Pam & Tommy fall into Seth Rogen's skeezy clutches in the first trailer for Hulu series
Lily James and Sebastian Stan look eerily similar to '90s-era Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
It feels telling that the first person we see in the first official trailer for Pam & Tommy—Craig Gillespie’s new Hulu series about the Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee sex tape—is neither Lily James as Anderson, or Sebastian Stan as Lee. (Although both will be almost hypnotically unrecognizable when they eventually appear.)
Instead, we open on Seth Rogen as Rand Gauthier, the guy who stole the infamous tape after installing a security system for Lee, showing it off to equally skeezy-haired porn producer “Uncle Miltie” (Nick Offerman).
That focus on voyeurism hangs over the whole trailer, which cuts between the two men coming to the dawning certainty that they’ve got their hands on some incredibly valuable VHS, and Lee and Anderson freaking out as they realize the depths to which they’re about to be exposed.
“It’s so private,” Offerman whispers, underlining both the appeal of the trailer, and the reason it leaves a queasy turn in the stomach, “Which is kind of what makes it so hot.”
The grossness of that sentiment pervades the entire video, which also briefly features Taylor Schilling as Rogen’s wife. Along the way, the promo wrestles with some of the attendant moral issues of its own existence—most notably by having James’ Anderson miserably (and correctly) note that there’s a world of difference between how she and Tommy Lee will be treated in the aftermath of the tape’s release.
Still, those moments of introspection clash with the kooky crime caper vibe of it all—maybe blame Rogen, who can’t seem to keep a hint of amiable doofus energy off his face, or the shots that inject absurdity into the whole package by suggesting Anderson and Lee are checking out their own planetary humiliation from an internet-connected computer at their local library.
Pam & Tommy is set to debut on Hulu on February 2, 2022. The series also co-stars Andrew Dice Clay, Pepi Sonuga, Spencer Granese, and Mozhan Marnò.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Pam & Tommy would air on FX, instead of Hulu. The A.V. Club regrets the error.