TV review: Dying for Sex never lets the characters get beyond the banter

This doesn’t seem very ethical from the counsellor. In the next scene, Molly tells her friend she is leaving her husband Steve because she doesn’t want to die with him. We’ve seen this coming because Steve is the classic useless husband. You know the type — weak, faux-feminist who is really only concerned about himself, telling Molly he is taking her off caffeine and sugar because he wants her to live as long as possible.

There is a lot of chest-beating about toxic masculinity after Adolescence on Netflix. Maybe it’s time to stop putting the useless husband character into so many shows — it’s not helping anyone.

Anyway. Michelle Williams. We spend a lot of time looking at her face while listening to her internal dialogue. It works because Michelle Williams has a brilliant face for light comedy, lighting up and shutting down at will as she tries to figure out the many ways she wants to have sex before she dies.

A note for people who are looking forward to non-stop sex action. There isn’t much. It’s mainly Molly and her friend Nikki bantering about life in that over-crafted way you get in American comedy-dramas, where the dialogue is all about showing us that the writer is just brilliant at writing.

There is a sign of life in episode two when bad people blackmail Molly after a compromising video on a hook-up website falls into the wrong hands. But then it just goes back to over-crafted banter between Molly and Nikki.

The cast list promises Rob Delaney will turn up at some point as ‘Neighbor Guy’. He eventually appears in episode three, as the slob of a guy next door who makes a lot of noise when he’s masturbating. Molly barges in on a whim and insists on watching him pleasuring himself while showering him in verbal abuse. It’s a nice deviation from the light entertainment. But the scene peters out into slapstick.

Dying for Sex is based on a podcast, where the presenter told the story of her real-life friend Molly. So somebody really died. The shame is that the TV version never lets the characters get beyond the banter, so it’s hard to feel anything really, despite the best efforts of Michelle Williams’ face.