Sophie
Turner of “Game Of Thrones” is all grown up and playing a jewel thief who became a London godmother of crime.
The show, titled “Joan,” is such high
quality that it would stand up anywhere in the streaming TV universe.
But it comes to American TV via The CW, which has been an active shopper in the international
content marketplace ever since Nexstar Media Group bought 75% of it in October 2022.
The six-episode “Joan,” premiering Wednesday, tells the
story of Joan Hannington, a semi-employed housewife married to a career criminal who is rarely home. Joan is a de facto single parent to their small daughter.
Hannington was a real crime figure in 1980s London. The series is based on her memoir I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief.
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Turner, now 28, was 14 when filming began for “Game Of Thrones” in 2010. She was seen in all eight seasons of the legendary show in the role of Sansa Stark. And
like so many others who starred in “GOT,” she became an international star.
That is one reason why her new series “Joan” could have
gone anywhere, such as Netflix, for example. The CW is to be congratulated for finding it and snapping it up.
“Joan” is a U.K. production that
has been available on ITV’s streaming service ITVX since August.
But it premiered on ITV just yesterday, three days before its scheduled debut
Wednesday on The CW.
The story starts in London in 1985, and Joan’s husband is being sought by underworld killers who barge into Joan’s flat and
rough her up. Then she flees.
The way she eventually finds her way into the thieving trade is so well told in the series that it happens almost
organically.
Also organic is the way the show locates itself in the 1980s. Unlike so many other period TV
shows, especially the many that fail, “Joan” doesn’t hit us over the head with props, clothes, language and newspaper headlines to establish its timeframe.
Words on-screen at the outset of the show tell us it is “London 1985,” and after that, there is some period music every now and then. But we hear it where it
belongs -- in bar and nightclub settings.
There are 1980s cars parked and driven in the city scenes here and there, and some 1980s clothes and hairstyles,
but other than that, not much.
In “Joan,” the decade and its fashions are not the point. The story takes place in the decade for the simple
reason that Hannington’s story took place then.
As the title character, Turner is in just about every scene of “Joan.” The success of the
show depends entirely on her, and she delivers.
“Joan” premieres Wednesday, October 2, at 9 p.m. Eastern on The CW.