The trauma-to-miniseries pipeline for young TV stars is still going strong, but it's getting edgy

Now streaming on Netflix, Baby Reindeer has become a viral sensation in the week since its largely nondescript release, both in its native UK and beyond. It is easy to understand why; this true story of a struggling comedian and his stalker – written by and starring Richard Gadd and based on his own life – is darkly funny, propulsive, tragic and full of incredible events. It mixes the voyeuristic thrill of true crime with the emotional guts of memoir. It's almost impossible not to binge this miniseries in fascinated horror.

Gadd's extraordinary story, based on his one-man show of the same name (and, to a lesser extent, an earlier show called Monkey See Monkey Do), is part of a trend in British TV where young stars are recharging their careers with intimate if fictionalized autobiographies , often adapted from denominational stage shows or stand-up routines. The most famous examples are Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag and Michaela Coel's I May Destroy You; another recent one was Mae Martin's Netflix show Feel Good, a much lighter proposition – it's basically a rom-com – that nonetheless bears striking similarities to Baby Reindeer, both in its portrayal of London's small stand-up scene and in some of the darker elements of Martin's and Gadd's backstories.

The story Gadd has to tell, however, is something else. Gadd says the events of Baby Reindeer have been changed to create more climactic moments and to protect the identities of the people it's based on, but they remain "emotionally true." Gadd plays a version of himself named Donny Dunn, who works as a bartender while struggling to launch a high-profile comedy career. (Gadd does not spare himself in the creepily unfunny depictions of Dunn's plot.)