Should You Try It: Three Women on Starz

We’re making our way through September and rapidly coming into the full kick-off of the Fall TV season. That will leave you with plenty of options vying for your attention, but what of them are worth the investment? That’s why this series is here—to give you all the information you need to decide if a show is for you! Today, it’s a new series debuting on Starz.

Series: Three Women

Where to Find It: The pilot is now available on Starz with subsequent episodes of the 10-episode series dropping each Friday.

What’s It About: This new series comes from Lisa Taddeo and was originally developed for Showtime. The network later passed and the whole series dropped in February in Australia. Now, it’s making its American debut as part of the original programming offered by Starz. The series itself shares a name with Taddeo’s non-fiction book of the same name and offers a similar exploration of three different women’s stories as told by a young writer.

In the show, the young writer is Gia (Shailene Woodley), who we meet as she’s given some terrible suggestions by an executive while she ponders her next career move. Instead, she ends up coming across the stories of three women in different locations and vastly different situations that provide an exploration of the world, the struggles of women, and sexuality.

The first is Lina (Betty Gilpin), a lonely and frustrated housewife in Indiana who has a checkered past. Next is Sloane (DeWanda Wise), who along with her husband (Blair Underwood) engages in role play and engages with other partners, which has made her the subject of gossip in her small town. Finally, there’s Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy), a 20-something waitress who is haunted by a dalliance gone wrong with an older, married teacher while she was in high school.

The pilot lays out the introduction to the women and begins telling their stories, all through the lens of Gia, the narrator. The rest of the series promises an exploration of their stories, themes, and lives.

You Should Try It If: You’re a fan of the book, a fan of ensemble dramas, or a fan of this kind of storytelling.

One Man’s Opinion of Three Women

I haven’t ready Taddeo’s book, so I came into this material cold. But based on my exploration of the source material, this series follows closely to the stories and ideas of that non-fiction work. Whether it will diverge to make more of a fictional approach as the series continues remains to be seen.

I like the cast in place. Woodley does a nice job as the lynchpin holding these stories together as the writer/narrator searching for answers and larger truths about the world. I also quite enjoyed Gilpin in the pilot and the way she worked to bring her character to life. Perhaps the most interesting story that has the most layers belongs to Maggie. Creevy, best known for her work on the British series In My Skin, does a nice job bringing a difficult situation to life.

Starz original series have sometimes been a mixed bag. This is also the second time recently we’ve seen a series developed and entirely created by Showtime that has moved to another service. Previously this Spring we got the excellent Ripley on Netflix. This is a different kind of story, but I thought the pilot moved at a good pace and introduced enough threads that I’m curious to see where this is going.