Apple TV+
In TV, as in life, women scientists have been served poorly. Too often, they have been the butt of the joke, a sexy sidekick or a token face in a crowd of men (see The Big Bang Theory for examples of all three). Thank God for outliers like Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson), the brusque, brilliant scientist at the heart of .
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This eight-part Apple TV+ series begins in 1951, when Elizabeth is working as a lab technician at the fictional Hastings Research Institute. Unable to work as a chemist because she lacks a PhD, she partners with Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman), a maverick whose work is tipped for a Nobel prize and who eventually becomes her lover, to research the origins of life.
When she is later fired from the lab (for reasons I won鈥檛 spoil), she becomes the host of a cooking programme called Supper at Six, through which she explains how chemistry can be applied in the kitchen 鈥� and how important women鈥檚 unpaid labour truly is.
You would be hard-pressed to find a premise more suited to my tastes, so I was disappointed when the opening episodes of Lessons in Chemistry turned out to be somewhat lacklustre.
The first two are hamstrung by an undue focus on Calvin and the need to quickly establish him as a difficult man with a singular intellect. In these episodes, the dialogue is crammed with molecular metaphors, allusions that quickly cloy in the mouth. I was expecting an effervescent drama; instead, I was consuming something half-baked.
Thankfully, though, the version of Lessons in Chemistry I craved did eventually materialise.
Elizabeth鈥檚 relationship with Calvin ultimately becomes one poignant thread in a larger narrative. Professionally and personally, the pair have (sorry) 鈥渃hemistry鈥�.
Her other partnerships, such as her working relationships with TV producer Walter Pine (Kevin Sussman) and secretary Fran Frask (Stephanie Koenig), however, are far more compelling.
Notably, the show improves the more it features Calvin鈥檚 friend Harriet Sloane (Aja Naomi King), who is fighting the construction of a freeway through their predominantly Black neighbourhood. It initially seems as if her character will just be a means of demonstrating Calvin鈥檚 innate goodness, but Harriet thankfully becomes a core, scene-stealing element of the story with her own challenges to face.
The 50s-era sexism that Elizabeth endures is enraging: she spends her days making coffee for lesser chemists and is forced to participate in an interdepartmental beauty pageant. Seeing her secretly conduct her work, stealing ribose from supply cabinets and conducting experiments in the women鈥檚 toilets, is a frustrating glimpse of the barriers women scientists have faced.
As for how well Lessons in Chemistry depicts the scientific world of the 1950s, I won鈥檛 pick through exactly how accurate the chemistry is 鈥� far more qualified people, such as scientists Ricki Lewis and James Cooper, have already done this 鈥� but there are certainly moments where you wonder whether it is set in a world where researchers such as Stanley Miller and Harold Urey (their experiments provided the first evidence for the 鈥減rimordial soup鈥� hypothesis of the origin of life) never existed, for example.
The show is better at depicting the shadowy workings of large scientific institutions at that time, where women鈥檚 research could be blocked, downplayed or outright stolen.
Sadly, this reflects the reality faced by many women in science over the years, from Alice Ball to Chien-Shiung Wu. Worse still, even before we meet Elizabeth, her scientific career has been stymied by a culture that protects predatory men.
Her second act as a TV personality is also mired in misogyny, which makes the scenes where she addresses her acolytes 鈥� reminding them, for instance, that she stands proudly with the 鈥渙verlooked workhorses of the kitchen: women and baked potatoes鈥� 鈥� all the more thrilling.
By its close, the series has a much better handle on what it wants to say about science and women鈥檚 fundamental importance to it. In this way, Lessons in Chemistry is a reminder that in science, cooking and even TV, sometimes all you need is a little patience and things will come together.
