‘The Decameron’ Doesn’t Use Its Time Wisely

Modern television has provided ample evidence that time does not dictate genre. The Emmys learned this the hard way, when they tried to bypass the comedy or drama debates by using runtimes to decide category placement, only to be swarmed by even more controversy during their confounding, seemingly arbitrary appeals process. Yes, it turns out half-hour shows can be dramas and hourlong shows can skew comedic. Look no further than some of TV’s buzziest, best shows: “The White Lotus” (a drama, by Emmy standards, but enjoyed as a comedy by just about everyone else), “Succession” (an even split, save for the overpowering devastation of its tragic arcs), and “The Bear” (let’s not start that up again ).

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But while time may not determine what a series is labeled, it does often weigh heavily on a series’ success. More important than shoving a show into one box or another is recognizing that many of these shows are successful because they blur the lines. “The Bear” serves up intense kitchen scenarios that can skew toward sitcom set-ups, yet often depend more on raising and releasing anxiety. “Succession” bombards its characters with sidesplitting Shakespearean insults to match their towering, catastrophic trajectories. “The White Lotus” is a comedic mystery a la Agatha Christie, where the individuals take their circumstances seriously (as one does), yet the circumstances orchestrated by master satirist Mike White are routinely hysterical for the viewing public.

“The Decameron,” a new Netflix series from creator and writer Kathleen Jordan (“Teenage Bounty Hunters”), aims to join the ranks of the aforementioned genre rebels. It falls short, yet skews closest to the last example. Set in 14th century Italy, the eight-episode season is a very loose adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of short stories (itself a predecessor to Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”). Jordan’s iteration (which updates quite a bit while sticking with the original names — impossible to spell, hard to remember — and time period, circa 1348) follows a group of noble-men and -women who abscond to a country manor with their servants to wait out the Black Plague. Florence is riddled with “the pestilence,” and our merry band of survivors hope to leave their troubles in the city for a summer of frivolous fun and social climbing — much like wealthy New Yorkers fleeing to the Hamptons, or anyone lucky enough to spend peak-COVID quarantining with well-off friends.

Things, of course, do not go as planned. Couples are divided. Identities are stolen. Murders are committed. Neifile (Lou Gala) and Panfilo (Karan Gill), a pious married couple who’ve buried their true selves behind “proper” beliefs, see their faith challenged by the random, meaningless death all around them (and a gaggle of clergymen who don’t act very saintly). Misia (Saoirse-Monica Jackson), a devoted servant, is forced to reconsider whether her relationship with Pampinea (Zosia Mamet), her manipulative master, is the tender two-way street she’s been led down all her life. Tindaro (Douggie McMeekin), a jester and princeling in one, suffers a similar wake-up call regarding his ripped doctor, Dioneo (Amar Chadha-Patel), while Filomena (Jessica Plummer) and Licisca (Tanya Reynolds) play out their own version of “The Prince and the Pauper.”

As is inevitable when 10 strangers are trapped together for an extended period, new friendships are forged, dynamics are altered, and the people who walk out of the Villa Santa won’t be the same as when they strolled in. (Rounding out the cast are the estate’s caretaker, Tony Hale’s Sirisco, and the sole remaining cook, Stratilia, played by Leila Farzad.) Allusions to the world’s most recent pandemic are mercifully light, but the conversations shared — along with the omnipresent specter of death — allow audiences to recognize as much (or as little) of their recent past as they’d like. What matters is that “The Decameron” tries to fit a wide range of topics, tones, and twists into its eight-hour story, shifting from an opening hour that’s heavy on farcical buffoonery and ending with repeated notes of unearned bereavement.

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“The Decameron” never fully capitalizes on either end of its formal extremes, its morbid jokes eliciting light chuckles and its soapy bickering rarely bubbling over. There are spurts of entertainment to be found, and the game cast tries their damnedest to marry the scene-to-scene mood swings. (Reynolds would be my MVP, with Hale and Jackson as co-runners-up.) Time, however, is not on their side. The 60-minute episodes feel like two (or more) half-hour scripts cobbled together, with multiple entries lurching forward past their best endings or struggling to segue from one plotline to the next. Sometimes the pace is too slow. Other times, the story races ahead without justifying its big leaps. There are good jokes, astute observations, and even well-earned existential musings… they’re just too hard to appreciate without the clarity of purpose that guides “The Decameron’s” genre-bending predecessors.

A tighter edit or lower episode count isn’t all the series needs to survive a summer of indulgent TV, but restructuring the rollout could certainly help alleviate the blobbish nature of a story striving for emotional and comedic acuity. Today’s TV can be anything and everything at once. It just needs time to work for it, not against it, as it tries.

Grade: C+

“The Decameron” premieres Thursday, July 25 on Netflix. All eight episodes will be released at once.