Much as he did for the story of Tonya Harding in his Oscar-winning “I, Tonya,” Craig Gillespie attempts to add new chapters to a story that people think they know with the 8-part series “Pam & Tommy.” Once again, a persuasive argument is made that history has recorded the wrong narrative, especially when it comes to a woman in the spotlight who was turned into a punchline after her privacy was invaded. Gillespie, who directs the first three episodes before handing off to others, including Lake Bell, Hannah Fidell, and writer/creator Robert Siegel (“The Wrestler,” “Big Fan”) launches “Pam & Tommy” with a raucous, wildly entertaining energy, capturing Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) as forces of sexual nature that almost seemed destined for one another. As the series starts to get more serious, embedding a commentary on not just how poorly Pamela was treated but how society shames sexually charged women, it can feel a little tonally scattered at times but the sharp dialogue and totally committed performances hold it together.
READ MORE: The 70 Most Anticipated TV Shows & Mini-Series Of 2022
“Pam & Tommy” opens by centering the third character in this culture-shaping dynamic, an electrician named Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen). Never heard of him? Many people probably don’t even know the role he played in this tawdry saga, and the premiere has an amazing “WTF” energy as it reveals the details of the drama, as recounted in a Rolling Stone article by Amanda Chicago Lewis, “Pam and Tommy: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Infamous Sex Tape,” which is credited as the source for the series. Gauthier was working at the Malibu mansion of Motley Crue drummer and notorious bad boy Tommy Lee, who was, well, a difficult client. Wearing nothing but a thong, he would constantly change the requests for the remodel job being done and owed Gauthier and his workmates thousands when he abruptly fired them, claiming that the work was shoddy. Rogen deftly captures an ordinary man who has been disappointed a few too many times by life, so it’s relatable when Rand hatches a plan after Tommy Lee literally pulls a gun on him one day. He breaks into the mansion and steals a safe, planning to get the compensation he’s owed. He finds something other than money.
Keep in mind that this is 1995. The very concept of a sex tape as a potential profit machine didn’t really exist. There’s a fascinating throughline in “Pam & Tommy” in how what was an invasion of privacy would help push a technological revolution. Rand takes the tape to a porn producer nicknamed Uncle Miltie (Nick Offerman), and the two stare at it like the apes seeing the obelisk in “2001.” At this time, porn was a VHS-and-theater industry, but that wouldn’t legally be possible here. Believe it or not, a search for a part to fix a toilet for his soon-to-be ex-wife Erica (Taylor Schilling), inspires Rand to change the world of pornography. If he can order that part on this new thing called the internet, maybe someone could order a sex tape there too. The rest is history.
While “Pam & Tommy” is charting the development of porn from VHS to the internet, it’s also detailing the tumultuous marriage of Anderson and Lee, making a persuasive case that the leak of the tape derailed everything about their lives. After meeting Lee on vacation in early 1995, Anderson married him only four days later. The second episode captures their bonkers courtship, complete with almost cartoonish sex scenes and increasingly wild behavior. This pair feeds into not only each other’s carnal needs but their blazing lust for everything in life. The second episode is a runaway train of crazy, culminating in a scene in which Jason Mantzoukas voices Tommy Lee’s notorious “member.” It’s like nothing else you can watch on Hulu, and the series honestly struggles to match the loony energy of that hour again.
Which is kind of the point. The sex tape destroyed some things for Tommy Lee, likely leading to the end of his marriage three years later, but “Pam & Tommy” really makes a convincing case that it changed everything for Pamela Anderson. She was pregnant with Tommy’s child when she found out about the leak and suffered a miscarriage. She was planning a press tour for the upcoming release of “Barb Wire,” talking about how Jane Fonda was her role model, and then she was a punchline on Jay Leno’s awful show before she knew it. “Pam & Tommy” captures a series of escalating embarrassments for Pam, culminating in a deposition scene in which she’s forced to watch parts of the tape in a room full of attorneys that will turn your stomach.
Sometimes, “Pam & Tommy” struggles to blend its sense of humor with its darker themes—one of the most emotionally resonant episodes is jokingly called “The Master Beta,” for example—but it’s a tonal tightrope that would be a tough one to walk for any writer’s room. How do you capture the worldview of a filter-less hedonist like Tommy Lee and make the point to viewers that what these two wanted to do in the privacy of their home was their own damn business at the same time? The show’s writing is consistently sharp enough to thread that needle, especially in how it refuses to turn Pamela into a punchline again, which would have been so much easier for a lesser, shallower show to do.
It helps a great deal that Lily James gets that too, capturing both the always-smiling optimism of Pamela and the growing frustration that the world would now forever only see her as the subject of a sex tape. Stan is good too, but the show seems less interested in Tommy Lee, sometimes allowing him to turn into a caricature of a wild rocker. What Stan nails the most is Tommy’s selfishness regarding the invasion of privacy, refusing to see how people would respond differently to a rock star caught in the act than an actress. Both performances are fearless in ways that TV is rarely allowed to be.
When it’s all over, it’s easier to appreciate “Pam & Tommy” as a metaphor for how the public responded to the tape in the first place. The first few episodes have an “I can’t believe I’m watching this” energy, but that shifts once the show starts to unpack the impact these events would have on the people involved. The world is smarter 25 years later about privacy and sexuality, but it’s too late for Pam and Tommy. Some might feel like the show exploits Pamela Anderson all over again, but it’s clearly meant as a reclamation of a story from the tabloids to the real people involved. At its best, it allows people to finally see Pam and Tommy, exposed. [B]
“Pam & Tommy” debuts on Hulu on February 2.