In Bonnie Garmus’ bestselling 2022 novel, Lessons in Chemistry, brilliant research chemist Elizabeth Zott becomes the host of a smash-hit TV cooking show for a local TV station in Southern California in the early 1960s. It’s now been adapted as an eight-episode miniseries starring Oscar winner Brie Larson; its first two episodes premiere on Apple TV+ on Oct. 13.

Garmus’ novel tells of how Zott, along with her Nobel Prize–nominated research partner and lover, Calvin Evans, were doing research on abiogenesis—vaguely described as “the theory that life arose from simplistic, nonlife forms”—when tragedy struck in the mid-’50s. As a result, Zott was fired from her job by her sexist supervisor, and she found herself alone, unemployed, and pregnant with Evans’ child. Over the next few years, she barely made ends meet as a single mother by doing freelance work for other scientists. A chance encounter with the father of one her daughter’s classmates—a TV executive—results in her getting a well-paid job hosting a cooking show that focuses on science; as she points out, cooking is all about chemical reactions, after all.

Supper at Six is astoundingly popular, as Zott manages to make abstruse chemistry concepts accessible to a general audience. Readers must take this on faith, however, as Garmus doesn’t portray much of Zott’s teaching method on the page—probably because it would make readers’ eyes glaze over. At one point, for instance, a member of Zott’s studio audience asks her a question: “Last week when you said osmosis was the movement of a less concentrated solvent through a semipermeable membrane to another more concentrated solvent, I found myself wondering….” Maybe there’s an audience for this sort of thing, but it’s fair to say that it’s not a large or enthusiastic one.

It’s more believable that Zott’s audience—mostly housewives with children—would be captivated by her ability to relate chemistry to their daily lives, as when she discusses pie crust: “Chemistry is inseparable from life—by its very definition, chemistry is life. But like your pie, life requires a strong base. In your home, you are that base. It is an enormous responsibility, the most undervalued job in the world that, nonetheless, holds everything together.” At another point, she discusses how a chemical toxin in potato skin “serves as a daily reminder that in potatoes as in life, danger is everywhere.” Zott herself faces significant danger in her life, including a rape by her supervisor in graduate school, and other characters also endure violence from men; as noted in Kirkus’ starred review, most of the male characters are “sexists, liars, rapists, dopes, and arrogant assholes.” It’s no wonder that housewives all over California would eagerly watch Zott’s show, in which she ends each episode with the phrase, “Children, set the table. Your mother needs a moment to herself.” 

The problem is that this message in couched in science that’s frequently wrong or nonsensical, as multiple critics, including science writer Ricki Lewis, pointed out last year. It also features a main character who embodies the cliché that scientists are humorless and have no social skills. It’s no surprise to read, in an promotional interview, that Garmus has little science expertise; she relied mainly on a 1950s textbook for those rare occasions in which chemistry—a term that, it bears mentioning, appears in the book’s title—comes into play.  This results in some odd moments; for instance, Zott, live on air, tosses a sponsor’s soup into the trash because “it’s full of chemicals.…Feed enough of it to your loved ones and they’ll eventually die off, saving you tons of time since you won’t have to feed them anymore.” The idea that canned soup in the ’60s was full of added chemicals is untrue, and even if it was, Zott is a chemist—someone who would more likely see things like chemical preservatives as a boon. At another point, Zott notes that she and her lover “had chemistry. Actual chemistry”—a phrase that any true chemist would find corny in the extreme.

Other aspects of the novel simply feel as if Garmus didn’t do her research; for example, readers are supposed to believe that Zott could continue to have a show in the ’60s after announcing on-air that she’s an atheist. The author also depicts Life magazine—a publication that wasn’t exactly known for celebrity hit pieces—publishing a brutal takedown of Zott.

The new miniseries, created by Lee Eisenberg (Jury Duty), excises the atheism and the Life article, and plays down some of the book’s wackier moments, such as interludes from the perspective of Zott’s dog, who’s named Six-Thirty, due to a quirky misunderstanding. (Zott’s precocious daughter’s name is Mad, by the way—also due to a quirky misunderstanding.)

The show makes a few other improvements, as well. It reveals Zott’s backstory with a subtlety that the book lacks, for example, and provides a new, welcome subplot involving a character of color. Its sets and costumes are all stellar, as well. However, the show is just as vague as the novel is about the science at its core, and it has its protagonist improbably condemning not only canned soup but also vegetable shortening. Most of the rest of book carries over intact—including a bizarre subplot about Evans’ parentage that feels jarringly soap-operatic. By far the best element of the miniseries is Larson, whose skilled, nuanced performance brings Zott to vivid life—which is fortunate, as she’s onscreen for most of the series’ runtime. Lewis Pullman (Catch-22), as Evans, is also quite good, bringing unexpected emotionality to his odd-bird character. Indeed, it’s a shame that Larson and Pullman’s time together is so brief, as their portrayal of the couple’s sweet relationship make the early episodes worth watching; once they’re separated, the show never quite recovers. One might be tempted to say they have chemistry. Actual chemistry.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.