"Daisy Jones & the Six."

The Amazon Prime series based on the bestselling book gets the Two Episode Test.

It was a little surprising for me to look back and see that I hadn’t done a Two Episode Test since late November — which was “Fleishman Is In Trouble.” But the reasons seemed good and sane looking back — the holidays came, I started writing more about movies, I watched all of “Andor,” I wrote about the first episode of “The Last Of Us,” then “Shetland” seemed a little old for the test; “Only Murders In the Building” also seemed dated, even though that’s not a thing we care about around here; I started devouring “Giri/Haji” with no need to put it to a test and, again, I’ve been watching a lot of the Oscar-nominated movies so, yeah, it’s been a while.

Plus, 2023 is entering what feels like its 11th month instead of third, so it’s hard out here.

Ah, but “Daisy Jones & the Six” seemed perfect for the Two Episode Test because 1) I hated the “Josie and the Pussycats” title and figured I should at least not dismiss it over something trivial because, 2) I love music and 3) I have seen/reviewed so many shows about music and/or bands fail — “Vinyl” and “Roadies” to name two major disappointments — I figured why not add another to the list on the off chance it will be different and 4) I forget what eight was for.¹

So I decided to put it to the test.

Look, everybody wants to make another “Almost Famous” or something in that vein, that had that feel, that captures that time and gave you those feelings. Hell, Cameron Crowe himself wanted to do that with “Roadies,” which only made it more sad that it never came within the same universe — and then faded to black.

It should surprise no one that Hollywood (and also, in this case, the book’s author, Taylor Jenkins Reid) loves a good music story and loves it even more if you can partially set it in L.A. and maybe there can be a house in Laurel Canyon and blah blah Fleetwood Mac.

All of those elements, it should be noted, are a very dangerous cocktail to imbibe, especially if the name you chose for your fictional band is Daisy Jones & the Six, but hey, we’ve all got to choose our own hill to die on.

The 1970s. Los Angeles, particularly the Sunset Strip and Laurel Canyon. Fleetwood Mac — the songs, the drama. Yeah, all of these are great things to like. Be careful if you want to throw them in a stew and make something tasty though. That recipe is a chef killer.

I knew that friends were about to start watching this series if they hadn’t already, so I wanted to be ready. One bowed out with a text the day I watched the first two episodes. “Started Daisy Jones this weekend,” he wrote. “I wanted to like it, but…”

Yeah, the but part. I will fill it in for you: