Minx magazine and Joyce Prigger are doing for the sexual revolution. Connie’s pockets are deep, and her character is high camp, sitting somewhere between Perkins’ stint as Celia on Weeds and a future patron of the White Lotus hotel chain. She has two Afghan hounds and a ruthless streak, and she’s not afraid to use them.
Ordinarily, when a show gives its characters exactly what they want, it starts to flounder, but Minx manages to keep it compelling, and moves lightly on its feet. The magazine, is a huge success, Joyce is becoming a star in her own right, and everyone else on the team is embarking on their own journey of self-discovery. Shelly is continuing to explore whatever it is that Bambi unlocked in her, while Bambi is trying to take herself seriously as an employee, in the hope that everyone else will, too. Richie (Oscar Montoya) is pushing at the limits of what a women’s magazine can do, throwing more than a wink to the fact that there is a clandestine audience of gay male readers thumbing through its pages. Tina, meanwhile, has given up a place at business school to be the managing editor of Minx, but she has to keep reminding Doug that she’s in charge, and not his secretary.
These are interpersonal conflicts that throw a little grit into the mix, and as the magazine’s success grows, so too do the egos of everyone involved. For a while, everyone is in high spirits. Joyce is the renegade who showed a middle finger to the establishment, by way of publishing a lot of penis pics, and yet somehow, she has pulled it off. The third episode shows off a highly enjoyable, if very daft, fantasy version of the LA party scene and Joyce is (reluctantly) profiled for Rolling Stone magazine. Having shown us a young Joan Didion assessing the notorious porn film Deep Throat in episode two, it then goes wild with the 70s stars. “What was your name again?” Joyce asks a photographer. “Annie Leibovitz,” replies the woman, in a scene that resembles the “Something Picasso?” moment in Titanic. It doesn’t stop: look out for fictional versions of Carl Sagan, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and Judee Sill, among others.
It’s an awful lot of fun, and it looks exquisite. Naturally, the good times can’t last for ever, and when the business stakes get higher, Minx’s rebellious streak starts to look more like a liability than an asset. If it has flaws, then they reveal themselves when it turns away from the comedy to embrace its more dramatic side. Occasionally, it can seem a little slight, when it is taking big swings at big issues and sometimes barely skimming the ball. But nevertheless, it is a treat of a show, rich and witty and so good-looking. No news yet on a season three, but I hope it manages to make it to the next level.
Minx season two is on Paramount+
