DADDY ISSUES, S1 & 2
2025 has been one hell of a year for Aimee Lou Wood.
The year began with the Mancunian actress outshining everyone in February in her most high profile role to date as Walter Goggins' girlfriend, Chelsea in the third season of HBO's 'The White Lotus'.
Around the same time, she really impressed critics and Netflix viewers as Tracey Taylor, a young mother in the Northamptonshire town of Corby whose baby has congenital birth defects in the hard hitting pollution drama 'Toxic Town'.
After landing a major film role as Patti Boyd in Sam Mendes' quartet of movies about The Beatles with Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn, Barry Keoghan and Saoirse Ronan, she popped up on TV screens yet again in October in one of the year's best sitcoms, BBC3's 'Film Club'.
Now she's ended the year with the follow up series of 'Daddy Issues,' a BBC3 comedy from the mind of Nottingham writer Danielle Ward.
In the first series which aired in August 2024, Wood played Gemma, a hard partying girl in Stockport, who works in a hairdressers and becomes pregnant during a night on the town.
With her only her timid, hapless dad, David Morrissey's Malcolm to turn to for support, she is appalled by the bedsit he shares with his friend David Fynn's irritating, exploitative loudmouth Derek.
Opportunity knocks, though, for Malcolm to move in with her when Gemma's flatmate leaves and they rekindle their father daughter relationship.
Gemma's sister, Sharon Rooney's Catherine can't help as she's in prison for paying someone to try and kill her boyfriend, David Reed's Craig by pushing him down the stairs.
However throughout the first series, Gemma's inner circle grows with her forging a friendship with a former schoolmate, Taj Atwal's Cherry and also her man mad boss, Sarah Hadland's Rita.
Other episodes in Series One see Malcolm enter the world of online dating while Cherry helps Gemma look for a sugar daddy for her baby.
The show's father and daughter attebd a rather intense hot tub party at the home of her aunt, Claire Keenan's Jess and her insecure skip entrepreneur husband, Perry Fitzpatrick's Tyrone.
The best episode sees Gemma reconnect with the married father of her baby, Tom Stourton's Ben who Derek and Malcolm subsequently enlist in a madcap plan to retrieve baby memories from the attic of Gemma's old family home which is now occupied by another family.
The final episode of Series One sees Derek take Malcolm to an escape room on his birthday while Gemma goes into labour.
Luckily, Arian Nik's kind hearted and slightly besotted Xander is on hand to try and help Gemma through her labour while they locate her dad.
It ends with Gemma giving birth to a daughter called Sadie and Malcolm's ex, Susan Lynch's overbearing and flamboyant Davina arriving in the hospital to force him out of her daughter's nest like a cuckoo.
Lynch doesn't reprise the role of Davina in Series Two but Jill Halpenny does instead, with her ousting Malcolm from the flat and moving in to help her daughter navigate the first demanding months of single parenthood.
With Malcolm back in Derek's bedsit, he is living rent free with a sleeping bag on the landing - much to the annoyance of the other residents.
Over the course of the second series, Gemma is so wound up by Davina she plots Malcolm's return to the flat.
In the second episode, Malcolm makes the mistake of trying to babysit Sadie in the company of Derek while Gemma, Cherry and Rita go on a raucous girls night on the town.
Malcolm's conman dad, Philip Jackson's Jackie turns up and moves into the flat for a while, trying to engage his son in a get rich quick scheme and ends up going on a weekend break in a grim caravan park with his granddaughter, great granddaughter and son.
Gemma and Cherry fall out over Corey Mylchreest's hunky but extremely creepy face of the local Rhyme Time class for infants in the local library, Rocky, while Jackie takes Malcolm and Derek on a disastrous trip to the Peak District.
In the penultimate episode, Malcolm is overcome with emotion at a funeral where Derek goads him into performing Wham's 'I'm Your Man,' while Catherine plans an escape from custody.
In the final episode, Kevin Bishop pops up as Malcolm's half brother Tommy and seems too sweet to be wholesome, while Gemma goes for a rather unconventional job interview for a marketing firm.
'Daddy Issues' is one of those half hour sitcoms that's a bit uneven but gets by mostly on the charm of its central character.
Wood does a terrific job in both series holding the show together, even when it's not hitting all its comedy targets.
There's never a "woe is me" quality to the character Gemma.
She's a pragmatic Lancashire lass who just gets on with life no matter what it throws at her and she often finds herself shooting bemused looks at the good hearted lunatics all around her.
In a rare foray into comedy, Morrissey is okay as her inept dad and he certainly has his moments in the show.
However there are often not enough moments and you can't help but feel there's too much of a Daddy Pig quality to Morrissey's role.
The other star turn in the show is from Atwal whose performance as Cherry is vivacious and often funny.
Fynn, Hadland, Rooney and in series two, Halfpenny, Jackson and Bishop also have their moments but again there's just not enough of them.
Promising characters like Nik's Xander and Stourton's Ben are surprisingly discarded when they have potential - although there's always scope to bring them back.
However the big issue with the show is its consistency.
When 'Daddy Issues' hits its targets, it delivers laugh out loud moments.
The home invasion episode in Series One, the Rocky episode in Series Two and the Wham funeral scene are cases in point.
However all too often in both series, the show just kind of bumbles along, raising the odd smile but mostly relying on Wood to keep its audience engaged.
With episodes directed by Catherine Morshead and Damon Beesley, the show moves along at a brisk pace but you cannot help but feel it is missing one more comic element that could elevate it.
That may yet come and there is no doubt that there is definitely a strong case for BBC3 to persevere with Ward's sitcom.
With a little patience, 'Daddy Issues' could strike comedy gold.
(Series One of 'Daddy Issues' was broadcast on BBC3 between August 15-29, 2024 and Series Two between November 21-December 18, 2025, with all episodes of the show on the iPlayer)
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