One Day
One Day/ワン・デイ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Emma and Dexter on the same July day for twenty years.
On 15 July 1988, St Swithin's Day, Emma Morley, a clever, guarded working-class student from Leeds, and Dexter Mayhew, a handsome son of privilege, meet on the night of their graduation from the University of Edinburgh. They spend the night talking in her flat without sleeping together, climb Arthur's Seat in the morning and are about to go back to his flat when his parents arrive. The fourteen episodes then return, year after year, to the same date.
Emma drifts: a touring theatre company, a Mexican restaurant in London, a relationship with Ian, a would-be comedian. Dexter travels, then becomes a presenter on late-night television, famous and more and more often drunk or high, while his mother, Alison, is dying. On holiday in Greece in 1991 they share a bed under Emma's rules; he suggests something casual and she refuses. Emma becomes a teacher. In 1994 Dexter is so cruel to her over dinner that she tells him they are no longer friends, and they do not speak for a year. In 1995, after leaving Ian and sleeping with her headmaster, Emma begins a novel from her diaries.
A sober Dexter meets Sylvie. At a friend's wedding in 1997 he tells Emma that he is marrying Sylvie, who is pregnant; Emma says she is happy for him, and they promise to stay best friends. A year later Dexter is working in a coffee shop owned by his old flatmate Callum while Sylvie, worn out by their baby, Jasmine, is having an affair with Callum. In 1999, getting divorced, Dexter follows Emma to Paris, where she is seeing a Frenchman, Jean-Pierre. She chooses Dexter.
By 2001 they are planning a wedding, Dexter runs a café bought with his mother's legacy and Emma's fourth novel is about to come out. They try for a baby without success. On a rainy St Swithin's Day, fourteen years to the day after they met, Emma cycles off to view a house with him and is knocked from her bicycle by a reckless driver and killed.
Dexter falls back into drink and cocaine, gets beaten up, and is taken home by his father. Friends, Ian among them, try to reach him; alone, he imagines Emma telling him he will not always feel like this. Three years later he takes Jasmine to Edinburgh, and as she climbs Arthur's Seat ahead of him he remembers the morning in 1988 and imagines kissing Emma on the steps.
Starring
Ambika Modas Emma Morley
A clever, self-doubting graduate from Leeds who wants to write and spends years talking herself down.
Emma Morley’s story
Emma spends her first years after Edinburgh drifting: a touring theatre company, a Mexican restaurant, a relationship with Ian, then teaching. She refuses Dexter's offer of something casual in Greece, and in 1994, after he is cruel to her at dinner, tells him they are no longer friends. The next year Ian, who has read her diaries, urges her to publish them, and she begins a novel. At a wedding in 1997 she hears that Dexter is marrying the pregnant Sylvie, says she is happy for him and admits she has missed him every day. In Paris in 1999 she chooses him over Jean-Pierre. They plan a wedding and hope for a baby. On St Swithin's Day, fourteen years after they met, cycling to view a house with him, she is killed by a reckless driver.
Leo Woodallas Dexter Mayhew
A charming graduate from a wealthy family who finds fame on television and nearly loses himself to it.
Dexter Mayhew’s story
Dexter spends the year after Edinburgh travelling, then presents late-night television, drinking and taking drugs through his fame while his dying mother, Alison, tells him he is wasting himself. When he turns up at his parents' house still drunk, his father drives him to the station and tells him not to come back like that. In 1994 his cruelty at dinner costs him Emma for a year. Sober, he meets Sylvie and marries her when she is pregnant, and is working in Callum's coffee shop while she has an affair with Callum. Divorcing, he follows Emma to Paris, and she chooses him. After Emma is killed he falls back into drink and cocaine, and his father takes him home. Three years on he climbs Arthur's Seat behind his daughter, Jasmine, and imagines kissing Emma on the steps.
Essie Davisas Alison Mayhew
Dexter's mother, seriously ill, who tells her son plainly that he is wasting himself.
Tim McInnernyas Stephen Mayhew
Dexter's father, stern with him while he drinks and there to carry him home when he falls apart.
Eleanor Tomlinsonas Sylvie
The woman Dexter marries when she becomes pregnant, mother of his daughter, Jasmine, and later Callum's lover.
Jonny Weldonas Ian
A would-be comedian Emma meets at the restaurant, who loves her and resents the hold Dexter has on her.
Why it matters
One Day is built on a single device, one date revisited each year, and the device is an argument about time: how much of a life happens in the years between, and how easily two people can waste them. It is also a story about class and worth. Emma, from Leeds, keeps talking herself down; Dexter, from money, is handed everything and nearly drinks it away, and the series is honest about how cruel his charm can be. Then, deliberately, it takes her away on an ordinary wet afternoon, and its last episode is given to grief: the drinking, the friends who come, the slow permission to go on. Adapted from David Nicholls's 2009 novel, with Nicholls writing one episode himself, it was the most-watched series on Netflix worldwide in the week of 12 February 2024. What it leaves open is what the two of them might have had if either had been braver on that first morning.