Jodie Whittaker's 'One Night' Will Hopefully Find An American Distributer One Day

The drumbeat that the end of Paramount as a standalone company is nigh is getting louder. The end of 2023 brought headlines that the head of Warner Brothers Discovery, the infamous David Zaslav, responsible for canceling many of our favorite shows because they weren't heteronormative enough, didn't center cis white men with daddy issues, or were just plain too smart, was in talks to try and buy Paramount hit newspapers, but that was all for show. Warner Brothers Discovery isn't allowed to buy any more companies until a certain amount of time has passed since its last merger, and Paramount isn't going to last that long. 

Currently, the best bet is that it will be bought up by Skydance, responsible for a lot of Apple TV+ and Amazon series. While that might not be great news for Paramount, it could be for all the shows currently floating around with homes on American streaming, like Paramount+ Australia's One Night, which debuted in September 2023 in its home country and in November in the U.K. and Ireland but currently has no distributor in the U.S. Starring Jodie Whittaker in her first role after leaving Doctor Who, the six-part drama follows the story of a group of childhood friends who are forced to revisit a shared traumatic event when one of them publishes a book with a premise that hits a little too close to home. (Translation: It is absolutely based on the worst night of their lives, just published anonymously.) 

The series debuted to rave reviews in Australia, causing one paper to call it the series that took Paramount+ up to the level of a major streamer. U.K. reviewers also hailed the series as Whittaker giving a breakout performance, ensuring her career had life after playing the Doctor. Her two main co-stars, Australian actors Nicole da Silva (Doctor Doctor) and Yael Stone (Picnic at Hanging Rock), also garnered high praise.

Here's the series synopsis:

Simone has always dreamed of becoming a successful author. But she's never managed to write the right sort of story. Until now. Now, at 40, she's finally written down the one story that's haunted her all her life, and it's a monster hit. There's just one problem: The premise devastating at the center of her bestseller doesn't entirely belong to her. Simone's book is directly inspired by a tragedy involving her childhood best friends, Tess and Hat, a secret that both destroyed the bond they shared back then and could ruin the lives they're living today. 

Banker Tess is the member of the trio who sits at the center of this story, and who has just returned to her native Australia after years of living in the U.K. with her partner and children in tow. The publication of Simone's novel throws her back into contact with her former friends. Tess and Hat are understandably upset and confused by the revelation that their former BFF is not only getting rich off of the shared trauma that shaped their lives, but that her story has put them squarely back in the path of those who want to see the truth of that one fateful night so long ago.

Whittaker, da Silva, and Stone play former friends Tess, Simone, and Hat, respectively. Besides its three primary leads, One Night stars Kat Stewart (Little Monsters) as Tess’s partner, Vicky, Jude Hyland (The Artful Dodger) as Tess’s son, Arthur, and newcomer Harper Simon as Tess’s daughter, Lily. Mikaela Binns-Rorke (Dirt) plays a younger version of Tess, Bridgette Armstrong (Crossway) is a younger version of Simone, and Bella Ridgeway (Through Your Eyes) is young Hat. 

Other members of the series’ ensemble cast include George Mason (The Power of the Dog), Erroll Shand (Our Flag Means Death), Noni Hazelhurst (A Place to Call Home), Tina Bursill (Strife), Damien Strouthos (The Tourist), William Zappa (Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears), and Jillian Nguyen (The Clearing). 

Created and written by Emily Ballou (The Slap), One Night is directed by Catherine Millar and Lisa Matthews, with Ballou, Harriet Creelman, Motive Pictures’ Simon Maxwell, and Sophia Mogford from Paramount+ executive producing. Ian Collie, Rob Gibson, and Ally Henville are producers. 

Here’s hoping we see One Night find an American home sooner rather than later.