A Man. And His Blog.

Some people actually don't know, what this tagline means...

Welcome to the Laura Linney show, starring Laura Linney, her body, her sense of humor, and Laura Linney. You will only see Laura Linney in the Laura Linney show, and what is unfortunate is: You won’t see her naked. Not even the stainless steel revealed some more from Laura Linney. This is a double-review for the episodes “Summer Time” (1×02) and “There’s No C in Team” (1×03), and both episodes showed like the pilot episode, why I already love this little dramedy about a dying wife and mother, which is basically more funny than emotional. Even though these two episodes didn’t reach the emotional quality of the pilot episode, I am still impressed and want to see more. From now on, Showtime is the mother of all 30-minute-dramedies, and at least one pay-TV network manages to shoot out some favorite TV series of mine.

If the writers would start to connect the funny part of the series with the serious and emotional part, then I would start being angry about the fact that an episode is actually just under 30 minutes long. So far, after the end of an episode, I didn’t really develop the “I have to continue watching”-feeling I developed while getting busy with Entourage. Instead I accepted that the episodes were finished and decided to wait for the next one. And this is something I just write in here, because this review needs some more words.

"Get me closer! GET ME CLOSER!"

The two episodes were somewhat intelligent in their character work; a bit boring, when it comes to Cathy’s (Laura Linney) brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey); a bit too stereotypical, when it comes to the marriage trouble between Cathy and Paul (Oliver Platt); and Cathy’s son Adam (Gabriel Basso) could annoy me very soon, since he isn’t the same character from the pilot episode anymore. Instead of playing pranks to his mother, he just hates her for what she has done, and shows it all the time. Even though Cathy’s action of getting Adam out of the school bus and into her plans for the summer were hilarious, I kinda can’t understand why Cathy takes “it” so easy on him or why Adam doesn’t even question himself why his mother behaves that way. During the two episodes, she talked a lot of awkward stuff (e.g. her time window being closed), and the characters still don’t think about the possibility that there is something wrong with Cathy. Only Marlene’s dog and finally Marlene herself figure things out, even though Marlene doesn’t even think that Cathy is awkward. So, in this case, there is some work from the writers’ room missing.

The episodes could stand up with Cathy’s efforts to bring some life into her student Andrea. In the left corner, Gabourey Sidibe shows how easy she takes her role, but still being honest to her character; in the right corner, this story brings some of the humor into the series, as well as a “moral of the story” in probably every episode. Like: If you want to lose weight, walk, so you don’t have to starve yourself. Sounds like a cheap cliché, but it was working here. The writers didn’t unwrap the clichéd club, they went with heart into the story. Which is why I was amused about Andrea’s actions with the paintball gun, when Adam wouldn’t listen to his mother. Funny, but important for the story, especially when you think about the buddy-relationship between Adam and Andrea in “There’s No C in Team”, when Andrea (Gabourey Sidibe) had trouble with Marlene (Phyllis Somerville) and during the dinner scene. So, Cathy basically managed to bring life and some new friends into Andrea’s life (I think she didn’t have much friends, despite her “I have a lot of friends, who laugh at my comments”-comment in the pilot episode), and she managed to get her family together with Andrea’s help. The scene where Andrea and Adam laughed about something, and Sean and Daphne (Annie Parisse) kissed each other during the dinner scene, while Cathy was looking at the table, as if she was alone and sad, worked for me on a very different level: Her family was alive for a quick moment, and all of this because she brought the life into them for this moment.

Piggyback burns weight.

I am only disappointed about one storyline: The cancer group in”There’s No C in Team” was too much of a cliché, and I could only roll with my eyes, when the people started to talk, and especially when they started to “stalk” Cathy, because they think that she doesn’t see the “happy side” of having cancer. They were way too overjoyed for my taste, which brought this story above the “over the top”- and “too much”-edge. So, I was finding myself wanting to share a tear with Cathy, when she gave it to them straight about cancer not giving her the chance to see her son getting married or seeing the grandchildren.

Apart from the good things of the episode, the writer still didn’t perfect their show. I don’t know what Sean has to do in this show – he seems unimportant, he doesn’t have an own storyline, and his homeless-act gets on my nerves. I don’t know if the writers intend a possible relationship between Cathy and Dr. Todd (Reid Scott) – both have great chemistry, but it could destroy Cathy’s last mission of life to spend most of her final time with her family. Maybe those two elements will be getting important during the season, maybe not. If the latter happens, all the time already spend on these stories, could be much more a waste of time (thinking about the second season “United States of Tara” here). In this case, the season only can get better, and The Big C is already good enough to be considered one of the Top-10-series in 2010.

“Summer Time” (1×02) gets 8 out of 10 points, “There’s no C in Team” (1×03) gets 7.5 out of 10 points. There is still much air upwards, so I hope that I won’t be disappointed after the twelve episodes.