I Hate Suzie

I Hate Suzie is a British dark comedy drama streaming television series created by Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper. It was produced by Bad Wolf in association with Sky Studios, with Prebble serving as showrunner. All episodes were written by Prebble and most were directed by Georgi Banks-Davies.

I Hate Suzie
GenreDrama
Created by
Written byLucy Prebble
Directed byGeorgi Banks-Davies
Anthony Neilson
Starring
Composers
  • Johnny Lloyd
  • Nathan Coen
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of series1
No. of episodes8 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
  • Lucy Prebble
  • Billie Piper
  • Julie Gardner
  • Liz Lewin
  • Cameron Roach
ProducerAndrea Dewsbery
Running time32-41 minutes
Production companyBad Wolf Sky Studios
DistributorNBCUniversal Television Distribution
Release
Original networkSky Atlantic
Picture format1080i (16:9 HDTV)
Original release27 August 2020 (2020-08-27) –
present
External links
Production website

The show marks the third collaboration between Prebble and Piper, who previously worked together on Secret Diary of a Call Girl (2007–11) and The Effect (2012). I Hate Suzie follows the life of actress Suzie Pickles (Piper) whose life is thrown into turmoil when her phone is hacked and compromising photographs of her are leaked. Each episode is focused on "one of the eight stages of trauma" that Suzie experiences, a take on the five stages of grief.

I Hate Suzie premiered on Sky Atlantic and NOW TV on 27 August 2020. It made its US debut on HBO Max on 19 November. It received critical acclaim from television critics for its writing, directing, and Piper's performance. It was recognized by several publications as one of the best television programs of the year.

Premise

Suzie Pickles (Piper) is a former teenage pop star and television actress. After her phone is hacked and compromising photos of her are leaked, Suzie struggles to keep her marriage to Cob (Daniel Ings) together and protect her son Frank (Matthew Jordan-Caws). Meanwhile, Naomi (Leila Farzad), Suzie's manager and friend, attempts to keep her career afloat.

Cast and characters
  • Billie Piper as Suzie Pickles
  • Leila Farzad as Naomi Jones
  • Daniel Ings as Cob Betterton
  • Nathaniel Martello-White as Carter Vaughan
  • Matthew Jordan-Caws as Frank

Episodes
No. Title Director Writer Original airdate Viewers
(millions)
1"Shock"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Compromising pictures of Suzie have been hacked from her phone. Her apparently perfect life spectacularly implodes.
2"Denial"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
When no one believes her claim that the sex photos are fake, Suzie parties while her family life hangs in the balance.
3"Fear"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Working to save her marriage, Suzie agrees that maybe working with the man in question isn't the best idea. Naomi attempts to keep the press at bay.
4"Shame"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Suzie gives a disastrous interview and struggles to make peace with her own desires. Meanwhile, Naomi is in hard-core damage control mode.
5"Bargaining"Anthony NeilsonLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Cob decides it's his turn to let loose and Suzie is forced to combine her dinner with her producers with Cob's wild night out.
6"Guilt"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Suzie is on the lookout for a career change and auditions for a new musical. Family politics come to light with Suzie's parents.
7"Anger"Anthony NeilsonLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Suzie tries to keep her cool and focus on balancing work and family. Naomi finds herself struggling.
8"Acceptance"Georgi Banks-DaviesLucy Prebble27 August 2020 (2020-08-27)TBC
Suzie has to come to terms with her situation and make some big decisions.

Production

Conception

Following their collaboration on Secret Diary of a Call Girl and The Effect, Prebble and Piper developed a close friendship.[1] Piper expressed interest to Prebble in working together on another project.[2] The inspiration for the story came from the frequent correspondence between the two, who would share their struggles of identity and womanhood.[1] Prebble came up with the idea for a story centered around a phone hack.[2] She structured the story around an idea of "eight stages of trauma or grief", a take on the five stages of grief, with each episode focusing on one of the stages.[2] Each episode was created to have the feel of a standalone mini-film.[2]

Filming

Interior scenes for I Hate Suzie were mostly filmed at Bad Wolf Studios in Cardiff, South Wales. Some exterior scenes were shot on-location at Park Avenue and Mimms Hall Road in the town Potters Bar, Hertfordshire.[3] For the episode "Denial", scenes featuring Suzie and Naomi at a sci-fi convention were filmed at the ExCeL London during the MCM London Comic Con in October 2019.[4]

Music

The musical score to I Hate Suzie was composed by Johnny Lloyd and Nathan Coen, who previously worked with Piper on her directorial debut Rare Beasts.[5] "Before we even knew what the series was gonna look like, we were already kind of pulling together ideas and sending them to Lucy [Prebble] while she was writing it," Coen said.[5] Lloyd described the process of scoring as "challenging" to create continuity and embody different emotions each episode.[5]

Broadcast

I Hate Suzie premiered on Sky Atlantic on 27 August 2020, with all episodes made available to watch on Sky's NOW TV subscription service that same day.[6] The following day, it was made available in Australia on the streaming service Stan.[7] In October 2020, the show was acquired for American audiences by HBO Max. The series had its US television debut on HBO Max on November 19th.[8] In Latin America the series premiered on 7 November 2020 on Warner.

Reception

Ratings

The premiere episode "Shock" received an overnight rating of 95,000 viewers across two screenings.[9] After seven days, the ratings rose to 532,000.[10] Twenty-eight days later, the episode's ratings rose to a total of 987,000 viewers, including 41,000 watching from other devices.[10] The show became Sky Atlantic's second most-viewed show for the third quarter of 2020, behind the miniseries The Third Day.[11]

Critical reception
Piper's performance was praised by critics.

