''The Premise'' is an American

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...

created by B. J. Novak. It premiered on

FX on Hulu FX Networks, LLC, is a company consisting of a network of cable channels plus a production company and a subsidiary of the Disney General Entertainment Content segment of The Walt Disney Company. Originally a part of 21st Century Fox, the comp ...

on September 16, 2021.

Synopsis

Each episode tells a single character driven story about a current world situated issue.

Episodes

Production

In July 2019, FX ordered a two-episode

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

order for an anthology created by B. J. Novak and produced by FXP. In May 2020, FX picked up the series.

Lucas Hedges Lucas Hedges (born December 12, 1996) is an American actor. A son of filmmaker Peter Hedges, he studied theater at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Hedges began his acting career with a supporting role in Wes Anderson's com ...

Kaitlyn Dever Kaitlyn Rochelle Dever (; born December 21, 1996) is an American actress. She gained recognition for her roles in the FX crime drama television series '' Justified'' (2011–2015), the ABC/ Fox sitcom '' Last Man Standing'' (2011–2021), the N ...

Jon Bernthal Jonathan Edward Bernthal (; born September 20, 1976) is an American actor. Beginning his career in the early 2000s, he came to prominence for portraying Shane Walsh on the AMC horror series '' The Walking Dead'' (2010–2012; 2018), where ...

, and

Boyd Holbrook Robert Boyd Holbrook (born September 1, 1981) is an American actor. He has starred in the Netflix series ''Narcos'' (2015-2017) as DEA agent Steve Murphy and '' The Sandman'' (2022-) as the Corinthian, as well as in the History miniseries '' Ha ...

were cast for pilot episodes in 2019 while

Ben Platt Benjamin Schiff Platt (born September 24, 1993) is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. He began his acting career in musical theater as a child and appeared in productions of ''The Sound of Music'' (2006) and ''The Book of Mormon'' (201 ...

Tracee Ellis Ross Tracee Joy Silberstein (born October 29, 1972), known professionally as Tracee Ellis Ross, is an American actress. She is known for her lead roles in the television series '' Girlfriends'' (2000–2008) and '' Black-ish'' (2014–2022). She is ...

, and

Daniel Dae Kim Daniel Dae Kim (born Kim Dae-hyun ( ko, 김대현); August 4, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in ''Lost'', Chin Ho Kelly in '' Hawaii Five-0'', Gavin Park in ''Angel'', and Johnny Gat in the '' Saints Ro ...

, among others, were announced to be starring in the series in August 2021. During the summer TCA press tour, Novak shed light on his efforts to cast

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...

in the series and explained that they had scrapped the episode after they couldn't cast him. Music is by

Emily Bear Emily Jordan Bear (born August 30, 2001) is an American composer, pianist, songwriter and singer. After beginning to play the piano and compose music as a small child, Bear made her professional piano debut at the Ravinia Festival at the age of ...

and Brooke Blair.Coiro, Alessandra
"TV series to watch in November 2021"
October 28, 2021

Release

The series premiered on September 16, 2021, on

in the United States. Internationally, the series is available through

Disney+ Disney+ is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned and operated by the Media and Entertainment Distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. The service primarily distributes films and television se ...

under the dedicated streaming hub Star in select markets whereas Disney+ Hotstar premiered the series in India on September 17, 2021. In Latin America, the series premieres as a

Star+ A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

original.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reports a 41% approval rating with an average rating of 5.6/10, based on 17 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "A mixed bag of good intentions that ultimately falls flat, ''The Premise''s attempts to grapple with complex social issues aren't funny enough to work as satire, but lack the dramatic heft necessary to be satisfying melodrama."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gave the series a weighted average score of 53 out of 100 based on 14 critic reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Premise, The 2020s American drama television series 2020s American anthology television series 2021 American television series debuts English-language television shows FX on Hulu original programming