Sweet Tooth: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Sweet Tooth on Netflix.

The fantasy drama produced by Susan Downey and Robert Downey Jr. follows a young boy who is half-human and half-deer in a post apocalyptic world. 

Scott says: "Unlike anything else on Netflix at the moment" 

“I did not expect to like this, but this is a Must Watch! I went in with so many reservations. For one thing, the plot is about a deadly pandemic and a world that is forced into lockdown. ‘Who in their right mind would want to watch a drama about this?,’ I thought.

‘’Yet, I got taken away by how touching and how innocent the story is. Beyond the depressing backdrop, the story is essentially about a boy (born with antlers) trying to track down his mother. It is also about people who have taken the opportunity to start themselves anew. At some points the plot riddles itself in clichés, but just when you think it’s going to get too schmaltzy, it manages to escape from it.

“It was well acted too. I love how I couldn’t predict the plot, nor place my finger on it. It is pretty much unlike anything else on Netflix at the moment.’”

Hayley says: "I like it but it's not evenly great" 

"It’s based on a comic from a few years ago by Jeff Lemire that has a huge, devoted fanbase. It’s set 10 years after a deadly pandemic has swept the world. Around the same time as people started getting sick, babies who were part animal were being born to human women. Gus, a boy with deer antlers, only survived because his father fled to the woods with him and hid. Now he’s ten, his father is dead, and he’s out in the world in search of his mother, with a guy he’s just met that he calls Big Man.’

"We see so many bad comic book adaptations and I’m so happy to say that this isn’t one of them. Lemire was a consultant on it, which was great. But if you’re a fan of the comic you might be a little turned off at first that they’ve changed the tone a little bit: it’s much more family-friendly and a lot less gritty than the comic, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing in the context of this show. The show itself is gorgeous and strange and sweet but there is also this underlying horror story of the pandemic and what it has done to the world.

"This wasn’t a cash-in on our preexisting covid trauma, that pandemic story was already there in the comic. But because it was filmed during covid they’ve fed small recognisable things into the show that make this TV pandemic richer, like little social distancing signs hanging up in shops telling everyone to stand 2m apart. About a third of the screentime is devoted to that story, where we get to see how regular humans are living in their neighbourhoods, and how one doctor is tasked with the mission of finding a cure. It gives an edge to what would otherwise be a cute road trip story with two guys. I really like it. It’s not evenly great -- I think towards the end it starts to come loose from the stuff that made it good in the beginning, but it’s definitely worth a watch."

Sweet Tooth is available now on Netflix.

Must Watch is released as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds and all other good podcast providers.

On this edition, the team hear from Nick Mohammed about series two of Intelligence on Sky One. Plus, they review Time on BBC One and BBC iplayer.

Click here to listen.

You can also hear Scott Bryan's interview with Adeel Akhtar about his role in Sweet Tooth as part of a Must Watch special here.