There’s little brilliant about Netflix’s ‘My Brilliant Career’

Published August 28, 2026 5:15am ET



Can one spoil a TV series based on a 125-year-old novel? I won’t, but let the record show that I badly want to. Netflix’s My Brilliant Career, a six-part adaptation of the book by Australia’s Miles Franklin, seems so obviously to be doing one thing that its reversal is a gut punch. I watched the full run with some interest, then went away wishing I hadn’t. 

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