I Hate Suzie was acclaimed by television critics, who praised the writing and Piper's performance.[12] The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 94% with an average score of 8.1/10, based on 34 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Gazing into the eye of the celebrity storm with frenzied style, I Hate Suzie is a ruthless satire on stardom that is effortlessly carried by Billie Piper's manic performance."[13] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the first season a score of 85 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "Universal acclaim".[14]

Writing for The Telegraph, Chris Bennion gave the show 5 out of 5 stars, stating "I Hate Suzie is a glorious mess of ideas, a potent, fizzing monument to the creativity of its makers."[15] Lucy Mangan of The Guardian praised the collaboration between Prebble and Piper, calling the show a "wild ride that feels like an absolute gift."[16] Kristen Baldwin in her review for Entertainment Weekly gave the series an "A" rating, calling it a "bloody brilliant exploration of modern womanhood" that "tells a wholly unique story about the liberation that comes from total exposure."[17]

Sonia Saraiya of Vanity Fair wrote, "I Hate Suzie is a masterclass in tone... a portrait of vulnerability that bewitches not by prettifying itself, or making itself ugly, but instead with stark, unfiltered honesty."[18] Ed Cumming of The Independent wrote, "Piper has a rare gift for eliciting sympathy... [w]hat emerges is a black-comedy-horror about female friendship, modern fame, and the impossibility of true privacy in a world where everyone has an online video camera in their pockets."[19]

In a more critical review, Allison Keene of Paste deemed the series "messy, ambitious, chic, yet ultimately a little shallow and out of focus."[20] However, she reserved praise for Piper's acting, calling her performance "astonishingly open".[20] Matt Walsh of TV Guide wrote "You might squirm but will never hate the excellent Piper, as Suzie careens from self-pity to self-disgust in a surreal blur of debauched despair."[21] Writing for Decider, Joel Keller found the first episode to be "an effective exercise in seeing a person's life fall apart around them in short order" but was more "intrigued with seeing Piper's interpretation of how Suzie tries to put the pieces back together."[22]

Accolades
Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) and nominee(s) Result
RTS Craft & Design Awards 23 November 2020 Editing – Drama Izabella Curry Nominated

I Hate Suzie appeared on several critics year-end top ten lists:

References
  1. Wally, Maxine (25 November 2020). "I Hate Suzie Creators Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper Never Wanted You to Love Suzie Pickles". W. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
  2. Miller, Liz Shannon (20 November 2020). "How Billie Piper Is Taking Control of Her (Very Relatable) Story with HBO Max's 'I Hate Suzie'". Collider. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  3. Smith, Matthew (15 August 2020). "Hertfordshire town Potters Bar to appear in I Hate Suzie, Billie Piper's new Sky TV series". Hertfordshire Mercury. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  4. BBC America Editors (25 October 2019). "First Look: Billie Piper Films Scene For TV Series 'I Hate Suzie' At London Comic Con". BBC America. Retrieved 21 December 2020.
  5. Brown, Lillian (5 December 2020). "How the Composers of 'I Hate Suzie' Crafted the Show's Catchy, Faux-Viral Songs". The Observer. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  6. Edwards, Chris (27 August 2020). "Billie Piper's new Sky Atlantic drama I Hate Suzie heavily praised by gripped viewers". Digital Spy. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  7. "New Series 'I Hate Suzie' Starring Billie Piper Coming To Stan". 26 August 2020. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  8. Kanter, Jane (9 October 2020). "'I Hate Suzie': HBO Max Picks Up Comedy Drama From 'Succession' Writer Lucy Prebble". Deadline. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  9. Goldbart, Max (28 August 2020). "I Hate Suzie hacks 100,000". Broadcast. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  10. Price, Stephen (29 October 2020). "Cumulative viewing data key for Sky drama". Broadcast. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  11. Broadcast Staff (12 November 2020). "The top consolidated shows for Q3 2020". Broadcast. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  12. BBC Staff (28 August 2020). "I Hate Suzie: Five-star reviews for Billie Piper's TV return". BBC News. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  13. "I Hate Suzie". Fandango. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  14. "I Hate Suzie". CBS Interactive. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
  15. Bennion, Chris (27 August 2020). "I Hate Suzie review: a glorious, fizzing monumentto the creativity of Piper and Prebble". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 19 December 2020.
  16. Mangan, Lucy (27 August 2020). "I Hate Suzie review – Billie Piper is nude, lewd and joyously off the rails". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  17. Baldwin, Kristen (17 November 2020). "Prepare to love I Hate Suzie: Review". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 20 December 2020."
  18. Saraiya, Sonia (19 November 2020). "Sharp and Funny, I Hate Suzie Brings Us on an Eight-Episode Meltdown". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  19. Cumming, Ed (27 August 2020). "I Hate Suzie review: Billie Piper's nude photo hack satire is dark comedy at its most frenetic". The Independent. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  20. Keene, Allison (18 November 2020). "I Hate Suzie: Billie Piper Shines in an Ambitious but Messy Series". Paste. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  21. Walsh, Matt (23 November 2020). "I Hate Suzie review". TV Guide Magazine. NTVB Media. p. 11. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  22. Keller, Joel (19 November 2020). "Stream It Or Skip It: 'I Hate Suzie' On HBO Max". Decider. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  23. Shoemaker, Allison. "The best TV of 2020: The ballots". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
  24. Bennion, Chris. "The 10 best TV shows of 2020... and the five worst". The Telegraph. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
  25. Baldwin, Kristen; Darren, Franich (2 December 2020). "The best and worst TV shows of 2020". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 15 December 2020.
  26. McGurk, Stuart; Barrie, Thomas; Pometsey, Olive; Levesley, David; Allen, Ben (23 December 2020). "The best TV of 2020: from Small Axe to The Boys and Industry". GQ UK. Retrieved December 26, 2020.
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