Baby Reindeer

binged in a single evening; i was pleasantly surprised at how easily this got its hooks in me and kept me watching all the way through without stopping. i felt oddly captivated donny's choice to play into martha's admiration, and the way the character choices make sense both with little context but especially with more context adds layers of relatability to the narrative. though the things donny went through aren't ones i can directly relate to, i do have my own moments and experiences where i made choices i shouldn't have to compensate for personal conflicts i avoided, etc. the show and story highlight the dark sides of ambition, self worth, regret, trauma, existential dread, empathy & sympathy, beauty standards, and more. all without ever feeling like a checklist of topics to cover in a 2024 "appeal-to-all" type of way; there's a genuine, mature, and brutally sincere approach to the themes here that feels absent in other recent media. jenny gunning absolutely knocks it out of the park as martha, portraying all aspects of the human condition. she's likeable, detestable, and pitiable all smashed together. richard gadd as donny sells this plausible deniability of actions i know he shouldn't be taking while also being satisfyingly frustrating in a way that makes me want to keep watching and hope he does just one thing to redeem himself.