Laid is one of those very clever television ideas. Written by Australian screenwriter Marieke Hardy back in 2011, it is the story of a young woman who realises that her past lovers are starting to die one by one, and must begin piecing together her sexual past to unravel the mystery of what is going on.
It might have been a double blip on the Australian cultural copybook – a second season was made by the ABC in 2012 – but more than a decade later, the series has been rebooted for American TV. Which means this is the story of a 13-year-old modestly successful Aussie sitcom that just cracked the toughest TV market in the world.
Zosia Mamet (second from right) and Stephanie Hsu in the American reboot of Laid.Credit: James Dittiger/Peacock
“We love this premise, we love it so much, it’s so dark and so fun,” the show’s US co-executive producer, Sally Bradford McKenna, says. Co-executive producer Nahnatchka Khan adds: “Leaning into the romcom elements of the story was something that appealed to us while keeping this kind of danger, death streak going.”
For the American audience, Roo becomes Ruby (Stephanie Hsu, who is also a co-executive producer), but little else changes. And while the series is not itself designed to make bold and profound observations about the parlous state of dating in 2024, both Bradford McKenna and Khan concede the audience can draw some very accessible conclusions from the series.
“We’re both married, not to each other, but we’re both married,” Bradford McKenna says. “Dating is always a nightmare. I feel like that’s a universal, that’s an evergreen. It’s always awful. It does feel like, from what we hear, it’s much harder now. It’s much worse.
“From what I hear from single friends, women especially, it’s much more bleak. This is a way for us to do something that still keeps the ideal of, ‘I’m looking for the one’, and to kind of tell sort of a classic romantic story, but have this dark backdrop, which is relatable today because everything seems awful.”
Neither Khan nor Bradford McKenna was fluent in Australian comedy, but connected immediately with the awkward tone of Australian humour, “which Australians do very well” Khan says. “We wanted to embrace that and keep that.”
For American audiences, Khan believes the series taps a deep and existential cultural vein: “There’s so much focus on finding the one and the idea of not being alone and is there something wrong with me? How come I can’t find love?” Khan says.
Laid is not inherently political, but a narrative about a woman recording her sexual history could be a shift in American culture.Credit: James Dittiger/Peacock
“Taking those almost perennial questions, [we wanted to] keep the awkwardness, enhance the love story, and really lean into the tropes of that. As the series progresses, there’s going to be the kiss in the rain, the run through the city, all of those kind of rom-com elements that, in addition to the awkward and the dark, make a really interesting tone for us.”
The series is not inherently political, but it could be said that in 2024 a narrative about a woman recording her sexual history on a whiteboard could be taken as a statement about shifts in American culture in which it seems that male politicians are policing women’s bodies.
“I think it is in there,” Bradford McKenna says. “I don’t think we set out at all to do anything political. And I think it’s not really on the surface. We never want it to be like, ‘Oh my god, look how many partners I had’.
“But you also have that moment of looking at your past and being confronted with it and having to look back at it’s, not the number, not the quantity, but oh god, I didn’t treat that guy very well, or whatever happened with her? So we kind of tried to walk that line.”
Celia Pacquola (left) and Alison Bell in the original Laid.Credit: ABC
There was also a sense, Khan says, of owning your past. “It’s not an overtly political show by any means, but it’s her history and it only belongs to her,” Khan says. “And when her friend makes the board and confronts her with it, it tells her much more about herself than about any of these individual people.”
While the cultural verdict might be to blame social media, in truth, the one-time romantic north star of Sex and the City is more likely to blame. That’s the show, I explain to Bradford McKenna and Khan, that packaged up the idea of an unattainable and self-interested man as the ideal happily-ever-after, and encouraged a generation of Carries to ignore the Aidans of this world, waiting for Big.
So what do the executive producers want Laid to say to a generation of young people who might’ve been sold a dud by one of the most successful romantic comedy TV series of all time?
“It’s a fairytale, right? [And] the idea of fairytales are perpetuated by romantic comedies, at least in the past,” Khan says. “So taking it from the Cinderella era of literal fairytale books to movies, to TV shows. With a Mr Big, the idea that Prince Charming is out there is something that we want to believe.
“There’s a natural draw to believing the fairytale. And here, we’re sort of acknowledging Ruby wants that, right? It’s like, where is he? Where is Mr Big? He’s not come. And it is kind of owning that idea of maybe he’s never going to come.”
And if they have done their jobs right, Bradford McKenna says, “the show examines what love is. There’s so many different kinds of romantic love, but there’s also friendship love. What is that love? It’s something a lot of people have to go through, and how do you know when you find it?”
Laid screens on Binge from Thursday, December 19.
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