Daisy Jones and the Six

By Hap Haggerty, Content Coordinator

June 2, 2023

Daisy Jones and the Six, based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid, depicts what may as well be a response to an AI chat prompt experiment gone terribly wrong.

Long ago in an alternate multiverse, Mick Fleetwood and Lindsay Buckingham are brothers and best friends with John McVie, all of whom are American. Christine McVie is still English but takes a backseat, mostly relegated to keyboards. Up and comer Stevie Nicks swoops in to save the day after Mick Fleetwood (singer and rhythm guitarist front man, not drummer, who was born old and never ages in this multiverse) returns from rehab to find that his group has been dropped by their label. Similar to our own multiverse, the drummer is still the most talented member of the band, but he’s not Mick Fleetwood and not related. Thus, Daisy Jones & the Six took form.

In this scatological version of the 70’s as rediscovered by yet another generation of completely uninformed twenty-somethings, Fleetwood Mac/Daisy Jones & the Six, both as songwriters and musicians, pretty much phoned it in having reached superstardom on the coattails of an overblown music industry wherein virtually anyone with bell bottoms and dirty hair could “make it”. A power struggle between Mick and Stevie ensues when they fall in mutually unrequited love with each other. Seriously. At the peak of their mediocrity, egos collide and the band disintegrates. 

One could conjure the above synopsis by the third episode. The entertainment value of Daisy Jones and the Six’s could be adequately assessed by watching the trailer alone. We heard that Blake Mills, composer of the soundtrack, actually went so far as to separately release the album Aurora featured in the series. If “albums” still exist in our own multiverse and can still be “released” then perhaps any of it is plausible enough. 

There is a modest brilliance to this hybrid of AI affected scenarios and alternate history. Daisy Jones and the Six’s target audience wasn’t yet alive yet to witness the real version of any of the faux events portrayed in the series anyway. 

Further, Sam Claflin plays the American Mick Fleetwood with enough flair and conviction that we almost didn’t notice he was 45 years old in both the 70’s and latter day 90’s interviews. Stevie Nicks is portrayed by Elvis’s real life granddaughter who sings well enough. If suspension of disbelief is your thing, or you’re under 30, Daisy Jones and the Six just might work.