Amazon’s new series, Night Sky, is really three shows in one. It’s a love story about a devoted, ageing couple who are facing their last years together. It’s an intergalactic sci-fi mystery involving portals to other planets. And it’s an intercontinental thriller involving various secret societies with conflicting interests re: said portals.
The first of these works really well. So well, in fact, that when the action moves away from the couple it’s hard not to resent it. Much of this is to do with the fact that the pair, retired school teacher Irene York and her carpenter husband Franklin, are played by Sissy Spacek and JK Simmons. Great separately, they are something special together in this. You can feel the Yorks’ whole half-century together from the moment they enter a scene. The actors bring their everything to understatement, evoking their enduring love, and the anxieties beginning to nibble round the edges as the tribulations and indignities of old age start to gather. The script is deft, catching the shorthand of long-time partners while never drifting into sentimentality, and in broader terms capturing the intimacy of small-town American life – with all the advantages and disadvantages that come with that, especially if you’ve never left.
