I'm done and it's not my time, it's their time.
When a woman discovers her closest friend is romantically involved with her adult daughter, the resulting drama is less about scandal than about the quiet devastation of misplaced trust. BBC's new series Alice and Steve, starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement, uses this premise to examine something older and more universal: the grief of losing control over those we love, and the vertigo of watching our children become strangers who make their own choices. Premiering on Disney+ in June 2026, the show asks not who is right, but whether understanding and judgment can coexist.
- A single revelation — a best friend dating a best friend's daughter — detonates a years-long friendship in ways neither party anticipated.
- The emotional fallout spirals into resentment and retaliation, with both characters behaving badly enough to make the audience squirm in recognition.
- Rather than offering a villain to condemn, the series forces viewers to hold contradictory sympathies simultaneously, which proves far more uncomfortable than simple moral outrage.
- The show enters a live cultural conversation about how age-gap relationships are judged differently depending on who holds the power — and who is expected to step aside.
- Both lead actors signal that audiences who think they know where this story goes will be deliberately, carefully proven wrong.
Nicola Walker has played detectives and lawyers for years, but in Alice and Steve she found something rarer: a character who felt like her own reflection. The six-part series, arriving on Disney+ in June, opens with a premise built to destroy a friendship. Alice discovers that Steve, her closest friend, is dating her 26-year-old daughter, Izzy. What follows is neither clean comedy nor clean tragedy — it's the messier thing, two middle-aged people locked in jealousy and emotional retaliation after a line neither knew existed has been crossed.
Walker, starring opposite Jemaine Clement, says the story's real engine is something she knows personally: the disorienting shift from raising a child who believes you're infallible to watching that same person make choices entirely beyond your reach. "You have to become bovine," she says, laughing. "Just go 'mm-hmm' and keep your mouth shut." Alice, of course, does the opposite.
What elevates the show above a simple morality tale is that neither character is written as a monster. Clement, drawn to Steve's internal contradiction, plays a man who wants something he knows he shouldn't — and that tension makes him human rather than a caricature. Writer Sophie Goodhart is careful to suggest that under different circumstances, Alice and Steve might have been something more than friends. The real casualty isn't the age gap or even the betrayal — it's the trust that can't be rebuilt.
Critics have described it as a "true hate story," and the show earns that label by refusing to let viewers settle into easy judgment. It also engages honestly with how age-gap relationships are perceived differently depending on gender. Walker was particularly struck by a quality she'd rarely encountered in scripts: a middle-aged woman who faces her own diminishment without self-pity or defiance, simply saying it's no longer her time. "I don't think I've ever read that coming from an older woman before," she says. Alice and Steve premieres June 8.
Nicola Walker has spent years on screen as detectives and lawyers, characters wrestling with the weight of their own lives. But when she read the script for Alice and Steve, she recognized something she'd never quite found before: a character who felt like her own reflection.
The six-part series, premiering on Disney+ this month, begins with a premise designed to detonate a friendship. Alice discovers that Steve, her best friend of years, is dating her 26-year-old daughter, Izzy. What unfolds is neither pure comedy nor pure tragedy, but something messier—two middle-aged people locked in a spiral of resentment, jealousy, and the kind of emotional retaliation that comes when someone you trust has crossed a line you didn't know existed.
Walker, who stars opposite Jemaine Clement in the lead roles, says the emotional core of the story taps into something she knows intimately: the strange vertigo of watching your child become an adult. "My son is older and has had a few relationships," she tells BBC News, "and as a mother, every one is unexpected." The shift from parenting a small child who believes you're infallible to standing back while that same person makes choices you can't control—that's the real story buried inside the premise. "You have to just keep your mouth shut, which is the opposite of what Alice does," she says, laughing. "You have to become bovine. You have to just go 'mm-hmm, mm-hmm' and behave like a large cow around them."
What makes Alice and Steve more than a simple morality play is that neither character is written as a villain. Clement, best known for What We Do in the Shadows, was drawn to Steve precisely because of the contradiction at his center—he wants something he knows he shouldn't want, and that internal conflict is what makes him human rather than a caricature. Walker notes that the writer, Sophie Goodhart, is careful to suggest that if Steve weren't dating Alice's daughter, these two people might have had a genuine relationship. The friendship itself becomes the real casualty, not the age gap or the betrayal, but the simple fact that trust has been broken in a way that can't be repaired.
Critics have called it a "true hate story," noting that while the romantic relationship provides the dramatic spark, the more compelling narrative is the friendship's destruction. The show refuses to let viewers choose sides. Instead, it repeatedly asks them to understand people making decisions they might not agree with—a harder task than simple judgment.
Both actors acknowledge that audiences will arrive with assumptions already formed. Clement suspects many will decide Steve is a sleazy man before the opening credits finish. But the series is built to complicate those snap judgments. "People believe they know where it's going but we can promise them it doesn't go where you think," Walker says. "The writer is much better than that."
The show also engages with larger questions about how age-gap relationships are perceived. Clement notes that a relationship between an older woman and a younger man would likely face harsher judgment. Walker, meanwhile, was struck by how the script portrays aging without self-pity. "There's no 'I've still got it' layered underneath," she says. "It's the honesty of a woman saying, 'I'm done and it's not my time, it's their time.' I don't think I've ever read that coming from an older woman before."
When asked what dating advice they might offer, both actors admit they're probably the wrong people to ask. "We haven't dated for a while," Clement says. Walker is more direct: "My advice is pointless. I'm keeping my mouth shut." It's a fitting conclusion, given everything she's just described about the impossible art of being a parent. Alice and Steve arrives on Disney+ on June 8.
Notable Quotes
You have to become bovine. You have to just go 'mm-hmm, mm-hmm' and behave like a large cow around them, just pretending to agree.— Nicola Walker on the challenge of parenting adult children
What makes Steve human is conflict within yourself—he has something he really wants, which is something he shouldn't do, and that's a great conflict when you're acting.— Jemaine Clement on his character's complexity
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What made you want to play someone so close to yourself? Doesn't that remove some of the safety of acting?
Actually, it's the opposite. Playing someone you recognize means you can't hide behind technique. You have to go deeper because you know the emotional truth already.
The premise—a best friend dating your daughter—feels designed to be maximally uncomfortable. Is that the whole point?
It's the entry point, but the real story is what happens after. It's about two people who loved each other discovering they can't anymore. That's much sadder than any single betrayal.
Jemaine Clement's character could easily be a villain. How does the show avoid that?
Because he's not written as a villain. He's written as someone who wants something and knows it's wrong, and that conflict is what makes him real. The show trusts the audience to sit with that discomfort.
You mentioned learning not to intervene as a parent. Does Alice ever learn that lesson?
That's the question the show asks. She has to, or she loses everything. But learning and doing are different things.
The script doesn't have self-pity about aging. That's unusual.
It's rare because we're taught that aging is something to fight against or apologize for. This character just accepts it. There's a kind of freedom in that surrender.