14.4.24
Scoop had the potential to be a gripping dramatisation of one of the most cringe-worthy interviews in TV history, but sadly it does little more than regurgitate the original car crash between Maitlis and Prince Andrew. Director of The Crown Philip Martin gives it the Netflix treatment, adding no new insights or depth, feeling like a lame retread of events we’ve already witnessed many times before.
While Rufus Sewell fully embodies the prickly, delusional persona of the disgraced royal, his performance is hamstrung by a script that leans too heavily on minor quirks. We get copious scenes fixating on Maitlis’s dog Moody, Andrew’s tacky entrepreneurial vanity projects, and Billie Piper’s one-note turn as a caricatured working-class heroine. But none of it manages to capture the true horror of Epstein’s crimes or offer any meaningful perspective on the victims.
At its core, Scoop represents a missed opportunity to pierce the veil of privilege and expose the festering rot that is so obviously core to the UK’s family in reign. We’re left with the uncanny sense that the real Prince Andrew displayed more depravity in that original interview than this fictionalised rendition could ever capture. Anyone but royal apologists can see that he is a sexual predator who has managed to evade consequences thus far, and Scoop does little to rectify that injustice.