So it turns out that Woody Allen wasn’t faking people out when he described his arrangement with Amazon to make this 6-part TV series as something he’d “regretted every second since I said OK.” He was also reported as saying, “I don’t know how I got into this. I have no ideas and I’m not sure where to begin.”

So more fool anyone, including me, for bothering to watch. That I even watched all six episodes is something I’ve regretted every second since I did it, half an hour ago.

Some reviewers have claimed that at least it looks nice, but I disagree even on that. It’s supposed to be a period piece, set in the 60s, but it doesn’t look like the 60s. None of the actors has a 60s face, or 60s hair, and the costumes could have come off the rails in TK Max.

I think the 60s setting is, honestly, just an excuse for Allen to trot out lines that he might have written back then, the last time he was involved in television. It feels deeply lazy and contemptuous of both his audience and his employers.

Miley Cyrus plays Diane Keaton’s character in Sleeper – by which I mean she trots out the same lines about revolution with the same hunched shoulders and arm gestures – and though she only actually sleepwalks in one episode, you get the feeling that she’s sleepwalking through the whole thing. Ahem.

It’s such a terribly unfunny rendition of comic somnambulism that it seems to exist only to pre-empt the joke that Cyrus is sleepwalking through the role. (Variety)

The cast sits at two extremes in terms of age. 80-year-old Allen plays an obscure writer apparently still trying to pitch a tired sitcom idea, while 84-year-old Elaine May plays his still-practicing marriage counsellor wife. Both them speak like their dentures are loose and Allen stutters through his lines in a way that seems semi-improvised or else under-rehearsed. The 50-year-old punchlines fall from his 80-year-old mouth like ashes.

The other end of the cast features the aforementioned Ms Cyrus, John Magaro and Rachel Brosnahan, as a younger generation who aren’t given much to do. Miley Cyrus’ part seems to consist of raiding food cupboards and repeating a limited number of thoughts about social revolution and direct action. The part is really under-written and when Allen has her climb into the boot of a car at the end, it’s a relief for all concerned.

Allen has made this as a “half hour comedy” in the sense that the episodes are about 22 minutes long – as if this was a network show. Except it’s not a network show, and there are no ad breaks. Each episode ends abruptly, too short for anything meaningful to happen. At around 130 minutes this ends up being something like an over-long, poorly edited, late period Woody Allen film.

You could reimagine this with better casting, younger actors, people in their late 50s or 60s, who might conceivably still have a reason to be working and running around Manhattan with a briefcase full of money. Imagine Tom Hanks in the Allen role, Michelle Pfeiifer in the May role, and the 23-year-old Miley Cyrus arriving like a whirlwind to set them spinning. Maybe then you’d have a show. As it is, this is clearly something knocked off to fulfil a contractural obligation with nothing but contempt for an audience Allen clearly doesn’t mind alienating.