By Carter Mitchell

The Amazon Prime series Daisy Jones & The Six, released in March 2023, is a must-watch American musical drama miniseries based on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2019 novel of the same name, which is loosely based on the history of the band Fleetwood Mac. This miniseries follows a band of five friends and one newcomer through the tough, unfair, and drug-filled music industry in Los Angeles, California in 1970. The series follows the six members of the band in a documentary-style film as the members reflect on their time with the band.  

Fleetwood Mac in 1977. Members of the band from left to right: Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham. Photo credit: Warner Bros. Records via Wikipedia.

Fleetwood Mac was formerly a British blues band founded in 1967 as an offshoot of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. It included guitarist/singer Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood, multi-instrumentalist/singer Jeremy Spencer, and bassist John McVie. The band recruited more musicians, with Danny Kirwan, guitarist/singer, and Christine Perfect, who married eventually McVie. After a show in April 1970, Green decided to leave the band.

With Green gone, the band moved from blues to a more pop-rock sound. In 1973, Fleetwood heard “Frozen Love” from the duo Buckingham Nicks,  which he loved so much that he asked the guitarist from the album to join his band. Lindsey Buckingham would only accept this offer if his music partner and girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, could join also.

With two female voices, Fleetwood Mac moved to the top of the charts with singles like “Go Your Own Way” and “Rhiannon” in the 1970s. With success came drug and alcohol abuse and declining relationships. The McVies’ marriage came to an end, as well as Buckingham and Nicks’ relationship. Fleetwood, in the middle of a divorce himself, had a brief affair with Nicks. The affairs and addiction issues came from the stresses of fame and success. The band continued to perform and record on and off through the 1980s and 1990s, and today Fleetwood Mac is considered one of the greatest bands of the last 50 years. 

In late December, my parents, my sister, and I started watching Daisy Jones & The Six as a way to all be together bonding over something that we have not done recently, due to our busy and disconnected lives. Immediately, we all took an interest in the stories of the band members and, of course, the music. The parallels between Fleetwood Mac and Daisy Jones & The Six were apparent from the beginning. The music, style of clothing, drug abuse, affairs, and many other factors showed the similarities between the two bands. My parents’ wide range of musical tastes has influenced not only my musical preference but my sister’s too, so a new show about a band we all enjoy listening to had us all hooked. 

All six members of Daisy Jones & The Six from left to right: Karen Sirko, Graham Dunne, Warren Rojas, Eddie Roundtree, Daisy Jones, and Billy Dunne. Photo credit: Pamela Littky via Amazon Prime Video. 

The first episode shows the excitement of brothers Billy (Sam Claflin), lead singer/guitarist, and Graham Dunne (Will Harrison), guitarist, trying to start their band with their best friends, Warren Rojas (Sebastian Chacon), drummer; Eddie Roundtree (Josh Whitehouse), bassist; and Karen Sirko (Suki Waterhouse), keyboards. In this episode, the band plays in bars and faces hardships to make money and make it into the charts. Billy’s drug problems also become apparent for the first time.

He is eventually sent to a rehabilitation center to fix this issue to help his relationships with his wife, Camila Dunne (Camila Morrone), and the other members of the band. While the members start the band, Daisy Jones (Riley Keough) is finding her passion for music and how to make her way into the music scene. Daisy and Billy have their first encounter, but neither can predict that they will affect each other’s lives the way they will when the series continues. Throughout the show, many clips of studio sessions, new and struggling relationships, drug abuse, and music show the story of the band’s path to greatness, and they are delightful and rewarding to watch.

The ending of this show is very predictable and unfortunate for the members of the band. Due to the clashing relationships between the members of the band, they grow apart. The end of the show is disappointing because it ends so abruptly, but the audience gets to see the exit interviews, recorded many years later. These clips share what everyone was thinking and how upset everyone was with how the band was acting together; except their drummer Warren, who was always living the dream in the band. 

My sister Ella Mitchell (‘21) spoke very highly of the show for many reasons. She stated, “I really liked it from the start. Even though the show was filmed recently, it really feels like the show was filmed in the 70s.” The show does have that old-in-the-moment tone, with amazing quality of sound, music, and camera angles to feel you’re on stage with the band when they perform. Mitchell also was appreciative that, “the show was not just about the male characters and their experiences in a rock band, which we see from many tribute documentaries of rock bands. It really showed how Daisy, the female protagonist, struggled through her adolescence, and what that looks like as she grew up as an adult.” Daisy’s confident, feminist role in a male-dominated scene shows her passion for not backing down from anything, no matter what people said about her. 

Mitchell and many others have recognized how well put together the show was. The plot and story, with the interviews and flipping back and forth between the two, simulating a documentary, makes this show even more special. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian says “It is a book made for television – even down to the way it is structured, as the members of the band are being interviewed for a documentary 20 years after they broke up.” The structure of the show truly makes it perfect for a miniseries. 

Differing opinions about Daisy Jones & The Six are striking, yet valid in their explanation. In an analysis of the show, Judy Berman of Time Magazine writes, “Ask ChatGPT to ‘write a fictionalized biography of Fleetwood Mac in the style of an oral history,’ and the bot will respond with a flurry of hilariously realistic clichés about the ‘wild ride’ that is rock stardom. ‘We were making records that people really connected with,’ says one imagined band member. ‘It was a wonderful feeling.’ Another observes that ‘the success was great, but it also came with a lot of pressure.’” Berman was disappointed with the lack of creativity this series had. This differing opinion shows how this series could be perceived as unoriginal and potentially something not everyone will enjoy. 

Daisy Jones & The Six was a great series to watch that I recommend to anyone remotely interested in older, classic vinyl music. The music in the show represents the style of Fleetwood Mac and was astonishing to watch the band go through so many ups and downs. The power and confidence of Daisy, combined with the desire that Billy has to run the band his way, makes this show come alive. The 10-part series is worth a watch on a rainy weekend or over multiple nights.