Emily Carey in Netflix YA Vogue Comedy

One of many trickiest features of HBO’s Home of the Dragon was the way in which viewers spent roughly half of the drama’s first season with “youthful” variations of our two heroines — Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower — earlier than a time leap introduced longer-term stars Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke to the display screen.

That put quite a lot of strain on Milly Alcock and Emily Carey to anchor these preliminary episodes, which they did extraordinarily properly. Alcock had the higher visibility, rapidly changing into a crimson carpet favourite and setting herself up for the chance to play Supergirl. Carey’s first main Home of the Dragon follow-up, Netflix‘s adaptation of Holly Smale’s coming-of-age Geek Lady collection, isn’t as excessive profile as becoming a member of DC’s Home of Zor-El, but it surely’s a stable showcase for its 21-year-old star.

Geek Lady is a likably healthful, usually low-stakes YA fairy story — references to Cinderella abound — which may even skew too younger for the My Life with the Walter Boys viewers, a lot much less one thing like Euphoria. And far much less an viewers that watched Home of the Dragon.

Although I come to Geek Lady from far outdoors of any of its core demos and doubtless would have gravitated towards one thing with a hair extra edge, I appreciated the present’s fast-moving and poppy — heck, it even has a personality named “Poppy” — sensibility, its heat and the boldness of Carey’s central efficiency.

Following within the footsteps of comparable disingenuously ugly-duckling protagonists within the Princess Diaries/She’s All That vein, Carey’s Harriet Manners is a self-described “geek,” which her frequent voiceovers outline in quite a lot of semi-complimentary methods. She’s socially awkward and she or he has nerdy obsessions that make her a dependable supply of conversational trivia. She additionally falls down continuously, no less than within the pilot, as a result of that’s what awkward ladies do.

Though Harriet is picked on by the cool children at her college, she has a faithful greatest buddy in Rochelle Harrington’s Nat, an encouraging neighbor buddy in Zac Looker’s amusingly odd Toby and loving mother and father in Tim Downie’s Richard and Jemima Rooper’s Annabel.

Harriet’s style class wins some unusual contest to attend a London Vogue Week occasion — certainly one of many belongings you don’t wish to take into consideration too arduous — and, due to certainly one of her many embarrassing exploits, Harriet captures the eye of famous person modeling agent Wilbur Evans (Emmanuel Imani).

See, whereas Harriet is a geeky ginger with no real interest in modeling, restricted curiosity in style and no clue methods to proficiently stroll in an off-the-cuff sense a lot much less on a runway, she’s “giving alien famous person vibes.” Immediately, Wilbur is providing Harriet a dream alternative. Sadly, it’s Nat’s dream, which can trigger the kind of very, very non permanent low-stakes battle that Geek Lady makes a speciality of.

Additionally inflicting low-stakes battle? Harriet has attracted the curiosity of male-modeling famous person (or so the present tells us) Nick (Liam Woodrum), a lot to the chagrin of Nick’s staged social media girlfriend Poppy (Daisy Jelley), one other aspiring mannequin. Nick is known as being a youngster as soon as, presumably as a result of there’s one thing a bit of creepy about his placing the strikes on a sheltered 16-year-old lady. That declare about his age isn’t convincing, however that’s undoubtedly not a wrinkle Geek Lady needs to discover.

Harriet has to beat the skepticism of Wilbur’s boss Jude (Sarah Parish), who’s purported to make you consider Miranda Priestly from The Satan Wears Prada, solely she isn’t particularly imply. That’s as a result of no person in Geek Lady is very imply, apart from Harriet’s main college nemesis Lexi (Mia Jenkins) and even she’s delicate by 2024 teen-bullying requirements.

All of it matches a model of the modeling world with out alcohol or medicine or something extra sexual than occasional hand-holding. That is, as I’m making an attempt to clarify, designed to be a softer present than what you’d anticipate from Netflix or The CW or Freeform, all of which have beforehand performed reveals about younger ladies thrust unexpectedly into the world of style.

What units the collection aside properly is Harriet, who’s demonstrably neurodivergent. She struggles with social cues and all method of exterior stimuli. She calms herself with a number of behaviors which are immediately recognizable as “stimming,” should you acknowledge such issues.

“I’m not going to allow you to or anyone else outline her by a label,” declares Richard, her protecting, doting dad, when he and Wilbur share a second of concern about Harriet being thrust into this surroundings. Accordingly, the present, created for TV by Smale and Jessica Ruston, could be very cautious about labeling Harriet, a lot much less really utilizing what the collection The A Phrase known as, properly, the a-word.

Is there part of me that thinks Geek Lady could be extra brave to truly deal with Harriet inside the context of autism? Maybe? However I see Richard’s level as properly. The present is about situating Harriet, a nexus of discomfort, inside a world by which our notion is that everyone should be snug with how they give the impression of being and current themselves. Explicitly diagnosing her would serve a goal, however the present’s higher purpose is giving her a discomfort that’s common for many adolescents, nevertheless straightforward it’s to interrupt her particular code.

Bridgerton is definitely doing one thing comparable — albeit with far more surrounding horniness — with the Francesca storyline this season. In the identical evasively progressive vein, Wilbur — well-embodied by Imani as essentially the most sanitized and type cutthroat agent conceivable — has a hunky husband and speaks like his tv weight-reduction plan is solely RuPaul’s Drag Race, even when no person on this present has something so spicy as a sexuality.

Carey performs Harriet in a holistically satisfying approach that places her difficulties and her coping methods on an equal aircraft, particularly relating to her shut interactions along with her family and friends — Looker, Harrington, Downie and Rooper are stable as properly — which give your entire story a sweetness that builds to a number of efficient emotional climaxes within the closing episodes.

Carey is excellent at receding into the background when that’s Harriet’s choice and when the actor has to play that almost all acquainted of style tropes — the moments by which she emerges as a swan — Carey makes the scenes plausible with out ever making Harriet an excessive amount of relaxed.

I want collection director Declan O’Dwyer weren’t so enamored with these tropes. Geek Lady should have no less than a half-dozen “Harriet enters a room in slo-mo in order that we all know she’s gorgeous!” moments, in no less than three of them carrying the identical fetching crimson gown. There are equally repetitive features to the collection’ visible grammar, like the way in which scenes in London and Ottawa hold going again to the identical generic establishing photographs.

Visible limitations apart, O’Dwyer retains the collection transferring at a wholesome tempo — it helps that the occasions of the 10-episode first season seem to happen inside per week — and the soapy combination of comedy, muted drama and romance stays in respectable stability.

At its greatest, Geek Lady typically made me consider Netflix’s distinctive and canceled-too-soon adaptation of The Child-Sitter’s Membership, which serves as a warning that if there’s an viewers on the market for this sort of well-meaning, albeit fully acquainted leisure, they’d higher tune in quick as a result of Netflix has an itchy set off finger.