TV series rescues ‘One Day’

• Published date: 12 March 2024
• Publication title: Signal

TENSIONS were high when Netflix announced a One Day TV series back in 2021. David Nicholls’ bestselling 2009 romance novel had already been butchered with an Anne Hathaway-led film just a decade earlier as far as most fans were concerned. Could another adaptation save its legacy? Or, considering this is the streamer that can so easily destroy a classic (Persuasion, All the Light We Cannot See), was this the final chop

Two binge watches, hours of ugly blubbering and a “who is Leo Woodall dating?” Google search later, there was no need to worry. Just a few weeks after its release, One Day was the site’s second-biggest show of the year, the critics adored it and you have most likely already gobbled up all 14 episodes (otherwise, what the hell are you even making small talk about?).

The fandom’s spark has been rekindled, catapulting the novel back into the bestseller charts. But what is it that the TV show has got so right? Where did the film go so wrong? In fact, was it – and I might be asking this through tiny rose-tinted, circular ’90s sunglasses – even as bad as we remember?

For the rare uninitiated, the story starts in 1988...